


The Infinite Loops: Disney-Kingdom Hearts Redux

by AnonEMouseJr



Category: Disney - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 63
Words: 610,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEMouseJr/pseuds/AnonEMouseJr
Summary: In the Infinite Loops mass multi-author and multi-fandom project, the multiverse has been caught up in an endless recursion of time... these are the adventures of the Disney characters who are aware of it. Crossposted from Fanfiction Dot Net.
Kudos: 10





	1. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter One

**Disclaimer:** All _Disney_ works are the property of The Walt Disney Company. All other characters and settings are the property of their respective legal owners.

 **Author's note:** Welcome to the re-launched Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops compilation. Due to the original threadhead MrEgret essentially dropping out, I've been given the duties of running the Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops and, by extension, their compilation. Which will start with re-postings of the two chapters originally compiled by MrEgret (though with slight style changes), and then continue where he left off.

 **Author's note 2:** Originally posted by MrEgret on 2014-12-14 as chapter 1 of the original compilation. Reposted with edits for formatting and spelling by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-02, alongside the second chapter. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter One**

1.1 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Carrie - non-Looping]

**The Carrie Loop, Part 1**

Carrie White couldn't believe it. _She,_ of all people, had been elected Prom Queen! Plus, Tommy Ross seemed to really like her! This was the best night of her life!

As she and Tommy ascended the stage to receive her prize, she happily toyed with the small mirror that her friend Minnie had given her. She knew that Tommy had a matching one hidden under his tux.

Really, Minnie was the one who made it all possible. After that _horrible_ incident in the shower, Minnie was the only other student to comfort her, and she was her first friend in this school. She accepted her into her little circle of friends, and even introduced her to Tommy. Really, she owed everything to her. It was such a shame that she couldn't make it to the prom. She would have to tell her all about it afterwards!

Carrie beamed at the assembled audience of students and faculty as she was crowned Queen of the Prom. Nothing could go wrong now!

In the back, hidden among the students, a boy with two tufts of hair sticking up off his head jumped, as his coat pocket vibrated. He furtively pulled out a walkie-talkie larger than the pocket, and hit the reply button. "Oswald here."

Outside, in the bushes, Minnie held a similar walkie-talkie. "This is Minnie. Has the pig blood dropped yet?"

"They just crowned her and Tommy King and Queen, so it'll be at any moment."

"I hope this works, Oz. I don't want to hurt her if she goes on a rampage."

"Relax. Those Physical Mirrors they're holding deflect any and all physical attacks. I'm pretty sure that pig's blood and a falling bucket qualify. Oh, hang on; I think it's starting!"

At that moment, hidden in the rafters, Chris Hargensen and Billy Nolan proceeded to dump their bucket of pig blood all over the Prom Couple.

Or tried to, at least.

When the blood came within five feet of Carrie and Tommy's head, the mirrors they were holding gleamed a bit too brightly to be caused by the lighting. Then, impossibly, the blood reversed course, and flew _upwards,_ into the rafters. There was a shriek, and Chris fell from the rafters, bounced off of the force field being created by the Physical Mirrors, and fell into the crowd. There was a brief scuffle as the prom attendees tried to move away from her, as she was drenched in pig's blood.

Billy Nolan lay on the rafters, dazed from getting hit upside the head by the bucket, which fell upwards in a similar fashion.

Carrie was stunned. What was _she_ doing here? She was banned from the prom, wasn't she?

And what was she doing, all covered in blood?

She looked at Tommy, hoping to find some answers. Unfortunately, he was as confused as she was.

As Chris staggered to her feet, and began to scream obscenities at the assembled company, Oswald opened the walkie-talkie to all channels. "Mickey, Donald, Goofy, now!"

Suddenly, three spotlights switched on, and several people flinched back from the unexpected glare. They then focused on the enraged Chris. Oswald put away the walkie talkie, and stepped forward into the spotlight. "Ladies and gentlemen, if I may have your attention? It falls to me to explain all that has transpired here!"

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" Chris shrieked.

"I'm Oswald Lapin, a student of Ewen High, just like you. However! I have also been employed by the faculty to make sure that nothing goes wrong tonight, of all nights! And what you have done is utterly inexcusable!"

Then, in front of the entire class, he proceeded to grab the bucket in the rafters with Telekinesis, and hold it up before everyone. Carrie gasped. _He can use telekinesis?_ she thought. _I thought that I was the only one. That's what Mom always told me..._

Tommy looked at Carrie worriedly. "You alright?" he asked. Carrie realized that she was still on stage, and nodded quickly. There would be time to explain later.

Chris looked at Oswald with terror written all over her face. "How?" she asked plaintively. "How are you-"

"Lifting this bucket with my mind?" Oswald replied. "It's actually not as uncommon as you'd might think. But we're not here to discuss me. We're here to discuss you. Now, why were you up in the rafters with a bucket of pig blood?"

"I... I..."

"Answer the question, miss."

Chris suddenly glared, and whirled on Carrie. "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!" she screamed hysterically. "I SHOULD BE ON THAT STAGE! I'M THE POPULAR ONE! NOT YOU! YOU'RE A FREAK! A _FREAK!"_ Carrie reeled as if she had been hit. Tears filled her eyes. "No... no, that's not true..." she whispered. Several of the students surrounding Chris and Oswald began to mutter among themselves.

Seeing that the situation was starting to deteriorate, Oswald then proceeded to telekinetically lift Chris like a rag doll. "Alright, miss. You want to do this the hard way, it seems. Very well. Let's see if a trip to the police station loosens your tongue."

He then marched out of the gymnasium, dragging Chris along like a balloon. He would have to trust in Mickey, Donald and Goofy to wrap up any loose ends.

* * *

After dropping Chris off at the police station, explaining what she had done, and presenting the bucket as evidence, Oswald made his way back to the school. He met up with Minnie, who was picking leaves out of her hair. "That's the last time I hide in the bushes during a Loop in the seventies,' she groused.

"How are things going in there?" Oswald asked. "I mean, the Physical Mirrors worked according to plan, but I didn't anticipate her falling out of the rafters like that."

"Well, Mickey, Donald and Goofy managed to calm her down, and it seems that the class is siding with her," Minnie replied. She sighed. "It's an improvement over the baseline, at least."

"Yeah, well, you take what you can get, with the Loops."

"But now, we have something even worse to deal with."

"And what's that?"

Minnie looked at Oswald, and he could see the fear written on her face. "How are we going to deal with her mother?" she asked.

For once, Oswald couldn't think of anything to say.

* * *

1.2 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Disney] / [Carrie - non-Looping]

**The Carrie Loop, Part 2**

The five Disney loopers had gathered around in a circle to debate the great question of what to do about Carrie's Mother, as Oswald was drawing a blank.

It wasn't like they were Logan or Anakin, they didn't like using murder as the answer to your problems.

Albeit this was a case even Batman might struggle a bit on, considering how... tolling dealing with her was.

"Well, we could just turn her into a newt," Donald started.

"...Donald, that would be an insult to Newts everywhere and when" Mickey pointed out

"Plus, that woman would probably get eaten by someone's dog, and poison it. Let's try not to mentally scar anyone" Oswald recalled a story he had heard once about Sakura Haruno, Dolores Umbridge and Fang the Boarhound that worried him.

Donald sighed at the fact he would not be practicing his transfiguration today.

"Well, I have a vial of concentrated liquid atheism we can inject into her and see if that does anything" Goofy offered up as the other loopers (bar Mickey) just looked at him in confusion, Mickey just flinched.

"Liquid ath... that doesn't make any sense. Atheism is a viewpoint on religion, not a sports drink or a chemical!" Oswald stated in confusion as Mickey spoke up.

"Goofy got that bottle from a variant loop I don't really like to think about that much." Mickey sounded like remembering that loop was giving him a migraine. "And I would like to point out, for the sake of normal Christians, that Carrie's mother is clearly insane and not a true Christian. Atheism would not cure her insanity, in fact it probably cause her to become the atheist version of a fundamentalist Christian, which is just as bad. So, no liquid Atheism."

"What about liquid Mormon..."

"No."

"Liquid Islam?"

"No."

"Liquid Zoroastrianism?"

"...I have no idea what that is, but no." Mickey shook his head as he mentally reminded himself to get Goofy to dispose of those vials later.

"Well, I did once create a copy of Koh the Face Stealer's powers with some variant Master Weapon tech during a variant loop where he was Koh the Voice Stealer..." Minnie offered up as Oswald turned to Mickey if he had any suggestions to add, but he still seemed to have a headache from Goofy's liquid religion idea.

"Very well. Seems like the best option, well maybe bar Child Services and a lot of evidence like that time we saved a 5 year old Harry Potter..." Oswald stopped talking as he realized what a simple idea it was, and how morally unquestionable it was.

"Okay, Minnie and Oswald, convince Carrie to come with you two to the police station to file a report, Donald, Goofy and I will get some evidence from Carrie's home to prove it is a unsafe environment for her in the meantime too."

"How long will that take?" Minnie frowned at the thought of how long she would have to keep a scared, stressed and Jean Gray level teenage girl from freaking out in a very stressful situation."

"...Five minutes tops," Mickey figured.

* * *

1.3 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Bioshock - no natives Awake]

OSWALD IN BIOSHOCK

Oswald Awoke to find himself crawling out of the ocean towards a lighthouse. "Huh. That's new," he mused, as he wrung out his ears while climbing up the steps. As he pushed the door open, he felt a twinge as the Loop Memories came in. The images called forth were weirdly faded and scratched, like a section of an aged film reel.

Fake memories.

"This better be just plain amnesia, and not some hokey conspiracy thing involving this lighthouse," Oswald grumbled, as he summarily deleted the fake memories. He must remember to thank Raz for the crash course in Psychonaut training. Sure, having a Persona was nice, but psychic powers were simply invaluable.

Suddenly, he lurched, and fell to his knees, as his head begin to swim. Psychic command, very powerful, and deeply established in the unAwake mindscape. It consisted of three words, which would subvert his conscious mind whenever he even noticed them.

WOULD YOU KINDLY?

(And Oswald thought he detected another command, buried under the first, something more subtle, yet insidious...)

Oswald sat down on the steps leading into the depths of the lighthouse, and furrowed his brain in concentration. Deleting mental commands is a much trickier task than wiping false memories, and it takes a lot of mental effort. It would be several hundred Loops before he could do it as easily as Raz, barring any Loops that enhance or introduce new psionic abilities.

"Ngh... I kinda wish Minnie was here," Oswald grunted. "A _Break Enchantment_ spell would be swell right about now."

He then cried out as his brain _snapped_ a little, like a back snaps back into alignment. He suddenly felt much more alert, and in control of himself.

As a brief test, he wrote, "Would you kindly hit yourself in the face with a pie?" on a handy piece of paper, then wiped his memories of writing the command.

He then looked at the written command he had gotten from somewhere, and smiled when he felt no compulsion to pie himself.

"Okay, that's _that_ taken care of," Oswald murmured. "Now, let's go see what's at the bottom of this lighthouse..."

He pulled out his remote, and began to descend into the depth of the lighthouse, the lights flicking on as he went. In the distance, he could see a gleam of bronze.

There, in the bottom of the lighthouse, was a bathysphere.

* * *

WELCOME TO RAPTURE

Oswald clambered into the bathysphere, and took a look around. Rather Spartan décor, aside from the lever. He gave it a yank, then looked around sharply as the door shut, and the bathysphere began to descend. "Well, no turning back now," he mused. Perhaps he could spend some time fiddling with the Hopper Beetleworx chassis he picked up last Loop.

As the bathysphere descended further into the ocean, a projector screen activated within the bathysphere. Oswald watched Andrew Ryan give his spiel about the conditions of the surface world with some interest while fiddling with the chassis.

Suddenly, at the halfway mark, the projector slide shut off, and Oswald got his first look at Rapture. "Wow..." he breathed. "It's like home, but underwater. Cool!"

He couldn't wait to get out of the bathysphere. If the city looked that good on the outside, imagine what it must be like inside!

-As it turned out, it was a hellhole inside.

Not five minutes had passed and Oswald already saw an innocent man get gutted by some maniac with two sickles, before he could even react.While Oswald was staring at the corpse with bald shock, the maniac suddenly turned towards the bathysphere. "Is it someone new?" he rasped. he then jumped onto the bathysphere and began cutting his way in.

"Nuts!" Oswald yelled, as he jabbed his remote towards where a sickle had punched through the outer shell, and delivered a 500-volt shock. There was a scream, the smell of sizzling flesh, and the sickle disappeared from the hole. Oswald briefly heard a body fall to the floor, and then staggered footsteps away from the bathysphere.

Just then, he heard a radio switch on, and Atlas's voice rang out. "Would you kindly pick up the radio?"

Oswald's ears pricked up. "Would you kindly..." he repeated.

The plot had thickened. Oswald smiled slowly. "This does sound interesting."He grabbed the radio, and stepped out of the bathysphere.

* * *

FINDING THE SECURITY-BOT

As Oswald slowly advanced through the Atrium, remote in one hand and the other hand cloaked in psionic energy, he heard the juddering sound of an automated door repeatedly opening and closing. He cautiously approached the sound, fully prepared to punch the bejeezus out of anything that so much as looked at him funny.

It turned out to be a deactivated Security Bot trapped in an automatic door. Oswald felt something very much like pity, and knelt down next to it. "Poor little guy. Here, let me fix you up," he cooed.

When the doors opened again, he quickly yanked it out from between the door, hustled over behind some cover, and got to work. "Ooh, this is quite nice," he enthused. "Not at all shabby, for something that appears to be made from scavenged supplies..."

Luckily, the Security Bot was only minimally damaged, and Oswald had it repaired in minutes. "Well, let's start 'er up," he muttered.

He connected one final set of wires, and closed up the casing. With a shudder and a whirring of propellor blades, the Security Bot activated, and began to float next to Oswald, its light giving off a cheerful green glow.

Oswald suddenly had a brainwave. He had seen what one functioning Security Bot could do against a group of Splicers. What if he activated more, and got them to work for him?

Oswald grinned, and began to make his long-term plans. Atlas seemed like a stand-up guy, but if he tried any tricks, then an army of Security Bots would be nice to have.

"Okay," Oswald mused, as he walked further into the Atrium, the Security Bot floating by his side. "If what Atlas' little demonstration showed is accurate, then those security cameras summon Security Bots. Now, if I hacked one, made it portable, installed a wireless function, and flashed Splicers with it, would that work? This merits further research..."

* * *

MEETING DR. STEINMAN

Oswald slowly approached the door, carrying a coffin lid like a shield with Telekinesis, and with a few Security Bots following close behind. He heard the sound of muffled sobbing coming from the other side. He cautiously opened the door and tiptoed in, holding the coffin lid in front of him.

Peeking out from behind the lid, he saw Dr. Steinman weeping over a comatose patient. Oswald felt ill. Splicing had _not_ done either of them any favors, and the patient was looking much the worse for wear.

"What can I do with this one, Aphrodite?" Steinman wailed. "She - won't - stay - still!" He accentuated each word with a stab in the patient's midsection, blood spattering the front of his surgical gown. The patient gurgled horribly, then was still.

"I want to make them beautiful, but they always turn out wrong!" he continued, before lighting up three corpses pinned to the walls. Oswald noted the surgical cuts on the corpses with horrified fascination. "That one, too fat! This one, too tall! This one, too symmetrical! And now..."

He suddenly paused, then looked directly at Oswald. "What's this, Goddess? An intruder?! He's ugly! Ugly! Ugly! UGLYYYYYYYY!"

"Yipe!"

Oswald ducked down, and a torrent of bullets punched through the glass window overlooking the operating theater, before burying themselves in the stout pine of the coffin lid. "Look at him! HIDEOUS!" Steinman howled.

"You're no prize yourself, you quack!" Oswald shot back. He then flung the coffin lid at Steinman as hard as he could. The lid struck Steinman square in the chest, flinging him back against the wall with a meaty THUMP, and the sick CRACK of shattered ribs. Steinman lurched back to his feet, blood dripping from behind his surgical mask, and he flung himself towards his machine gun with an animal scream. He then screamed even louder, as one of the Security Bots put a few rounds into his gun arm, causing it to hang loosely at his side.

Oswald ran into the depths of the operating theater, and considered his next move. He thought briefly of the Psycho-Portal stashed in his subspace pocket. If he could get inside his head, maybe bring him to his senses...

Then Oswald remembered the photographs of the mutilated women he had seen throughout the Medical Pavilion, and what he had just seen him do to his own patient. No, he was too far gone.

He listened for the sound of footsteps splashing through the water to his left, then he jammed his remote into the water, and pressed the button. Steinman screamed shrilly, as several thousand volts coursed through his body, then keeled over dead.

With brisk efficiency, Oswald searched his corpse, and came up with the key to override the security lockdown. He ignored Atlas's congratulations, and went over to the patient on the table. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

He pulled out a sheet from his subspace pocket, and draped it over her. There was no time to give her a proper funeral, so that would have to do.

* * *

SAVING DR. LANGFORD

Oswald walked through the corridor leading to Dr. Julie Langford's lab and a swarm of Security Bots, courtesy of a sane Peach Wilkins, followed. He knew that he should be hurrying a little, what with all of the plants in Arcadia dying, and Rapture slowly running out of oxygen, but he was still making up his mind about Atlas's credibility.

Oh sure, he sounded anguished enough when the submarine exploded, but that didn't change the incontrovertible fact that there was no sign of a woman or a child in the wreckage. Even the most violent explosion would have left behind some psychic residue if a living thing was caught in the blast, especially if it was a human. Plus, there would have been at least a few bone fragments if the blast wasn't nuclear.

There was none of that in the sub wreckage.

Atlas was lying to him, this was certain. The question now was: how deep did the lies go?

"I'll find out the truth later," Oswald mused, "but for that to happen, I'd better stop us all from asphyxiating down here."

He picked up his pace, and jogged towards the office doors.

When inside, he saw two things.

First, he saw Dr. Langford working in her laboratory. Presumably making the Lazarus Vector that was needed to fix this sorry mess.

Second, he saw the reinforced glass that nearly every damn Splicer in this city can crack just by breathing hard its general direction. Not exactly something you want to see in a lab known to work with toxic chemicals.

Suddenly, Ryan's voice cut in on the intercom. "Ju-lie... we had a business deal, remember?" he said in a sing-song voice.

Julie looked up in surprise. "Mr. Ryan..." she began.

"Ryan Corp. maintains EXCLUSIVE rights to the creation, use and exploitation of the Lazarus Vector." Ryan continued. There was a _hiss_ , and pea-soup green gas began to fill the chamber.

After he saw the green clouds out in Rolling Hills, and the plants that withered upon contact with them, Oswald knew poison when he saw it.

"Oh no you don't! Not again!" Oswald roared. "PERSONA!"

A blue card manifested in front of him, and he shattered it with a single Psi-Punch. " _BUFUDYNE_!"

If Dr. Langford could see outside the window, she would have seen the silhouette of a cross between a spaceman, a doctor and a rabbit point a laser gun at the window, and zap it with a blue laser beam that covered it entirely in frost.

Oswald then sprang forward, and punched the glass with a Psi-empowered haymaker. Weakened by the bitter cold of Bufudyne, the wire-enforced glass shattered as easily as spun sugar. Oswald bounded into the fog, grabbed Dr. Langford (who was currently barely conscious) and bounded out again. He then dragged her out of the room, which was rapidly filling with poison gas. He could hear Ryan droning on about how ownership was the cornerstone of civilization, or some such malarkey. It didn't matter. Right now, Dr. Langford's welfare was more important.

Dr. Langford jerked awake in the middle of the reception hall, and coughed violently. She was not dead in the middle of her lab. This was an improvement. The fact that she was able to breathe clearly was an even greater improvement.

She tried to get up, but found that she was still too weak to even sit up.

"Phew," an unfamiliar voice sighed, with what sounded like relief. "You're awake. That's good. That poison really did a number on you,"

She turned her head to the left, and saw a cartoon rabbit dressed like a man grinning at her. _Okay, I've gone crazy,_ she noted calmly. _Lovely._

"Assuming this isn't some dying hallucination, who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Oswald!" the impossible rabbit said. "I'm the guy you got to help you with the Lazarus Factor, remember?"

She did remember, and wondered why she hadn't noticed that she was conversing with a rabbit. Perhaps the stress of maintaining Arcadia was getting to her.

"Ah yes, now I remember." she replied. "I was nearly finished with the Vector, with that sample of _Rosa Gallaca_ you brought back. Thank you for that, by the way."

She coughed a little. She still felt a bit weak, but would probably recover in the hour. Whatever that rabbit had given her while she was out, it was working wonders. "Unfortunately, Ryan's recent attack changes things. If I try to complete the mixture myself, he'll be sure to try to kill me again, only more thoroughly. You've done so much, but I'm afraid I'll need to ask another favor."

"Sure. Anything to put the wind up the old goat. What d'you need?"

"In my lab, the list of components needed to finish the Lazarus Vector is in a safe behind a painting of some flowers. The combination is 9-4-5-7. You'll also need to take the key inside the safe. It's for the Farmer's Market; you'll need to go there for most of the ingredients. Bring them to me, and I'll mix up the Vector."

Oswald saluted. "Can do!"

Dr. Langford nodded. "Thank you."

After securing the perimeter with some Security Bots and a turret, Oswald ran off to the lab, while Dr. Langford gave her attention to some pep bars that he left behind. "What a strange person," she mused, while she chewed on a pep bar. "He must have known that the Farmer's Market is full of Splicers, and he didn't even hesitate. Not even to get some sort of payment for saving me." She smiled softly. "How very unusual. Who are you, Mr. Oswald?"

* * *

OSWALD CRITIQUES SOME ART

Fort Frolic burned.

Oswald bounded through the flames, dodging the Spider Splicers that seemed to be hiding in every corner. Behind him, he could hear Sander Cohen's enraged screams. "He sounds real upset about something," Oswald mused. "Maybe I should have told him that setting fire to his Quadtych wasn't such a hot idea."

Of course, it wasn't like he was _trying_ to burn his masterpiece. He had just been trying to hit Oswald with one of his fireballs, and missed. Not his fault that he couldn't aim worth a darn.

A support beam groaned, and buckled, before collapsing on a nearby walkway. Oswald thanked his lucky stars that he thought to rescue the Little Sisters before he carried out Cohen's dirty work. And that he took the time to pick Cohen's pocket for his apartment key. A place where he could crash and be relatively unbothered would be a godsend; this Loop was nuts!

A Spider Splicer reared up before him, and dramatically lunged for his throat with a sickle. Oswald hit him in the throat with a Psi-Punch, then swiftly kicked him in the balls. The Splicer crumpled up like a dead bug, and Oswald continued on to the bathysphere without breaking his stride.

"It's coming to something," he mused, "when a fellow can't even enjoy a night at the theater without some loony artist going crackers at the sound of criticism."

He sealed the bathysphere, just in time for a fireball to glance harmlessly off of the bronze hatch.

"He needed it, though," Oswald continued, as he pulled the lever to start up the bathysphere. "That Quadtych really _was_ tacky. I mean, _rabbit masks?_ How cliche can you get?"

* * *

MEETING MR. RYAN

Andrew Ryan, the man who ruled Rapture, was playing golf in his office, when a slightly singed and rather irritated Oswald burst into the foyer. Ryan looked up calmly at the intrusion. "So," he began, "The assassin has overcome my final line of defense, and now he plans to murder me. In the end what separates a man from a slave? Money? Power? No, a man chooses, and a slave obeys!"

Oswald eyed him suspiciously. If he knew his villains, then Ryan was about to go into the Big Rant.

"You think you have memories," Ryan continued, while lining up his next shot. "A farm. A family. An airplane. A crash. And then this place. Was there really a family? Did that airplane crash, or, was it hijacked? Forced down, forced down by something less than a man, something bred to sleepwalk through life unless activated by a simple phrase, spoken by their kindly master. Come in."

Oswald stepped into the room.

"Stop, would you kindly."

Oswald rolled his eyes, and kept walking towards him. Ryan looked at him.

"I said _stop_ , would you kin-"

Oswald cut him off. "Look, Mac, I've already erased the mental trigger, and I know about the fake memories, so can we _please_ move on?"

Ryan was utterly flabbergasted. This wasn't how the scenario he had written in his mind had played out. "What...?"

Oswald casually lifted him up off the ground with Telekinesis. "I have just fought my way through your hellhole of a city, saved the souls of over a dozen little girls, brought a man back from the brink of insanity with the power of my mind alone, and survived this place with only one Plasmid. Thanks to your petty little ego, all of that is going to be rendered moot, and all of my friends are going to die if I don't get that self-destruct key from you. Suffice to say, I do _not_ have time for the whole devastating revelation bit."

"You'll have to kill me to get it! And that's what Atlas wants, isn't it?! What he ordered you to do?! A man chooses-"

"And a slaves obeys! Yes! I get it!" Oswald snapped. "Look; I'm almost entirely sure that Atlas is playing me for a sap, but I need to follow his instructions, or we all sleep with the fishes. So hold still!"

Despite Ryan's protestations and flailing about, Oswald then proceeded to frisk him thoroughly and efficiently. He pulled the self-destruct key out of his coat pocket, then abruptly dropped the Telekinesis. Ryan landed in an undignified heap on the floor, while Oswald walked towards the self-destruct mechanism. Behind him, he could hear Ryan yelling "Get back here! A slave obeys! OBEY!"

Oswald just kept on walking. He wasn't a man, or a slave. He was a rabbit, and rabbits care not for philosophical debate. Even when it involves mind control.

* * *

1.4 (MrEgret): [Disney]

"I'm home!" Mickey hollered, as he opened the door to his girlfriend's house, carrying a bag of groceries in one arm.

"Hey, Mickey!" Minnie called back. "Just leave the groceries in the kitchen, okay?"

"Got it!"

As Mickey walked into the foyer, and through one of the many winding hallways of Minnie's home, he passed a door that was emitting a bright light from the crack. He shrugged, and walked on.

A few seconds later, he quickly backpedaled, and looked at the door. He didn't remember anyone using this door. He thought it was a closet. So why was there light coming out from the crack? Curiosity got the better of him, and he opened the door with his free hand.

Inside, there was a room that was absolutely filled with television screens, each showing a view of a random street corner in Mouseton. A few even showed the insides of people's houses. Situated in the middle of the room, there was a wooden desk, a swivel chair, and a corkboard. Mickey's eyes widened as he saw the numerous photos simply plastered all over it, connected by various bits of string.

The photos were all of him and Minnie.

Mickey's eye twitched. This was creepy on levels he couldn't even begin to describe.

He heard a gasp, and spun around, holding the groceries out in front of him like a shield.

Minnie was standing in the doorway, with a downcast expression on her face, and a simply enormous ax in her hand.

"Oh, Mickey... I'm so sorry..." she whispered."You shouldn't have seen all of this."

"Minnie? W-what's going on?" Mickey stammered. "And what's with the ax?"

Minnie rubbed her ax arm with her other hand, while refusing to look at him. "It's just... I get so _worried_ about you. When you go off on your adventures, and leave me behind, I just worry about all the trouble you're in. I figured that with this..."

She waved her hand at the room full of crazy.

"I would be able to make Mouseton safe for you. My love."

Mickey was flatly shocked. Minnie, his Minnie, the sweet young girl who liked cotton candy and long walks on the boardwalk, had built all of this? For him? "B-b-but why?"

Minnie smiled softly. For some reason, it sent a chill down Mickey's spine. "I don't want anything to take you away from me, Mickey. You're my life, the reason for my existence. I'll do anything for you."

She leaned in far closer than Mickey was comfortable with, and gently wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He tensed up as he felt her whisper into his ear. _"Anything."_

And that was when both Mickey and Minnie Awoke.

The two mice blinked at each other in confusion, before Minnie released Mickey from her embrace. The two just stared at each other for a few moments, their cheeks slowly reddening as the Loop memories trickled in. The bag of groceries, dropped during the confusion, laid on its side on the floor, forgotten.

Mickey finally broke the somewhat awkward silence. "I won't tell the others about this Loop if you won't."

"Deal."

Minnie looked thoughtfully at the ax. "I do like the ax, though..."

* * *

1.5 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Dead Rising]

In the city of Los Perdidos, all hell had broken loose. The dead had risen from their grave. There was mass panic in the streets, as the living were set upon by the zombie tide. For many, the stress was too much, and they killed themselves. Others went completely insane, and were even bigger threats to the remaining survivors. For many people, it seemed that all hope was lost.

Goofy was not one of those people.

"YAHOO!"

Several zombies were sent flying, upside down and on fire, as Goofy surfed through the streets on what appeared to be the lovechild of a snowboard, a jet engine and a missile. He was wearing a flaming boxing glove in one hand, and wielding a shield that was simply crackling with energy in the other. For reasons unknown, he was dressed like a reject from Saturday Night Fever, complete with white disco jacket and gold chains. The only thing that didn't quite fit was the presence of a pair of skiing goggles on Goofy's face. His one concession to anything approaching safety.

Nick Ramos had grabbed the most powerful motorbike that he could find, and he could barely keep up with Goofy's conveyance.

Not even after he strapped on booster rockets from a Star Wars Loop.

"HEY, RAMOS!" Goofy shouted, as he unintentionally clotheslined a line of zombies while turning around to look at him. "YOU SAID WE NEED TO GET TO INGLETON TO RESCUE ANNIE, RIGHT?"

"YEAH!" Nick shouted back. _God-DAMN, was that engine loud,_ he thought.

"GOT IT!"

Goofy tossed a rope out to Nick, and he caught a hold of it. "HANG ON!" Goofy shouted.

"FOR WHAT?"

"FOR THE TURBO FUNCTION!"

"TURBO FUNCTIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-** "

A group of Survivors who had been saved by Ramos and Goofy a while before looked up in awe, as they saw their saviors soaring through the sky. One of them shouted something, but it was unclear exactly which one.

"YAAAAAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HOOOEY!"

* * *

1.6 (MrEgret): [Disney]

Mickey sighed. It was one of _those_ Loops. The kind where you head for the nearest bar the Loop after, to complain about and drink impossibly alcoholic beverages to try to forget.

It had started out relatively normal. He was a private eye this Loop, who worked out of his house in Mouseton. Minnie was Awake, and they were considering expanding their operations to include Duckburg. The plan was to find out if Donald and Goofy were Awake, and then go and try to get in Scrooge's good graces, to get an in with the Duckburg elite. Perhaps they could help him retrieve his Number One Dime; that was always a good way to earn his favor.

That plan was scrapped approximately five days in, when Mickey was coming home with some groceries. On the way over, he had been threatened by three evil twins swearing revenge for that one time in Budapest, except that was when he was under hypnosis, so it didn't count. On the way back he had been blackmailed by at least one agent from every single branch of the United States government, along with a few that Mickey knew for a fact didn't exist in Hub Loops. Luckily, the resulting infighting essentially nullified their respective schemes. Over the course of the entire trip, he had fended off no less than _twelve_ different women claiming to be past lovers.

Half of them were pregnant with his children, except not really, that had been his evil twin.

Every.

 _Single_.

**TIME.**

The organ music was also getting _really_ irritating.

Mickey wiped his brow, and futilely tried to wipe some lipstick off his collar, as he finally saw his house ahead. "What a day," he sighed. "More plot twists than you could shake a stick at, and not a lick of sense among them."

As he walked down the path to the front door, he saw a man missing his pants (probably Unawake Minnie's secret lover, or some such hogwash) get thrown through the window. He winced. That was going to cost a lot to repair.

When he opened the front door, a horde of men, similarly beaten and sans pants, barreled through the doorway. Some were shouting about "you cheating heart" or how "you'll pay for this."

As he stepped into the living room, he saw a similarly tired Minnie sweeping a bunch of unconscious men into a pile, and out the door. There was a large baseball bat lying on the couch, next to a preposterously large pile of jewelry, lost deeds to this mansion or that, and death threats from everyone from the President to the milkman.

Mickey and Minnie exchanged looks of pure exasperation. "I hate soap opera Loops," they said in unison.

Suddenly Clarabelle Cow burst through the front door, all ready to announce that she and Horace Horsecollar were going to elope, but when she saw the downright murderous looks the mice were giving her, she grinned sheepishly, and quietly backed out of the house.

* * *

1.7 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Star Wars]

"Now, young Skywalker, you will-"

At that moment, the doors to Palpatine's throne room were blown off of their hinges. They flew the length of the room, and slammed into the glass wall behind Anakin (currently Vader), Palpatine and Luke, breaking the Sith Lord's concentration. The three Force-users stood agape as blue and green motes flew around the room like a swarm of angry bees, and a rasping voice called out, **"PALPATIIIIINE..."**

"Who dares enter my inner sanctum uninvited?!" raged Palpatine.

**"It is I, Michael, Voice of Diz-Ni. You broke the rules, Palpatine."**

Anakin had to fight down an attack of the giggles. Seeing the old tyrant turn even paler than normal at the sound of Mickey Mouse with a voice distorter was something he was going to remember for the rest of the Loops.

Luke (being unAwake) was simply confused by the ensuing events, but he saw an opportunity to escape when he saw it. While Palpatine's attention was directed elsewhere, he limped behind a pillar, and started to plan a counterattack.

His intervention was not needed.

"No! No! I never betrayed you, Master! Never!" gibbered Palpatine, as Mickey slowly walked towards him, Keyblade at the ready, and the Guardians of the Wasteland formed complex patterns behind him.

**"You knew the rules when you made your deal with the Principality of Diz-Ni, Palpatine. Thou shall not strike down those who are marked by destiny."**

Mickey suddenly looked at the pillar that Luke was hiding behind, and the young Jedi could have sworn that he _winked_ at him.

"The young Skywalker?!" Palpatine cried out hysterically. "But he's not even a proper Jedi! Barely an apprentice-"

 **"SILENCE!"** thundered Mickey. **"You violated your contract with Us. Now you must pay the price."**

There was a flash of movement, and Palpatine's body was stabbed through the heart, and pinned to his throne by the Keyblade. Immediately after, his body exploded in a burst of Dark energy, and his ghost began to coalesce. Almost immediately, a swarm of Tints formed around it. There was a flash of light, and Palpatine's ghost was writing and screaming within a crystal ball roughly the size of Luke's head.

Anakin suddenly felt a new respect for the mouse. "Nicely done. Now what're you going to do with him?"

Mickey pulled off the voice distorter over his mouth. "Eh, probably throw him into a black hole or something. So, I hear this place is gonna blow in a few minutes?"

"Yeah. Let me explain things to Luke over here, then let's get the hell out of here."

"Right. I'll go fire up the Gummi Ship."

* * *

1.8 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [DC Comics]

Mickey wandered down the ancient subway path, while considering his options. He was currently twelve years old, homeless, and barely scraping together a living as a newsboy. A tough corner for most people, but then, Loopers weren't most people.

He had Awoken in this subway, which did not appear on any map, and he was interested in seeing where it led. Especially when he saw the statues depicting the Seven Deadly Sins. His plot-senses were tingling, and he could almost taste the upcoming adventure hook.

Mickey realized that he had been spending _way_ too much time in Loops based off of RPGs.

Eventually, he came into a large cavern, which was lit up by a brazier, the flames casting flickering shadows on the walls. In the back, there was a huge throne apparently hewn out of stone. Mickey stopped when he felt the absolutely astonishing amounts of magic radiating from the elderly man sitting on the throne. "Gosh," Mickey gasped. "He's even stronger than Yen Sid! I didn't think that was possible..."

The old man looked up and Mickey froze in place. He only relaxed when the man smiled, and beckoned him closer. "Come in, young mouse," he intoned. "I have been expecting you."

Mickey slowly edged into the cave. "Y-you have?"

"Of course. I can see the mists of Time hanging about you like a veil. You are not from this time, are you, young mouse?"

"You could say that," Mickey replied. _So he's Loop-Aware_ , he thought to himself. _This may be bad._

"Do not be alarmed," the old man-no, the wizard-continued. "I am the wizard Shazam. Much like yourself, I have spent my entire life fighting injustice and cruelty, but I feel my time drawing near. I need to choose a successor, and I believe that you could fulfill that role."

Mickey sighed inwardly. Business as usual, it seemed. "All right. What do I have to do?"

"Merely say my name, and you will be granted the abilities of six of the mightiest beings the world has ever known:

The Wisdom of Solomon!

The Strength of Hercules!

The Stamina of Atlas!

The Power of Zeus!

The Courage of Achilles!

And The Speed of Mercury!

You will become Earth's mightiest mortal: Captain Marvel!"

Mickey thought about it for a while. It had been a while since he was a superhero, and the ability to become a flying brick would come in useful...

He finally nodded. "Alright. I'll do it."

"Then say my name, noble mouse!"

Mickey braced himself, then shouted at the top of his lungs: "SHAZAM!"

Suddenly lightning flashed inside the cave, and Mickey felt a tremendous surge of energy course through his body. When the surge subsided, he had grown up into his adult self, while bedecked in a set of red tights with a golden lightning bolt on his chest, and a white cape around his neck. He could feel power coursing through his entire body, and he saw sparks playing along his fingertips. All of a sudden, he felt like anything was possible.

He smiled. He could get used to this.

* * *

1.9 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 122.1.

Oswald trudged along the surface of the moon, dragging along a mortar and pestle. "I swear," he grumbled, "if I ever get my hands on the guy that started the whole rabbit on the moon thing, I am gonna-"

"You're gonna what?"

"I don't know! Maybe cover his house in moon pies, or somethin-wait."

Oswald turned around, and then just stared.

There, standing in front of him was a navy blue horse... thing with wings and a horn. Her mane, Oswald noted, was apparently made of stars, and she bore a symbol of the moon on her flank.

Also, she was radiating magic on a level that Oswald had never seen before, excluding deities.

The alicorn and the rabbit just stared at each other for a few seconds. "Please tell me you know what Looping means." Oswald finally stammered.

The alicorn smiled. "Indeed. My name is Princess Luna."

Oswald nearly collapsed in relief. "Oh, thank the stars. I'm Oswald. Oswald the Lucky Rabbit."

Luna tilted her head confusedly. "I don't believe I have heard of you before."

"Not many people have. I've only just started Looping recently. Just after the Crash."

Luna nodded. "Yes, this makes sense. We have some Loopers from that time period. Anyway, welcome to Equestria. Or at least, Equestria's moon."

Oswald grinned. "Aw, neato! Mickey told me about this place after I started Looping!"

Then the Loop memories hit. Luna waited politely while Oswald got them sorted out. His grin turned into a pensive look. "...Okay, that's odd. Luna?"

"Yes?"

"Why the blazes are we _married?_ "

Luna looked at Oswald in confusion, before her Loop memories came in. "Ah. it seems that the Magic Kingdom is an actual country in Equestria this Loop, and you and Mickey got hitched to me and Tia as a political move."

"Mickey's here? Then why didn't he respond to my ping?"

"He is probably not Awake this Loop. Celestia isn't Awake either, or we would not be sitting up here."

The two Loopers thought for a moment, then slowly started to grin.

"Oswald?" Luna asked. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"Pranking time?"

"Pranking time."

* * *

"What."

Twilight Sparkle, Celestia's personal student, and Spike, her number-one assistant and King Mickey's personal apprentice simply stared at the chaos that was unfolding on the stage.

Celestia (who still wasn't Awake) was staring at the strange duo standing on the stage with an expression of shock. Mickey, (who _was_ Awake) looked like he was desperately trying to fight off an attack of the giggles.

Luna, dressed in a white tank top with a large red N on the front and a matching white skirt posed on one side of the stage while Oswald, in a ridiculous purple wig, white shirt (also with the red N) and pants posed on the other side.

In the center, a strange bird-like robot with a tape recorder taped to it and a gold coin glued to the head scanned the crowd.

"Prepare for trouble!" Luna began.

"And make it double!" Oswald continued.

"To protect Equestria from devastation!"

"To unite all ponies within our nation!"

"To denounce the evils of truth and love!"

"To extend our reach to the stars above!"

"Luna!"

"Oz!"

"Team Nightmare, undisputed rulers of the night!"

"Surrender now, or prepare for a fright!"

The tape recorder clicked on, and played, "Beep-boop! That's right!"

As Mickey finally burst out laughing, and Celestia couldn't make up her mind whether to attack the members of Team Nightmare or check on her husband, Twilight sighed, and brought a hoof to her face. At least this Loop would be interesting.

* * *

1.10 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Disney] / [Star Wars] / [Marvel] / [Aladdin] / [The Nightmare Before Christmas] / [Frozen] / [Percy Jackson]

Mickey mused curiously in front of a rather elaborate and complicated interconnected wall of ideas and concepts, labeled 'Feige', though it seemed to have lost several pieces recently.

Apparently they were in another loop where they were the living incarnations of Disney Company, and thus in charge of all future output of movie and television production.

It was both amazingly powerful, and incredibly fragile. One wrong move, and they could turn _Frozen_ into the next _Black Cauldron_.

Of course, now they had to contend with the great responsibility that was owning the Hub Verse Kingdom Hearts, Marvel and Lucas universes.

It was...rarely easy to get right. One wrong move, or a lack of a move, could destroy them. Mickey knew that for a mortifying fact.

There was a reason you never let Goofy make casting calls for Robert Downey Junior's replacement actor. In hindsight Zac Effron was a horrible Iron Man.

On the other hand, that time Goofy was allowed to write the plot for Kingdom Hearts 3 (which Mickey had not experienced yet, and apparently neither had Sora), because it somehow managed to be less mind-screwy than previous installments.

But then there was that time Mickey had hired Hideaki Anno, Grant Morrison and Pendleton Ward to co-write it...it was popular but no one could really understand the ending.

But the MCU was different... it was, for one thing, 100% created on a generally sober mind (Unlike some Kingdom Hearts games in the Hub verse), and it had to appeal to more than just the video game crowd.

It had a plot that had been well planned out for at least a decade in advance, or at least it seemed it did.

Sadly, Mickey couldn't find most of Feige's notes, and he seemed to be channeling Erskine in not telling anyone, or writing anything down, about his plans when assassins from the nefarious 'Networking Illuminati Against Really Good Shows and Ideas' (N.I.A.R.G.I) organization had killed him and the other writers, caused so much damage to the Netflix team alone they had to call up Netflix and cancel, and torched most of their stuff.

Said group was also the reason Joss Whedon and Greg Weisman had issues with keeping their shows going, now further made so by the fact Whedon was no longer alive, and had crippled the anime industry in 2007 and further so in 2008, though it had recovered recently.

So, it would seem that they would have to go and rebuild the MCU from the ground up, with only the details of everything through Ant-Man left to base their plans off of.

"Garsh, those N.I.A.R.G.I people really made a ruckus out of things. They even ruined your show, Mr. Vader sir."

"No, that was a side effect of Disney obtaining the rights to Lucasfilm. Considering what I've heard about its former network, it probably was better they change pace and give their rights to a company that actually has a decent marketing team, and does not seem to think that quality action programming should be replaced by chibi freaks of nature."

The 'High Exalted Council of Disney Properties', as Darth Vader had decided to call it, were the entirety of the 'Disney' loopers who were awake this loop, consisting of Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Groot, Captain America, Elsa, Genie, Jack Skeleton, and Percy Jackson, whose publisher was technically owned by Disney so one could argue he should actually be there, sitting around a round table.

"Okay, so all the notes on my third film were lost?" Cap decided to get the meeting back on track before Vader could get on a rant about bad television programs.

"Your film, Doctor Strange, the second Guardians film, the future plans, it's all gone," Mickey affirmed.

"I am Groot," Groot spoke in a depressed tone at the loss.

"What about Mr. Abrams?" Luke inquired for the sake of his own relaunch.

"He's fine, currently hiding in a bolt hole with Weisman and Filoni with all their notes intact," Mickey told the relieved hero "That's why we're not trying to determine if it's too late to get Luceno or Zahn to write episode 7."

"Okay then, what exactly do we have to work with on the big and mighty front, assuming we don't spoil any details," the Genie inquired in a completely spoiler preventing tone of voice as Mickey snapped his finger, causing dozens of holographic projections to form up on the table.

"Let's see, we have T'Challa, Carol Danvers, Luke Cage, Matt Murdock, Stephen Strange, Jennifer Walters, Nico Minoru..."

"What about Logan?" Jack inquired as Mickey shook his head.

"Fox has his rights."

"Peter?" Elsa asked as Cap shook his head

"Sony."

"Namor?"

"I am Groot."

"What Groot said Percy," Mickey commented. "Basically, Namor's a legal minefield, Man-Thing is complicated, and Spider-Man and the X-Men and related peoples are owned by different companies. That of course makes using characters connected to both tricky, as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch prove, and I haven't even asked about Jessica Drew and Brian Braddock."

"Maybe it's for the best, I mean who would go and see a 'Captain Britain' film anyway?" Donald asked out loud.

"I am Groot."

"...He has a point there Donald," Goofy sided with the Guardian of the Galaxy on a Captain Britain film. "Though I think it would be easier if we did clear up those minefields. After all, if you really think about it, Fox could raise a stink about a lot of things. I mean, that second Ant fellow was a member of the Fantastic Four for a long time, Black Panther first appeared in the Fantastic Four book and often still does, he even was a member after that Civil War-" (Cap shivered at that one. He honestly had no idea why he was so... dogmatic then), Carol was closely associated with the X-Men for a long time because of that Rogue thing and that time she was a member of those Starjammers with Scott's father, Thanos has a pretty strong arguing case with being part of the Silver Surfer's rogues gallery. If Fox knows that we've suffered a major creative blow, they might decide to steal some characters from us while we're down."

Mickey flinched at the sort of legal minefield Goofy had brought up, or the Social Darwinist viewpoint of legal attack. If Fox really wanted to, could they manage to be that obnoxious?

For some reason, the word 'Gifted' fluttered into his mind.

"You know what, before we even get started on recovery, let's just cover that base first," Mickey decided. "Anakin, I want to you get Fox to give up all their rights, at least to the Fantastic Four and all things that are not earthbound. Getting the X-Men back as well would be ideal as well."

Darth Vader nodded. "And what methods do you suppose?"

"...Whatever you deem necessary that leaves them alive, whole and sane," Mickey told the occasional evil lord of the galaxy. "Luke, Sony is far more agreeable, so you deal with them."

It was best to save the scarier, more imposing Skywalker for the stubborn ones.

"You two can take care of that after the meeting finishes, but first... anyone have ideas for the movies?"

"...Haven't read the script for Age of Ultron or Ant Man, but if it's possible, can we try and avoid a Civil War storyline unless we have a really good reasonable storyline?" Cap offered up immediately.

"Can we have some of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D characters appear in a movie?" Percy suggested.

"Do we actually need the Inhumans if the X-Men are being brought back?" Elsa questioned.

"I am Groot."

"Tree, we are not doing a Onslaught movie. Fans would almost rather want me appearing in your sequel," Vader snarked as the room quickly descended into loud arguments.

"Maybe this is why Walt had people problems," Mickey muttered to himself. It would explain the sudden images of 'Spider Oswald' and 'X Oswald' that just appeared in his head after all.

* * *

1.11 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]

Somewhere in Cairo, Mickey awoke to find himself in a luxurious hotel room. "Huh," he said, as he looked around. "Not bad. I've certainly Awoken in worse places."

He went over to the mirror to see how he looked this time around. Surprisingly, he had red eyes, and a small pair of fangs. He was also dressed in a set of fancy clothes, similar to his usual attire during Victorian loops. "Vampire, huh? Okay, not too bad. I can work with thi-"

Then the Loop memories came in.

Mickey reeled from the shock of the memories, and sat down heavily on the bed. The only thing he could think of was _"I knew learning that time-stopping spell back in the Kingdom Hearts universe was going to bite me in the butt."_ Still, he thought that replacing freaking _DIO,_ of all people, was going a bit too far. Even with Yggdrasil's rather peculiar sense of humor.

"Right, screw this Loop," he announced. "SHAZAM!"

There was a flash of lightning, the crashing of thunder, and Mickey stood proudly in his Captain Marvel uniform. Mickey felt the inside of his mouth with his tongue, and was pleased to note a lack of fangs. "That's one problem solved. Now, let's see who else is Awake..."

"YOU'RE NOT DIO-SAMA!"

"Oh, right; magic lightning _does_ tend to stand out, doesn't it?"

Mickey leaped out of the way, as an orb of pure nothingness promptly put a hole in the bed where he had been sitting mere seconds before. As Mickey turned to face an enraged Vanilla Ice, he wondered if any other Disney Loopers were running into trouble.

"No, seriously-ACK! I'm on your side! WOAH! Hey! Easy with those vines, buster! YEEK!"

Minnie ducked and weaved around the flying metal objects that her new Stand kept attracting, while trying to explain to an Unawake Joseph Joestar and Avdol that no, she wasn't a servant of DIO, no matter what she might have said before, and would you please put those Stands away before somebody gets hurt?

Of course, given that she had announced that she would have taken Joseph for a lover if she wasn't already attracted to DIO literally minutes before she Awoke, this was proving to be substantially harder than usual.

"Oh, Mickey, where are you?" she fretted, before ducking, and narrowly avoiding getting clobbered by a flying trash can. While she might keep the Stand for later use, she wanted to know how to turn it _off_ first.

* * *

1.12 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Soul Eater]

**Goofy the Bodyguard**

Goofy squinted his eyes, as he surveyed the courtyard of Magic Cinder Castle. There was nothing to be seen, except for the countless number of souls glowing faintly as they awaited consumption.

He didn't entirely know who those gangsters were, but they had tried to kill Angela, the Witch child he was looking over, so of course he had to step in. He had intended to simply talk them into giving up and going away, but they opened fire before he could even so much as say "Hello." If he didn't have the Ogre Shield equipped at the time, he would have been reduced to Swiss cheese. The bullets ricocheted off of his shield, and took out several unfortunate gangsters.

Goofy then tried to chase the remaining ones off with a simple Goofy Turbo attack, but he had _severely_ underestimated the power that his current body had.

Long story short, there were now several Goofy-shaped holes in the surrounding walls, and the gangsters' souls seemed to be clustered around them.

"Gawrsh," he mused, "Maybe holing up in this here castle isn't the brightest idea. I wonder if there's anywhere I could take Angela to get some help lookin' after her..."

Suddenly, his heightened senses picked up someone sneaking up on him. He spun around, tripped and fell flat on his face.

"Well, looks like we found our Replacement, Tsubaki," a rather brash male voice said.

"Really?" a female voice (Tsubaki, Goofy wagered) asked? "He looks rather...odd."

"Yeah well, that's Replacement Loopers for you," the brash voice replied.

Goofy looked up from his position on the ground, and saw a blue-haired ninja boy holding a chain scythe kneeling down, and closely scrutinizing Goofy's face. Oddly, he didn't see any girls around to match up with the Tsubaki voice. "Uh, can I help you?" he asked.

"Let's cut the crap. You're Looping, right?" the ninja boy interrupted.

"Geez, Black*Star; these 'Loops' did nothing to mellow you out did they?" the chain scythe chided.

Goofy didn't even react to the talking weapon. He had seen weirder things working as a waiter at the House of Mouse. "A-hyuck! I sure am! Name's Goofy. You're Black*Star, right?"

Black Star grinned and struck an impressive pose, holding a rather embarrassed Tsubaki aloft like a flag. "That's right! The Master of Assassination, Black*Star, has entered the scene!"

Tsubaki shifted back into human form and bowed contritely. "Please forgive my Meister. He's like this a lot. My name's Tsubaki Nakatsukasa. I'm his Demon Weapon partner."

Goofy shook them both by the hand after getting up from the ground. "Nice to meet you both! So, what brings the two of you out here?"

"Well, we're students at Shibusen, usually, and we would normally need to collect the souls of evil humans and Witches. If a Demon Weapon consumes ninety-nine human souls and a Witch soul, they become Death Scythes, and gain the honor of being wielded by Shingami-sama."

Goofy looked at the two native Loopers warily. "You're not here to kill Angela, are you? I'll have to stop you, if you are." Tsubaki swallowed a gasp as she _felt_ the intense pressure of Goofy's Soul Wavelength manifesting, like a shroud falling over the entire area. _This Wavelength's stronger than Mifune's ever was!_ she realized. _If he can do this without any concentration at all..._

"Hey, hey, hey, hey hey! Cool your jets, dog-man!" Black*Star responded. "We didn't kill her in the baseline, and we're not gonna kill her now!"

Goofy relaxed slightly. Usually, guys who were as obnoxious as Black*Star currently was were also horrible liars. "Well, alright then. So, why'd you come here?"

Tsubaki relaxed as she felt the Soul Wavelength's presence dissipate. "We're here to offer you and Angela a deal."

Goofy leaned on a nearby wall. "Okay. What's the deal?"

"If you come to Shibusen with us, and help teach our fellow students, we'll make certain that Angela is raised safely, and protect her from whatever groups are hunting for her soul.'

Goofy thought about it for a minute. The students seemed to be on the level, and, well, they _were_ Loopers. They knew this place better than he did.

"Aw, what the heck. You got yourself a deal!"

* * *

"RETREAT! RETREEEEEEEEEEAT!"

Arachnophobia members scattered among the trees, abandoning their base en masse. Some of the unluckier ones were instead launched through the walls of the base themselves, face-planting on the ground and promptly disintegrating, leaving behind softly glowing souls.

Mosquito looked on in shock, barely noticing the bleeding stump where his arm used to be. "How did this happen...?" he kept mumbling.

They had expected an attack from Shibusen, and they had naturally prepared for both a full frontal assault and for an attempt at infiltration and sabotage. Baba Yaga's defenses should have been able to repel any attack from the students of that hateful academy. They had hordes of soldiers to die for them, golems supplied by Giriko and his ilk to hold the line, the Artifact Soldiers waiting in the wings, and even himself, the major-domo to Arachne herself.

None of that did any good at all.

And now, the students were inside the base, and destroying every single demon tool they could find. Every single triumph that Arachnophobia had gained over several decades of toil, intrigue and murder, were now going up in flames.

 _A ninja that burned his way through our soldiers with green fire, that only seemed to grow in tandem with his will to succeed...a dog-man whose soul was akin to a mighty fortress, impenetrable to any madness attack that tried to breach it...how did Shibusen find such monstrous warriors to fight for them?!_ he wondered.

Mosquito roused himself from his stupor, and dragged himself towards the yawning black hole that used to be the front gates. He needed to get some blood in him, repair his wounds. He'll just use one of the scientists; that was what they were for, after all.

Then, he had to find Arachne. To warn her. To protect her.

She had invited the wrath of gods upon Arachnophobia's head.

* * *

1.13 (Bardic_Knowledge): [Kingdom Hearts]

Sora was trying what he'd heard was called a "challenge run," a concept introduced to him by Link of the Hyrule Loops. He was going to go through his whole Loop limiting himself, and in this case, he was limiting himself to a single spell. At first, he thought he'd limit himself to Curaga, but that pretty much negated the challenge altogether. So he picked a double challenge, just for the heck of it: Not only would he be restricted to a single spell, he wasn't going to directly attack anyone.

Which meant that the single spell would have to be Stopga, Aeroga, Reflega, or Magnega.

"Sora!" cried unAwake Donald (Sora was always mildly disappointed to find his friends weren't Awake, even if it was inevitable). "Help!"

Sora dashed in, quickly catching up to the court wizard. "Heal up, Donald, I got this. Reflect!" The hexagonal barrier of the spell appeared around them, causing most of the Heartless's attacks to bounce off. After a few good solid hits, he released the spell, blowing all the Heartless back to darkness.

* * *

1.14 (Blazingen1): [Kingdom Hearts]; addition by (wildrook)

"Order! Order! I'd like to call this court to... some kind of order."

Sora said as he banged the gavel on the table they sat behind. It was a weird loop this time, where people had very odd mindscapes. For people with only one presence living within them, they wouldn't be aware that they sat in a chair to control their physical body. But people housing more than one mind, they sat in a large conference room with everyone else they have within. Thus, in the business-type meeting table sat Sora and the people he shared his mindscape.

"Right! Roll call! Alright well I'm here. Roxas?

"Here." Roxas said in a deadpan voice.

"Xion?" he said to a slightly transparent Xion.

"I'm here too even though I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be."

"Sleeping Ventus?"

"zzzzzzzzzz..."

"...and finally, a very restrained Vanitas in a Keyblade-escape-proof chair. Hello there, Vanitas."

The non-looping Vanitas sat next to Roxas in a chair with many locks and chains that not even a single Keyblade could unlock them all. "I don't know who you are or how you got here but once I get out of these restraints I will end you idiots and..."

"Roxas, could you please put Vanitas into a comatose state?"

Without breaking his deadpan face, he lifted his right hand, and with it a large cartoonish mallet, and brought it down on Vanitas's head, knocking him out. A large anime bump inflated where he was hit.

"There now that that's all done, now we can get to more serious business, like-"

"Finding the bastard Xehanort. That body stealer. He borrowed my hand one time and he never even bothered to return it. I had to regenerate it elbow up!"

The gang was surprised to see a man in a black and red bodysuit, also known as Deadpool, the looping anomaly, sitting on the opposite end of the conference table.

"What the... Deadpool?! What are you doing here?!"

"Well, now that you mention it, since Disney's buyout of the Marvel franchise, I've been popping out randomly in different Disney worlds. Hey! Maybe this time you can finally make a Kingdom Hearts/Marvel crossover! It'll be epic!"

"I mean, what are you doing here? This is my mind!'

"Well how am I supposed to know? The author's the one who placed me here. I mean come on, where's the context? Aren't you going to go through some kind of exposition or something to explain what the (Bleep) is going on? See, even my curses are (Bleeping) censored."

"Deadpool; get out of my head!" Sora, Roxas, and Xion stood and Keyblades flashed into their open palms.

"Come on guys, do you really think you can take on me?" Deadpool arrogantly puffed his chest.

As soon as he said that, the walls of the conference room fell open to reveal the entire space behind all three Keybladers were full of Keyblades Sora had gathered throughout the loops. There was seemingly no end to them.

Looking at his uneven odds, "Well then..." Deadpool took the most manliest option... and ran away screaming like a little girl, not before he set a radio he found to a cheesy Benny Hill chase music.

"Get him!" and so the trio chased him around the empty space of the void. The Keyblades floated after them.

After 5 minutes of running, Deadpool suddenly turned around wearing a cop hat, held up a stop sign and blew a big police whistle.

"Bweeeeeeepp!"

This brought a screeching halt to the three.

"Hold up just a minute guys. If what the author guy said earlier about chairs and controls is true, if you're here, then who's controlling the body?"

Blink. Blink.

* * *

(Outside Sora's mind)

Both friends watched worriedly as their other friend went silent for one moment, then wildly ran around in circles before finally collapsing onto the sand, snoring.

Unawake Riku just stared and said, "I worry about what goes on in that head of yours, Sora."

(wildrook)

Awake!Kairi, however, just stated, "You and me both, Riku."

* * *

1.15 (Blazingen1): [Frozen] / [Big Hero 6]

**Do you want to build a Baymax? Part 1**

" _Do you want to build a snowman? It doesn't have to be a snowman..._ " sang a young Anna to the door that hid her sister from her.

"Go away Anna!"

" _Okay bye,_ " She finished sadly, as she walked away from her only Sister's room. Lonely Anna was disappointed that she couldn't even see her sister anymore. Mama and Papa were outside busy running the kingdom, and she had lost her only friend. Was Elsa mad at her for something? One could say that Anna was hurting.

She was so dejected that she didn't even notice, that just when she was about to return to her room, she bumped face first into a giant white balloon.

"Whoa!" she yelled as she fell on her rump. She looked up at the object and blinked.

And then blinked some more.

It appeared to be a large rotund Marshmallow man (I don't think they have balloons in her time period) stood in her path. It was large enough to fit the entire corridor, and had two big black eyes connected with a line.

"Hello. I am Baymax," said the Marshmallow man, as he lifted an arm to give a friendly wave. "I was programmed to heal the sick and injured. Are you alright?" he asked as he tilted his head sideways.

Anna couldn't really find the words to respond, for not only did she not understand what was said, but also because her eyes shined with wonder and fascination at the adorable and huggable creature that stood before her. It really was like a marshmallow; looked soft too.

She picked herself up and then poked Baymax in his large belly.

Boing. Boing.

It definitely wasn't a creature of her imagination. Then her eyes lit up with excitement. Finally, there was someone for her to play with. She brushed her skirt; had to act like a princess after all; and then greeted the marshmallow man.

"I'm okay. Ahem. I am Princess Anna. Do _you_ want to build a snowman?"

Meanwhile, Princess Elsa sat in her room contemplating her sad existence. She had harmed her sister by accident, and for that she isolated herself from her to protect her.

It was a lonely existence, but one she would do out of protection. That was what she told herself even though the real reason is that she loved her sister so much that she feared the day she really harmed her, and thus bore the burden of solitude.

It had been a few hours since her sister was at the door. Elsa was glad that her sister had found something to do, but sad that she couldn't be there with Anna. It was a mixed bag of feelings. From her door, she could hear her sister's laughter.

'At least she had found someone to play with. I wonder who it is.'

"Wheeee! Ha ha ha ha!" laughed Anna as she bounced up and down.

Said princess was currently using Baymax as a makeshift trampoline. After a whole day playing with snow with Baymax, she had retreated to the warmth of her castle, in her favorite room, the one with the paintings. Not once did she think about Elsa shutting her out, not anything else. That is, until she heard the horns blow, indicating the return of her parents.

'Yay! Mama and Papa are home!"

Then her thoughts drifted to her new friend she was sitting on.

"Oh no! Mama and Papa are home! I can't let them see you." She was worried that they might scold her for talking with a stranger (technically) and take her new friend away. She had to hide him.

"Come on!" She ran out of the room. A few seconds later she ran back in and pushed the still waddling Baymax out with her.

"I am not fast."

"No kidding!"

Knock, knock, knock knock, knock.

It was Anna's favourite knock on Elsa's door. Mama and Papa were home, so she had to look her best, gloves on and everything. But Anna knocking on her door again, and not running towards their parents, was unexpected.

"Elsa! I really need your help here."

When she didn't answer, Anna's knocks became more frantic.

"Elsa?! I'm really serious here. I really need your help, or else Papa might take him away."

Had Anna taken in a stray again? It wouldn't really be the first time she did. Deciding against it, she opened the door to reveal a large snowman with a rotund belly not unlike their Butler, Kai. He lifted his hand in a friendly wave, and said "Hello. I am Baymax. Who are you?"

(To Anna, it looked more like a marshmallow, but to Elsa, I'm thinking that her connection to snow might make it seem to her that Baymax was more snowmen-like)

"Huh?" was her intelligent answer.

"Elsa!" yelled Anna from the other side of Baymax. She was currently pushing Baymax into Elsa's door frame. He couldn't fit. "Could you help me hide Baymax? I can't let Mama and Papa see him."

"Um what?" she asked as she walked out of her room for what seemed to be the first time this year. This felt like once again like Anna's mischievous schemes back when they were younger and more prone to get into trouble.

"Please. Just this once! Then I promise not to bother you ever again!"

Step, step, step.

Both Anna and Elsa gasped and looked towards the staircase with a deer in the headlights look. They were getting closer.

(Two seconds later)

"Hhhhrrrggg!" They were now both valiantly struggling to squeeze Baymax into Elsa's room. Curse those tiny bodies of theirs.

With a final heave, and a pop sound, Baymax finally squeezed through.

"I'll distract them. You go find a place he can hide in your room," said Anna as she went to intercept her parents.

Elsa went back into her room and slammed the door shut behind her, back against the door. The snowman looked at her, and blinked once more. 'Hello. I am Baymax." He greeted again with a friendly wave. "I was programmed to heal the sick and injured."

'Now what do I do with him?' thought Elsa helplessly.

* * *

1.16 (Blazingen1): [Frozen] / [Big Hero 6]

**Do you want to build a Baymax? Part 2**

(That Night)

Once the entire Hullabaloo was over, the King and Queen left Elsa's room for the night. Elsa stood grinning at the door as it closed. Once it did, she dropped it with a tired sigh.

Opening the closet, the stuffed Baymax blinked as light flooded his optics. Thank goodness princesses had spacious closets.

"It's okay. You can come out now." Elsa then went back to her desk.

Blinking once again, Baymax stepped forth, maneuvering his balloon-like body until he reached her. It was like he could sense the sadness in the tone.

'What seems to be the trouble?" he asked her.

"Hmm? Oh! It is nothing. I am just doing my homework my tutors assigned me."

Peeking from the corner of her eye, she saw that Baymax still stood beside her. Now that she's looking at him more clearly, it was obvious to her that this was no snowman. While it was white, it had a metal head, much like the helmets soldiers wear. Its body was neither warm nor cold, and is made of a bouncy material.

Feeling a bit awkward that the creature was still staring at her, she took a deep breath, and in a very formal tone, implied, "Yes? Is there something that you require from me?"

"My scanners indicate depression from you. Why are you upset?"

"What?" This stopped Elsa's train of thought immediately. Did this 'Snowman' know what had occurred before?

The robot did a quick scan on her bio.

"Your neurotransmitter levels indicate that you are experiencing severe depression. In addition, your human body temperature is at 24º Celsius, which is 12º lower of normal body temperature. Are you ill?" he asked as he reached his hand towards her.

"No NO! I'm fine!" she responded in fear. In her fear, she had accidentally released her icy powers on the robot's hand, encasing it in a thin layer of ice.

"Gasp! Oh no. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Stay away from me! It's for your own good!" she backed away from Baymax, ice spreading from her feet to the floor.

Baymax however, did not move. He instead looked at his slightly frozen appendage, and switched on his heating apparatus within the hands to melt it.

"Conceal don't feel. Conceal don't feel. Conceal don't feel! Conceal... don't ... feel" she kept chanting the mantra over and over. She sat in a fetal position in the corner of the room.

Arms of fluff enclosed her prone form. She opened her eyes to see that it was Baymax who was hugging her.

"It is alright to cry. Crying is a natural response to pain, especially to where my hands cannot reach." he lifted her out of her fetal position and placed her sitting on her bed, and then hugged her tightly. "It will be alright. There. There."

Here was a creature so pure of heart, whose adorableness matched the sincerity of his comfort. Elsa could barely hold it in any longer. She had held her ground in front of her parents, so that they would see her as a good girl, but this 'snowman's' comfort had opened the floodgates, and so she cried softly into his soft hide, her tears forming ice as they dropped to the ground.

Baymax opted to use his heating apparatus once more to give her warmth. Elsa couldn't really complain about it. It was indeed a comforting gesture. They sat like that the whole night.

* * *

(The next morning)

Elsa Awoke, in both senses, to see a large inflatable thing sitting next to her bed. Her loop memories told her that this was Baymax.

That was the odd part as it was obvious to her that this root is way far back in time to even be developed.

The knock on the door indicated that it was Anna.

"Hey Elsa? Feeling loopy today?"

"Morning Anna. I just Woke up."

The door slammed open. "Oh! Good! Is the marshmallow man still in the room?"

"It's not a marshmallow. It's a robot, an inflatable one that is." She gestured to the robot. His eyes were still closed.

"Is he still sleeping? Yoohoo! Wakey wakey!... He's not waking up."

"I think the correct term is that he's in sleep mode. Let me see." She grabbed him with her snowy powers to form a hand and placed him in a standing position. There was a red light blinking dimly from its centre.

"Low batteries. Well, that's an easy fix. All we have to do is to charge ... him ... up." Anna finished lamely. They were in a period where electricity had yet to be developed yet. "Oh dear. Come on Elsa, you're the nerd in the family, is there anything we can do?"

Elsa responded to that quip with a glare and a pout. Baymax must have kept her warm through the night, thus using up all his power.

Looking through things out of her pockets, she checked for any electrical appliance or outlet. They often loop into fantasy or old-age like worlds, so nuclear era loop items were rarer.

She took out a solar panel and some wires, and got to work. Anna, no matter how well intentioned, was not meant for this kind of delicate work.

(Ding)

The beady black eyes opened. Baymax was once again active.

Looking over the two girls who were celebrating on their success, he lifted his arms in a polite gesture and said, "Good morning Princess Anna, Princess Elsa. Did you have a good rest? My scanners indicate that both of you are no longer in pain."

Thanks to lots of queenly training, it was Elsa who first responded with the improvised explanation, "We are fine, thank you. While you were asleep, we were able to reconcile and make peace with one another. Thank you for your help."

"I am designed to care. You are most welcome."

They sat in the room full of content. But then came the bombshell, which was triggered by Elsa.

"Now what? We can't keep hiding him in my room Anna, nor yours since it is more open. We can't pass him off as a balloon or a toy as balloons weren't invented yet. What to do." She put her hands in a thinking position.

Anna sat down too and folded her arms together, squeezed her eyes closed and thought about it.

Baymax looked bemusedly at the two sisters, not that he knew what was going on.

It was Anna who thought about it first. "Well, we could just roll with it."

"Hmm?"

"Can we keep him Papa?" Anna said with her cutesiest face. Elsa was there right beside her, making the same face. The King could only scratch his head in confusion. From what his little girls told him, this 'magical' creature just waltzed right into the castle, fixed the rift between the two sisters, healed Anna's 'condition' and had a solution to Elsa's magical problem. If it wasn't for the fact that it had mended the two sister's relationship, and fixed the problem within Anna, he would have called the guards by now. The queen, who stood beside him, was equally confused.

"Hello. I am Baymax, a personal healthcare companion. I am programmed to heal the sick and the injured."

"...Right. So you are a doctor?"

"In a matter of speaking, yes I am."

"I heard you had a solution to my eldest daughter's problem?" asked the King.

"Please. She can't be isolated all the time, no one deserves that. Is there anything we can do?" questioned the distressed Queen.

"Indeed there is. My scanners show that there is an anomalous energy within Elsa that allows her to produce ice and snow from her body, thus cooling her body temperature to lower than standard temperatures. However, scientifically, should this build up not be released in any form of manner, then the subject will experience greater difficulty in containing it until the build-up of the energy is greater than she what can contain."

Baymax then lit up his screen on his belly, then he pictured and said, "For visual reference, she is attempting to hold back a leaking dam full of holes with just two hands."

Shutting off his screen, he concluded, "Diagnosis: she needs to release all the pent up energy from time to time. She needs to 'Let it Go'."

Elsa face palmed at the obvious pun, then turned to the cheeky looking Anna. "You told him to say that didn't you?"

"Yep."

* * *

1.17 (ScyBlade): [Devil May Cry] / [Kingdom Hearts]

Virgil Woke Up. He was grateful that he was in a kneeling position when it happened. So many Wake Up while in motion, which tended to cause problems.

 _"Alright,"_ he thought to himself, _"where am I?"_

 _"Hmm, I already have a Sword of Sparda?"_ Then the memories hit. _"Oh, HECK NO! Wait, did just go 'heck' in my own head?"_

He was a suit of armor. The very same armor he wore against Master Xehanort. That man had stolen his body, and only strength of will allowed Virgil to continue fighting. By possessing his own armor.

 _"Right, kick the thief out of my body, get my body back. Preferably in that order, less tedious that way."_ He began patting down his body for anything that might help him with his self-appointed task.

He pulled out the wayfinder. He could feel various pulls on his being from it. Apparently, he could use it to guide it to others that would help in his cause. _"But, how to get off this... Oh, ho. That can be used as wings."_ Putting action to words, the Lingering Spirit, Nero Angelo, departed.

Riku looked at the animate suit of armor. It had dropped out of the sky and had used martial art skills, and what he recognized as the Beowulf Devil Arm, to defeat a batch of Heartless that Sora had clearly intended to use as a warm-up. Probably the source of the other Ping he had felt earlier.

"Nelo Angelo, I'm surprised to meet you here. Feeling a bit Loopy? I know I am." said the white haired Riku.

"Oh, you know this... being? Do tell." That had come a green faced, horned witch.

"Not so much know him, Maleficent, but know of him. He'll be useful. My name's Riku."

Maleficent grinned, "Tell me, oh Black Angel, do you crave power? I can offer you a great power. All you have to do, is come with us."

* * *

In Virgil's next Loop:

Dante was having the time of his life. Virgil could now manifest a katana from pure darkness. And let's not forget that his Sparda was now a Keyblade. And one must mention the Dream Eaters. Oh, yes, this loop was definitely what he needed to break the monotony of the Infinite Loops.

* * *

1.18 (Evilhumour): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Keys to the Kingdom]

**Keyblades to the Kingdom, 1.1**

It was the same pleasant day on Destiny Island when Riku Awoke. Immediately, he went through his memories and sent out pings to see who was awake.

He frowned as he got no response from anyone, which wasn't supposed to be pos-

He froze as his memories started to come in about someone replacing Sora this Loop. A sickly kid named Arthur Penhaligon was his old childhood friend this time around along with Kairi.

Riku figured that this Arthur person must be the Anchor replacing Sora but he had not heard of him before.

Turning his head, he saw this Arthur person walking towards him with confusion on his face.

 _Great,_ Riku thought to himself, _I've got to give the Welcome to Loop speech._

"Hey," he called out to the boy, wondering how easy to break this to him. "Is everything ok Arthur?"

"Ye-yeah." He seemed very nervous, eying him with some hesitation and looking around the beach front.

"You seemed to be some sort of daze. Are you totally Awake Arthur?"

The boy stared at him, eyes widening a bit, taking a step back.

"I'm not sure...Riku." He took his time answering his question, continuously moving backwards in a defense stance.

Riku managed to keep himself reacting; something was off. He definitely was aware of the Loops with how he reacted to his comment but Arthur didn't seem to understand what was going on either.

Riku let out a sigh, leaning on the shack's door. "Don't worry Arthur, we got endless amount of time to figure things out. It seems like time is repeating at-"

"Are you aware of the time restarts too?"

That threw Riku off for a moment but he then smiled at the kid. "So you know about the Loops then?"

"Loops?"

That _really_ threw older boy off. "Come inside, we have a lot to talk about Arthur."

* * *

**Keyblades to the Kingdom, 1.2**

Riku had just finished explaining the basic information of the Loops, Fused, Variants and the whole matter of the Yggdrasil-computer near system crash to the new Looper. Arthur had taken it in with a worried look on his face, occasionally reaching for his inhaler for some air. Riku remembered that Arthur's mom had let the kids go to this island on the scientific basis that the clear air could help clear his lungs and she was dedicated in finding a proper way to cure his asthma after dealing with the other diseases on the mainland.

"Is something the matter Arthur?" Riku asked, eyebrow rising as he watched the kid starting to stand up from the sand.

"I'm worried that I will have an asthma attack that will kill me and then Monday will show up." Arthur frowned.

"Monday?" There was other parts that got his attention like dying but Monday seemed to be a safer question for now.

Arthur gave him a sad smile, something he had only seen in older Loopers. He ran his fingers through his hair, taking his time and trying to take a deep breath before using his inhaler again. "I have to deal with so much that I am not sure how to really beg-" His eyes perked upwards. "You mentioned carrying objects through Loops through subspace pockets?"

Riku nodded his head, which Arthur smiled at him.

"Do you have any books on you?" Arthur asked as he bent down as he picked up some wood and made a miniature self of sorts.

"Yes, why-"

"Can you take them out and place them on here please?" Arthur asked, smiling at him with a twinkle in his eye that Riku recognized as mischievousness from his many adventures. Riku reached into his subspace pocket and placed three large books on the self and then stepping back.

Arthur smiled and chuckled, "It worked," as he bent down to pick up a small green notebook that wasn't there a second ago.

"What the?" Riku stared at the notebook which was titled The Compleat Atlas of the House and Immediate Environs before it the words squirmed around to read now The Compleat Atlas of the House, Immediate Environs and soon to be included the Endless Loops of Yggdrasil.

Arthur laughed, shaking his head. "This is the Atlas, and as you can read, it has a lot of knowledge and it can help me really explain what is going on to you."

Arthur placed the book down on the floor, with Riku squatting next to him. As Arthur started to open the book, the boy gave him a look. "You might want to step back. The Atlas gets big when it opens."

Riku blinked again, moving behind Arthur as the green notebook expanded widely taking up a great deal of space. Leaning over Arthur's shoulder, he saw an invisible hand start to write some text in a language he couldn't understand before changing to English.

' _Greetings Keyblade Master Riku, member of the Sith Order, the Jedi Order, the Grey Jedi Order, etc._ '

Riku's eyes went wide as the book listed all of his titles, with Arthur having a small grin on his face. Once the book was done writing his titles it then wiped the page clean with new text filling.

' _I am the Compleat Atlas of the House, Immediate Environs, and soon to be all of the Endless Loops,_ '

"It's been adding that one since we figured out time is repeating for all the Secondary Realms, but I'm glad it's shorter now than before." Arthur said, causing Riku to turn his head to look at him. "Atlas, could please explain to Riku, _simply_ , what our wor-loop is like?"

' _The House, or as Lord Arthur once proclaimed the blasted Keys to the Kingdom world, is where the former Creator, the Architect, stepped from the void of pure Nothing, breaking off the Old One for reason known to her alone, and began to her eons long project known as the Secondary Realms from her post of what would become Incomparable Gardens, with the Elysium being the true center of existence. She then created the House and it's denizen to observe the Secondary Realms as the unexpected result of eons long project, mortals, were so fascinating. However, she soon grew weary and wished to return to Nothing._

_Unfortunately, due to the fact she had bonded the Old One in chains before the creation of the universe, she was unable to fully return to the Nothing as nothing in the universe could break them._

_She gave control of the House to seven superior denizens along with her seven Keys to be her Trustees would do what she could no longer do. She then had her Will created and given to her seven Trustees who were to cause the destruction of all creation so she may return to the Void. The Trustees; Mister Monday, Grim Tuesday, Duchess Wednesday, Sir Thursday, Lady Friday, Superior Saturday, and Lord Sunday, disobeyed her will on the premise that they did not wish to cease to exist and thus broke her Will up into seven parts and hid them. However, each of the seven parts of the Will used their connection to their Key to influence the Trustee to act in ways that would cause the eventual destruction of the House and the Secondary Realms._

_Mister Monday become slothful to the point where none of the records of mortals could be processed along with other facilities operating from the Lower House failing due to the excessive backlog of forms and paperwork._

_Grim Tuesday was consumed by his greed for treasure and wealth, to which he stole from the Secondary Realms and used deals with the other Trustees to make various amounts of objects which required raw Nothing to the point where he turned his sustainable spring of Nothing into vast Pit that has ravaged the Far Reaches to the point where a breach into the Void of Nothing is the point where the House usually begins to collapse and dissolve back into Nothing._

_Duchess Wednesday was the first Trustee to notice the changes being inflicted upon them when she was compelled to eat, something that Denizens do not require but like to mimic from the Secondary Realms. She had used her Key to restrain her appetite but was unable to attend to her domain, the Border Sea. She realized that this was the work of the Will and wished to fulfill it by finding a Mortal to become Rightful Heir so she would be free of her growing appetite. She had went to Superior Saturday for support against the other Trustees but was betrayed when Saturday, along with the other Trustees save for Monday, used their Keys against her. They stole her memory, and greatly restricted her power over her Key to the point where she could no longer could control her hunger and began to change into a hundred twenty six mile long Leviathan. She was unable to stop the Border Sea from expanding where it should not have been with many breaches into the Void of Nothing due her using her remaining powers over her Key to keep her size in control._

_Sir Thursday was driven to great anger due the constant scheming of the Fourth Part of the Will-_ '

Arthur huffed, startling Riku. "Of all the parts of the Will I had to deal with, it's the Fourth that causes the most issues." he spoke in an acid tone, clenching his fist. Riku said nothing, letting Arthur explain that bit of history to him later. Turning his eyes back to the book, he saw that the invisible writer hadn't stopped writing.

' _-nd causing the death of many of his soldiers. The only way for Lord Arthur retrieve the Fourth Key and free the Fourth Part of the Will was to fully anger Thursday to point he lost all control over himself. At this point, Lord Arthur had no choice but to strip him of his rank and power, thus removing any possible usage against those actively plotting the downfall of the House, namely Saturday, or the besieging army of the third son of the Architect, the Piper, using both the children he brought into the House and the New Nothings, which he created to be like mortals, to invade the Great Maze on the grounds he was the Rightful Heir to the House._

_Lady Friday used her Key to steal the memories of mortals to 'experience' their lives, rendering them to be husks of their former selves, taking only the good memories from her victims. She seemingly abandoned the Middle House and her Key for whoever claimed it after the fall of Thursday, either the Piper, Lord Arthur or Superior Saturday but it was trap meant to kill whoever reached it first by opening a portal straight to the Void of Nothing. Her practice of experiencing was usually messy due to her lust of mortal experiences, and thus was in the hands of the denizens of the Middle House, leading to records of mortals lives being delayed for significant amount of time, the weather of the Lower Self being broken for several centuries and other crimes due to her desire to feel a mortal's experiences._

_Superior Saturday was destroyed by the fact she believed that Incomparable Gardens should belong to her as she was the first denizen to be created and was determined to find a way to claim the domain for her own, creating a tower to reach the Garden's underbelly so she may launch an invasion. However, the Incomparable Gardens rested upon the Drasil Trees, which grew faster than she could build and the only way to slow them down was the destruction of the lower parts of the House. Her envy of what she believed she was deserved caused the death of many and is the overall foe for Lord Arthur when the Loops begin, although we now know that Saturday, along with the other Morrow Days, was changed by the Six Part to act like this in order to cause the destruction of the House per the Will of the Architect._

_Lord Sunday, the first son of the Architect and the Old One, was given the Incomparable Gardens and the Seven Key. This was the highest point of the House and the most powerful of the Keys, the power paramount even in the other domains of the House, let him to proud to the point of grand arrogance and uncaring of what happened in the other parts of the House. His pride stopped him from informing Lord Arthur the truth of the matter of the Will when it could have changed the turn of the events to a far more desirable outcome for everyone involved._

_Once Lord Arthur claims the Seventh Key, something forces him to use the Keys to fulfill the Will of the Architect and cause Nothing to destroy all of creation. After Lord Arthur, now the New Architect, recreates the universe and splits off an aspect of himself, not unlike the Old One, the Loop ends approximately ten minutes later._

_Lord Arthur has to claim each Key and domain from the Trustee as the Trustees would target his family to get him to hand over his Keys and the only way to protect his family and new friends were to defeat them all so he could return to his normal life. This comes at the cost as the Keys and the Will begin to change him into a denizen, which began to infect his mind to the point where Lord Arthur had trouble keeping a destructive anger from building as well as start to affect his memory of his mortal family. Lord Arthur wishes to remain mortal as denizens have a negative impact when entering the Secondary Realms but he is constantly forced and manipulated by the collective parts Will's, known as Dame Primus, actions and inactions, among other events to use the Keys as much as possible. This overall plan and desire to stay mortal has become more difficult as the Loops progress, to which the possibility that some of the Trustees are becoming Loop Aware deserves questioning if the Administrator of Lord Arthur's Loop ever makes contact._ '

"And that's pretty much my story Riku." Arthur sighed, leaning back against the shack's wall. "What do you think?"

* * *

1.1: The poor girl deserves a break.

1.2: Don't even get him started on the mythology pills.

1.3: Looping: Like Splicing, without the drawbacks.

1.4: This is why it's important for people in a relationship to be open about these things.

1.5: And no, neither of them are going to say who yelled.

1.6: Next time, on "All My Headaches..."

1.7: To be fair, that clause was in the fine print of the contract.

1.8: The Birth of a Hero.

1.9: Next, they're going to try to steal Angel Bunny for their boss.

1.10: This transcript was later found in the hands of a N.I.A.R.G.I spy, when the recent _Avengers_ sequel starring Ultron gave Marvel and Disney the pull it needed to launch an attack on their regional headquarters.

1.11: Later on down the line, Giorno Giovanna would be quite surprised to Wake Up with mouse ears, and even more surprised to learn that he wasn't Italian by blood this time.

1.12: It wasn't until Maka Albarn and Soul Eater Evans killed Arachne for the umpteenth time that Goofy even realized that he was covered in imaginary spiders.

1.13: For his next challenge run, he would use only one spell, and he would channel it through a stick. Not a wand, a _stick_.

1.14: A confederacy of dunces. (Note: Deadpool is not actually Looping here.) 

1.15: The defrosting machine arrives at Arendelle.

1.16: The defrosting procedure begins.

1.17: Kingdom Hearts: now more absolutely crazy.

1.18: A simple explanation of a very complex problem. (Expanded to include both 1.1 and 1.2 - the original compilation just had 1.2 in it for some reason.)


	2. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Two

**Author's note:** Originally posted by MrEgret on 2015-05-28 as chapter 2 of the original compilation. Reposted with edits for formatting and spelling by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-02, alongside the first chapter. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

 **Author's note 2:** Some of the _Big Hero 6_ snips contain **major** spoilers for the end of the film. You have been warned.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Two**

2.1 (wildrook): [Disney] / [Goof Troop]

"Dad, what in the Wide World of Sports are you doing?" Max asked him.

"You Awake, Max?" Goofy asked him.

"Define Awake," Max replied, "because the last thing I remember is you Graduating College after winning the X-Games. Again."

"That kind, and I've been wondering when you've Awakened..."

Max then groaned. "I really don't look forward to enduring Puberty multiple times, Dad."

"Comes with the territory."

"Doesn't answer my question why you've turned the Garage into a Laboratory. People are going to notice that you're giving off the Doctor Franken-Goof vibe."

Only difference between the two is that Max is WARY of his Dad's health.

"If this affects my future friendship with PJ and Bobby," Max muttered, "I might as well see how far this goes before putting the kibosh on this."

Oh, if you only knew, Max. If you only knew.

"Don't worry, Maxie," Goofy replied. "I know what I'm doing. Just have to put this line together and..."

(Five seconds later...)

"AAH-HOO-HOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIE!" Goofy yelled, launching himself into Pete's house by accident.

And thus, was a beginning of a bizarre friendship...with Max along for the ride.

"Now I wonder if Huey, Dewey, and Louie are having better luck in Duckburg," Max said. "I had a feeling that one trip to Franken-Goof's castle would come back to haunt me..."

* * *

2.2 (DrTempo): [Kingdom Hearts] / [My Little Pony]; also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 85.13 continued.

**From the Journal of Sunset Shimmer:**

Entry 1:

My name is... Houka... or is it Sunset Shimmer?...

I remember being born here on Destiny Islands... but also remember being born in a world called Equestria. I remember both talking to a friend named Twilight Sparkle who told me time was looping endlessly, and trying to kill her.

Both seem like a dream now...Anyhow, today, we're building a raft to see the outside world... I can't wait.

Entry 2:

Ever since that day the islands were consumed by darkness, I've been through a lot. First, I found myself in another world; something I'd always wanted to see since I was young...I then met a woman named Maleficent. She seemed arrogant... like I was in those dreams.

But she said she'd help give me strength to help my best girl friend, Kairi... OK, I had a crush on Sora... But I knew he loved Kairi.

Maybe out of jealousy, or wanting to do something to help, I let Maleficent teach me a few things. I didn't like her. With a name like THAT, come on, who WOULD trust her? But I had no choice at the time. When I saw Sora again, he had a weapon called a "Keyblade." I was curious about it, and when I had it in my hand, it felt like a part of me.

Maleficent tried to tell me that Sora'd abandoned me, but I knew better. Friends never do that. Still, her gift to control the Heartless-beings of pure darkness-was tempting, but I knew I had to be strong on my own merits. I did in, the end, take the gift, but only to use as a last resort in case I was surrounded.

Then "Ansem", a massively powerful Heartless, possessed me after Sora reclaimed the Keyblade after I somehow claimed it, despite my efforts at not becoming his new body...I still feel used.

After "Ansem" was stopped, as I journeyed through a place called Castle Oblivion to face my darkness by going through my memories, I found myself in a world similar to my dreams of Equestria and Canterlot High. I don't understand why I experienced what I'm sure were dreams at the time, but I went on my journey, nevertheless.

I faced my darkness and accepted it as a part of me, and faced "Ansem" again, and defeated him. Now I await for Sora to awaken as his memories are put back together again...

Entry 3:

Yesterday Mickey, a friend I'd made asked me what was wrong, when he saw something was on my mind. I told him about the dreams I had, and the odd world I'd seen in Castle Oblivion.

His response shocked me.

"So, you're Looping too, huh?"

It was then I learned what the "dreams" I'd had were; memories. They were the real thing: I WAS Sunset Shimmer. That was who I truly was. It explained why my "Dark Mode", the form I'd taken when I harnessed my darkness in my heart to its full power, looked the way it did. It was the form I'd taken when I'd put on the crown that fateful night. Apparently, I'd just begun to experience these Loops, and me having what's called a "Fused Loop" so early on threw my memories off so badly, I couldn't tell the difference in my memories.

And it also explained the odd looks Sora'd given me at first. He was "Looping" as well; in fact he was the "Anchor" for this particular part of the multiverse. Mickey was an Anchor for the "Disney" Loops in general, which were separate from the Kingdom Hearts Loops (though they did share many similar inhabitants).

I was gonna get Sora back for not saying anything when I saw him again. But for now, I need to make sure that meeting does happen.

Entry 4:

I've had to go through a lot, even having to look like "Ansem" when I had to stop Roxas, who had been created when Sora had to free Kairi's heart, so Sora could wake up from his sleep. But when we did meet again, I did give Sora a good talking to. He apologized for it, saying he wasn't sure where I was from and smiled at me, as he always did... Curse that smile of his.

After that, the whole "Mark Of Mastery Exam" business occurred, to be sure we'd be ready for Xehanort, the one responsible for all that had occurred, when he returned... Sora's gotten used to the darkness by now, so he didn't end up suffering what Mickey told me he did in the baseline. Even I hadn't gone that far back when I was still a jerk. I'd never literally shatter someone's heart like that.

The Xehadorks' faces when Sora leapt up from his seat during our encounter with the True Organization XIII, the group made of Xehanort's other selves, was PRICELESS. They did not expect their little vessel to have gotten past what they'd done to him.

After that, Sora said the Loop usually ended here, but told me that we would meet again someday, and as I held my Keyblade, Shimmering Sunset, in my hand, I smiled. Sora is a true friend, indeed...

Entry 5:

I Awoke in a bed I didn't recognize. Shouldn't I be home? I frowned, remembering what I'd been through with Sora and Mickey, and what my Keyblade felt like to give me hope...

And then a flash of light, and my Keyblade appeared. How? Then I remembered Mickey saying some things carried over between Loops... Guess this had, as well...

When I see you again, Twilight, I'll definitely have some questions for you. But for now, I have to find out where I am.

Someday, I'll be home again, and then, Twilight... I hope you forgive this fool.

* * *

2.3 (Blazingen1): [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] / [Phineas and Ferb] / [Pokémon] / [Big Hero 6]

**Baymax, you're Leaking Everywhere Part 1**

Donny, the smart one on the ninja turtles' team, watched confused as Mikey hugged an inflatable white robot. Said robot was currently wearing a cyan mask. He kinda looks like the Stay Puft marshmallow man.

"He's like an inflatable ninja! Can we keep him?"

"I am Baymax. My Ninja skills are sweet," said the vinyl robot, Baymax.

Donny could only scratch his head. The robot seemed unusual, and it was very high tech. Vinyl skin, carbon fibre endoskeleton, advanced scanning system tied to highly advanced fibre optics, to say the least. Oh and a very large range of medical techniques and procedures.

"Always wait one hour before swimming," as he had said it.

"I'm pretty sure master Splinter won't mind having him around. What I want to know is... where did you find him? Or rather, where did he come from?"

* * *

"MOM! MOM! MOM! LOOK IN THE BACKYARD! THE BOYS HAVE BUILT SOME KIND OF MARSHMALLOW MAN!" yelled a currently UnAwake Candace Flynn. Finally this was her chance to show mom.

Outside, the sudden rain was pouring heavily, considering it hasn't yet rained in Danville for months, it's coming down with gusto. The boys and their friends were working on something earlier but the rain stopped them in their tracks, and thus they were now in their living room.

"What is it this time-Oh my." What she saw in front of her stopped her in her tracks.

What she saw was her two boys, their friends and the fireside girls all leaning or hugging on the large inflatable balloon man.

"Are you satisfied with your care?"

"Hmm. Yes. Yes we are," purred Awake Phineas from under the lump of white. Awake Ferb silently agreed with his step-brother. After a loop of bad experiences with Tradition and others, having a relaxing hug from a soft robot was rather quaint.

"YES! She sees it. Finally, I've busted the boys building one of their crazy contraptions."

"Oh, we didn't build him Candace. He just suddenly walked up to us and asked us about our health. ""Say what now?" asked a perplexed Candace.

"What's going on boys? And who's this?"

The robot in subject turned his head to face her, lifted up his arms and recited, "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. I was programmed by Tadashi to heal the sick and injured."

"Um, hello there. Baymax? May i ask what you are doing to my son and the kids?" she said in a tone that expressed her confusion. This had got to be one of those science projects the scientists were making. They did put up a query on producing 'soft robots', as they called it, but to have one currently one in their own home?

"They had gotten wet in the rain, and their body temperature has dropped. i had offered to provide them warmth. They are my patients."

'Well that, and to comfort us I guess.' Phineas reasoned within his mind. It was... tiring to overcome trying loops. Even if they were hundreds of years old, such experiences don't leave very easily.

"Hmm, can I join?"

"Mom!" shouted an indignant Candace.

"Certainly." He answered as the kids made room for the adult. He then looked over to the stressed out teen.

"I heard the sound of distress from you. what seems to be the trouble?"

"But why would you?... but then how did you?... but but but... Urrghhh."

"I will scan you for injuries"

"Don't scan me-"

"Scan complete."

"Unbelievable!" she yelled out in frustration.

"You have sustained no injuries. However, your neurotransmitter levels indicate that you are experiencing great stress. Diagnosis: Use de-stressing methods, like enjoying the company of family and friends... would you like to join your family and friends?"'

"Yeah, c'mon Candace," Phineas and the others pleaded. After a few seconds of pleading Candace eventually caved in.

"Oh fine. Move over Buford." "Hey!" She then laid on Baymax.

She had to admit, this was nice. It was like leaning on a warm marshmallow. Nothing could beat this feeling.

* * *

"Oh no! This Charmander needs help right away," said a concerned Nurse Joy, as she dialed up the phone for emergency treatment.

Ash and Pikachu had Awoke early and were to the point where they rescued Charmander, who was UnAwake. This variant however, had left Charmander in a precarious state, and being locked out of their pocket and stuck with baseline abilities for some reason left them no other option but to rush to the hospital right away.

"Baymax, I need you to prepare a table for the patient right away, Emergency Procedures Alpha," she said over the phone.

In under a minute, the PokeCentre's door opened to reveal a large inflated marshmallow man, resembling the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to the loopers, with a nurse hat on his head, waddled in as fast as his tiny feet can go. He pushed a hospital bed along with him.

Picking up Charmander, he gently placed him on the bed.

"i will now scan you for injuries." He said to the unconscious Charmander.

"Scan complete. Your health has depleted, and you are soaked. You need to get dry."

"Baymax, use Heal Pulse please." Ash and Pikachu, and the rest of the gang, watched in awe as Baymax used a yet-to-be-made move on the fire lizard. He lifted both his arms and rubbed them together. A low hum was emitted from his palms.

"My hands are equipped with Heal Pulse Emitters. Clear."

He slowly released a beam of white that slowly healed all of Charmander's injuries. Then he powered down his hands.

Charmander's eyes fluttered open. Baymax, being the nurse robot that he is, took a Sitrus Berry from under the bed and handed it to the Awakened lizard.

"Here. Have a Sitrus berry. It will replenish your health. Are you satisfied with your care?" The Awake Charmander nodded.

"Thank you Baymax."

"you are welcome, Nurse Joy. I shall now take the patient to his room now." He pushed the bed to the doors.

(After awhile)

"He's not a looper?" asked Charmander.

"We don't think so. I tried asking him about it, but he didn't know what the heck were talking about." Pikachu answered him.

There were just some loops that seemed to be slightly odd.

"It's still not as weird as the time we-"

"We have made an oath to never mention that again Ash. Besides, this is quite normal compared to what we've gone through."

Yep. Just another day in the world of Pokémon.

* * *

2.4 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Star Wars]

Admiral Donald Duck sweated nervously as he faced a very angry (Unawake) Darth Vader. The guy was _scary_ , even when he had no subspace pocket to call on.

"Perhaps you would like to explain, Admiral, how one lone officer under _your_ watch managed to CRASH AN ENTIRE CITY?!" the Sith Lord roared.

Donald gulped. "W-w-well, Mr. Lord Vader, sir, after you secured Cloud City, I had received orders from Imperial High Command to move the city to a more defensible position before the rebels could attempt to recapture it. I had passed the order through the necessary chains of command, and it had fallen to Officer McQuack and his men to do the actual piloting. He had insisted on steering the city, and he accidentally landed it in the ocean!. It's the God-honest truth, sir!"

There was an agonizingly long pause, and Donald desperately went through a mental checklist of his subspace pocket, looking for something to fight Force-sensitive cyborgs.

Eventually, Vader turned away from Donald. "...I see. Very well. I will have words with Officer McQuack later. You may return to your duties."

"Yes sir, Lord Vader, sir!"

Donald wasted no time in putting several corridors of Death Star between him and Vader. Once he was reasonably certain he wasn't being followed, he nearly melted in relief. _Maybe I'll defect a bit earlier than planned,_ he thought to himself. _All this stress isn't good for my blood pressure._

* * *

2.5 (Blazingen1): [Marvel] / [Detective Conan/Case Closed] / [WALL-E] / [Big Hero 6]

**Baymax, you're Leaking Everywhere Part 2**

"Oh, Pepper, hey. Come over for a sec. There's something I'd like to show you."

It was a standard awakening for the friends of Tony Stark. First send out a Ping, and then go to Tony's suite in Star Towers for some alcohol and loop discussion. Virginia "Pepper" Potts, secretary/best friend/sometimes girlfriend of Tony Stark walked out of the elevator to her friend's home/office.

"Good morning Ms. Potts," said the ever faithful Jarvis.

"Morning, Jarvis. So, what did you want to show me?" she asked.

"Take a look at who i found in the attic of my old home. An unawake me built him as a kid," he said as he motioned for the wall to open. The wall opened to reveal a red storage compartment, with a white something inside.

"Now watch. Ow."

Three beeps. Then the compartment opened to reveal a white head with two beady black eyes with a line connecting the two. It inflated itself into a large white blob. Blinking, it slowly moved forward, one step at a time, until he reached where the two were standing.

He lifted an arm, and waved. "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. I was alerted for the need of medical assistance when you said "ow"."

"Hey there, Baymax. Just showing you to Pepper. Say hello, Baymax."

He rotated his head to face the curious pepper. "Hello, Ms Potts."

"Okay, you can go do what you want now." With that, tony walked over to his holo-computer and began pulling out files.

Meanwhile, Baymax was currently looking around, until he spotted a soccer ball nearby. He approached it, his mechanical squeaks sounding as he did. The ball moved away. Intrigued, he moved forward again. The ball moved once more. Unbeknownst to the white robot, he was kicking the ball each time, making it move away from him. He continued to do this as both Tony and Pepper watched from afar.

"I'll be honest. It's really cute, but this isn't your usual MO. What brought this about?"

"Well, apparently an unAwake me wanted to help the world, so i built a robot that will help people. And I did. He's installed with all known medical procedures and is made to look huggable and non-threatening."

"He looks like a walking marshmallow," she confessed as Baymax continued kicking the ball around. "And its name, Baymax? Where have I heard of that before?"

"I'm pretty sure you've had. As soon as i woke up and found that I had built him; named him Baymax; i searched my entire database on the Marvel-verse to find a match. I found one, on Earth 616, of the Big Hero 6 comics." He explained as he pulled up images of the team surrounding a green hulk(no, not that hulk) of a robot alongside a young team of superheroes.

Pepper compared the two Baymaxes, looking at the images on the holo-screen then at the 'playful' Baymax. "They don't look or act anything alike."

"Personality-wise, they're different. But I assure you this is the same Baymax as earth 616's version. For looks however... I think I can fix that. Jarvis, equip Baymax with 'Backpack BH6."

"Certainly sir," replied the AI butler as a small claw descended from above and attached a red backpack onto Baymax, the backpack latching onto the inflatable robot. It turned to look at the additional equipment given to him.

"Don't tell me. Is it...?"

"Oh yeah. It's exactly what you think it is. Though I can't but fell like I'm forgetting something." Tony pondered for a bit, before just declaring, "oh whatever. Let's see what this puppy can do. Baymax!" he called out to the robot as it looked right back at Tony.

"Suit up."

As he said that, the backpack opened itself up to reveal all its inner mechanics. Armour folded into place onto Baymax's arms legs and chest. Finally, a red helmet plopped into place. As soon as he was finished 'armouring up', he did a little stomp, as if he was trying to show off his new visage. (think Baymax 2.0)

Tony looked proud of himself. Pepper was not so impressed.

"So you made a soft and cuddly robot into another you. Not very impressive," she said to him. But Tony wasn't listening.

"Yea! Big guy! Flex those arms!"

Baymax did as told, and flexed his arms, before pieces of his armour started popping off at great speeds, one of which almost hit pepper if she hadn't done a good rendition of the matrix and avoided armour parts as they flew by her. Tony wasn't hit by any.

"Oh yeah. He needs to deflate a bit first before 'suiting up'," he said unconvincingly.

Baymax approached the downed woman, and stated the obvious, "You have fallen."

"You okay there Pepper?"

"I swear one of these days, if you kill me, I will kill you ten times over."

"I love you too, Pepper."

* * *

Conan had had a normal loop so far. Ran was safe (And fully convinced that he was not Shinichi, thank goodness for shadow clones), the Shounen Tantei (Detective Boys) were safe, everyone he knew was safe as they can possibly be, but one should never underestimate what the loops could throw at them, as Conan had learned the hard way. All perpetrators of crime were behind bars as they should be. Everything was normal, except when the group consisting of Ran, Sonoko and he almost literally bumped into a wall of white in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Sugoi! It's a giant marshmallow!"

"No way! It'd definitely a giant snowman."

"You guys are such baka. Don't you see? It's Baymax from that movie!" exclaimed a bunch of kids from behind the white marshmallow man.

"You think it's really him?"

"No way. It's probably just a promo robot or something."

Said robot rotated his head around to face the group. Both ran and Sonoko were very curious. Conan just frowned deeper and sent out a ping. No response. _Hmm. Not a looper, but definitely unusual._

The white robot lifted one of his hands, and said in perfect Japanese, "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. I was programmed by Tadashi to heal the sick and injured."

Just as Conan was about to ask what Baymax meant by that, he was interrupted by loud womanly screeches from Ran and Sonoko.

"KYAAAAHH! Kawaii." "It's just like in the movies, ne?" "That's right! That's right!" "He's so soft!" they said excitedly as they glomped all over the healthcare bot.

'... Sometimes, I just don't understand woman's infatuation with the soft and cuddly.'

Oh Conan. Women are always complicated to understand.

The robot, as though reciting from a script, intoned, "I will scan you for injuries."

Now that got Conan's attention. There was currently no other scanning technology in the health industry in his world more advanced than the x-rays, but then this robot just scans people for their health?

"Scan complete. You are all in great health, except for that boy over there." He pointed to Conan.

Conan was wide eyed. Everyone's attention was on him, especially Ran. He tried Pinging the robot, but he didn't seem to respond.

'Yabei! This robot is definitely out-of-loop. There's no way current medical knowledge knows about my condition.'

"The Patient is lacking an alarming amount of body cells, and has traces of..."

"AAAAAHHHHH!" he was interrupted by a scream.

Conan's senses were on overdrive. Not only was this robot threatening to reveal his identity, but there was a crime somewhere. Paranoia, honed into a skill, told him to look upwards, where he saw from a building across, there was a man swaying back and forth as if he were falling.

"You!" Conan grabbed the marshmallow-bot by his stubby fingers. "You're coming with me." He pulled the robot along with him as he ran towards where the man might fall.

"Conan-kun!"

"Brat!"

The man finally tipped over and fell off. Judging from the height of the building, Conan didn't have enough time to make it.

 _No one in the way and the car has stopped on the red light. Only one thing to do,_ he said mentally as he pushed his power shoes on.

"Get over there!" he yelled, as he kicked Baymax towards the landing point. The man fell into Baymax's large belly like an emergency trampoline.

(Pssssssshhhhh) Went Baymax as the extra air he had gathered for cushioning was released.

Conan checked the patient over and over. He seemed to be fine other than the fact that he had slight rope burns on his hands.

"The patient has sustained cranial damage, and has inhaled a dangerous amount of chloroform. He must be treated at once."

Thankfully this medical robot was here to help, but one question that came to his mind immediately upon his discovery was, "Where did he come from?"

* * *

This was it. Wall-e was taken to the place where faulty bots were repaired, the repair ward. He was currently doing a baseline loop as a challenge by mimicking one of the human's hub movies, like Agent 007, where he had gone incognito into the Axiom ship to get the plant back. Eve wasn't awake and there was no response from the Ping.

When he was placed into the slot where he usually was, he realized that VAQ-M was not placed in the slot to his left, but right across from him.

Looking to his right, he saw an inflatable white robot that resembled the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from those hub loops. He had two beady black eyes, and a line interconnecting them both.

He lifted an arm and waved. "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion."

Blinking curiously, Wall-e extended his arm towards the stranger.

"Wall-e."

The robot, Baymax, looked at the extended arm, then at his own stubby one, before extending it to reach over to Wall-e's side; which wasn't very hard considering his size; and shook hands/claws.

He didn't know where this robot came from, or how he got placed into the repair ward, but that doesn't matter. They were all in this together, so that means saving him too.

(A little while later)

*SQUUEEEKKKK*

That was the sound Baymax made when he tried squeezing through the trash compartment aboard the Axiom. Wall-e looked behind him, where Baymax's head poked through.

"Oh no."

"Ssshhhhh." Wall-e quietly admonished the bot.

"Excuse me as I let out some air."

*Bweeeeeeeeeeee*

It made quite a loud sound as Baymax deflated, and all Wall-e could do was stare and pray to any gods in Yggdrasil that no one noticed it.

(A little more later)

"Halt!" the security drones were currently blocking their way. Wall-e, who has avoided getting directly shocked by Auto, had prepared a bunch of gadgets for this situation was prepared.

That was, until Eve flew over to him and took back the arm he got from her, dragging the slower Baymax along with her. The picture of her going rogue was taken anyway, which annoyed her.

As the droids were firing their suspension beams at the defective robots, one of them tried shooting Baymax with it. It bounced of his white vinyl hide. The droid tried again, and failed.

This got Eve's attention, then grabbed Wall-e ("Whoaaa.") and prepared to use Baymax as a makeshift battering ram. Baymax turned to look at her, and then looked back at the security bots. As if knowing what she was attempting to do he softly said, "Oh no."

The security bots were pushed aside, like Moses, spread like the biblical flood, and toppled over. This allowed all the bots to move across safely by the path made by Eve and Baymax.

(And soon After)

Wall-e was using considerable strength to hold up the platform to stop it from closing fully. He was about to jam it with a small pike, when he felt the weight on his arms lift. Turning to look behind him, he saw Baymax, the gentle giant, holding up the platform all by himself.

"I am capable of lifting 1000 pounds. Go to Eve. I will hold this platform up until the plant is retrieved."

Nodding, he climbed up the walls, with his magnetic caterpillar tracks, towards the captain's control room.

(And finally)

The loop was ending. Thanks to Baymax, the humans learned a lot on keeping healthy, and thus the next generation was stronger than ever.

Looking to his new friend, it was sad to see him go, knowing that he will no longer exist once his loops end. They were currently looking at a sunset together, by the plant they saved.

He reached a claw to the standing figure.

"Friend. I will miss you. "

Baymax turned to look at him, and extended his own hand. They shook it. Then, Baymax lifted him up, and hugged him.

"You are my friend too."

* * *

2.6 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Big Hero 6] / [Star Wars]

"Hello, I am Baymax. Your daughter suggested that I should keep an eye on you. Apparently, you are not in good health."

**KUUSH KUUSH KUUSH KUUSH**

"Your breathing patterns suggest damage to your lungs. Tell me, are you a heavy smoker?"

**KUUSH KUUSH KUUSH KUUSH**

"Odd, you appear to have suffered extensive skin damage. Tell me, have you been scratching yourself because of illegal chemical ingestion?"

Darth Vader, the most feared man in the galaxy bar only the e\Emperor himself, barely managed avoiding force choking the robot.

Not only was that a habit he was working on quitting, but force choking robots never worked.

Particularly soft and squishy robots.

* * *

2.7 (MrEgret): [Disney]

**Introducing... (1 of 4)**

Sweat rolled down Donald's cheeks as he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the bomb. The opera box was already quite soggy from his past attempts at dousing it, but somehow, _somehow,_ that confounded fuse was still burning!

"Alright, wise guy," he muttered. "Let's see how you like a little Aguamenti on for size..."

Before he could cast the spell, however, a familiar white hand holding a pair of scissors reached past him, and deftly snipped the fuse off below the burning section.

Donald whirled around in surprise, and saw Daisy smile knowingly at him, while putting the scissors back into her handbag. "Donald, if you were having problems with explosives again, you only had to ask!" she giggled.

Donald blushed and chuckled sheepishly while he threw the now-defused bomb away, but something about Daisy's choice of words got his attention. _Wait a minute. Again? This is the first time that this happened this Loop._ "Uh, Daisy?" he asked. "What do you mean, 'again'?"

Daisy rolled her eyes. "What, you don't remember that time when you tried to do that magic show? You needed Merlin's help to turn back into a duck afterwards!"

Donald nodded to himself. "Oh yeah, now I remember! Huh, that must have happened a few..."

He suddenly paused, and his eyes grew wide as saucers when he realized what he was about to say. "A few Loops ago..." he whispered.

Daisy looked at him worriedly. "Donald, are you alright? You look pale."

Donald looked Daisy in the eye, with a queer mixture of nervousness and hope building in his stomach. "Daisy, this may sound like a weird question, but...have you noticed certain events happening over and over? Like television reruns, only for reality?"

Daisy gasped. "Wait-you've been going through this, too?!"

She took a closer look at Donald's face. "Donald, is something wrong? You're crying a little-"

Donald suddenly pulled Daisy into a tight hug, ignoring her yelp of surprise, and just held her to his chest. Despite the tears rolling down his cheeks, he couldn't stop grinning. _I'll never say anything bad about the opera ever again,_ he promised. _This is the best night of my life!_

* * *

2.8 (MrEgret): [Disney]

**Introducing... (2 of 4)**

Mickey strolled up to the front door of Professor Ludwig von Drake, a bag of sandwiches in his hand. "I hope he's home," he thought to himself as he knocked on the door.

The door opened a crack, and a single blue eye peeked out. "Yes? Who is it? I am very busy with theories that may redefine the entire universe, don't you know!"

"Hiya, Professor! It's me, Mickey! I brought food from your nephew, Donald!"

"Mickey!"

The door flung open suddenly, missing Mickey's nose by an inch, and Ludwig pulled Mickey inside. "It has been such a while since we saw each other!" he chortled. "Come in, come in! Tell me, Mickey, how have you been?"

"Oh, I've been fine, Professor," Mickey replied, as he stared at the absolutely titanic piles of papers scattered around the Professor's living room. "Say, what's with all the paper lying around here?"

"Scrap paper, Mickey! I know that all these newer scientists like to do their explicating and calculating on their fancy tablets and notebooks and things like this, but me, I've always been a paper man!"

Mickey took a look at a piece of scrap paper, and his eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the ridiculously complex equations scrawled all over it. "Gosh, I can't make heads or tails of this!"

Ludwig laughed jovially. "It's all really simple, Mickey! I'm trying to deduce the exact nature of Time itself! Quite a little puzzler, actually..."

Mickey started in surprise when he heard that. _Time? Ludwig never showed interest in Time before. The future, yes, but not Time..._

"What do you mean, Professor?" he asked, deciding to play dumb for now. "Time's just a linear sequence of events, isn't it?"

Ludwig chuckled, as he took off his spectacles and started polishing them. "Yes, that's I used to think, too. But now, I'm starting to suspect that Time might be a bit more complicated than that."

"How do you mean?" Mickey asked, even while he got a sneaking suspicion of what he was about to say. _Don't tell me..._

"People say that history repeats itself, yes?" Ludwig asked rhetorically. "Well, my history is repeating itself quite a lot! Why, just the other day, I found myself building a prototype for a bathtub teleporter that I distinctly remember never making any plans for. However, I also remembered just as distinctly, that I had made plans for a similar teleporter, and it worked!

"So Ludwig, I asked myself, how can it be that you remember doing something and not doing something at the same time? Such a thing is impossible, even when one takes forgetfulness into account! If memory is not the issue, and memory is how we know of the past, then it stands to reason that _there was something wrong with the past!_ You follow me, Mickey?"

Ludwig's grin of triumph faltered a little when he saw that Mickey seemed remarkably calm about this revelation. "Mickey? Hello? Problem with the past? Shouldn't you be shocked by this?"

Mickey smiled to himself. "Professor Ludwig, I think I might know what's wrong with the past."

Ludwig's eyes widened, and he grabbed Mickey by the shirtfront. "Well, out with it, my friend! What's the problem?"

"It's a long story. Let's sit down in the kitchen, and I'll tell you over sandwiches."

* * *

After Mickey and Ludwig were seated in the professor's kitchen, Mickey then explained absolutely everything that he knew about the Loops, from the truth behind the Multiverse, to the job of the Admins, to the existence of Anchors and Loopers. Ludwig was confused at first, then shocked, and finally contemplative.

He finally got up from the table and said, "Wait here, Mickey. I need to check something."

He left the room, and Mickey heard the professor mumbling to himself and the shuffling of massive amount of paper.

At length, Ludwig came back into the kitchen, beaming happily, and holding a sheet of scrap paper. "Found it! Theory number three thousand, four hundred and seventy-two!"

Mickey took the paper from Ludwig and started reading it. For the second time that day, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he got to the second paragraph. "Professor? Isn't this...?"

Ludwig nodded. "That's right! Your 'Welcome to the Multiverse" speech, down to the letter! I came up with that one at two in the morning, when I had drunk enough coffee to keep an army awake for days on end, so you can imagine my surprise when you said the same exact thing!"

He chuckled to himself as Mickey just stared at him in blank shock. "The Universe always has ways of surprising us, it seems..."

* * *

2.9 (Blazingen1): [DC Comics] / [Samurai Jack] / [Animaniacs] / [???] / [Big Hero 6]

**Baymax, you're Leaking Everywhere Part 3**

Nightwing, currently Robin, was finding it very difficult to not burst into laughter. Alfred, even though he is usually more reserved, had that twinkle in his eye that indicates his quiet amusement.

Why are they holding in their laughter? Bruce, his mentor and Batman, was currently in the embrace of a giant marshmallow robot. The inflatable robot wrapped its big stubby arms around him and had his 'head' rested on Bruce's as Bruce continued to work on his Bat-computer.

"Those who suffer from personal loss require contact from friends and loved ones."

"No." His response was quick but Baymax didn't let go.

Earlier, the robot had gone up to his Bat-computer and downloaded everything based on personal loss, and who suffers personal loss more than Batman.

"Other treatments indicate physical reassurance." The white medical unit said, as he lifted one arm and patted Bruce's head. "It will be alright. There. There."

Robin could not contain himself anymore, and burst out laughing at the adorable scene in front of him that does not suit Batman's dark scene at all. Alfred had a thin smile on his face as well.

He didn't know where Baymax came from, or how he got into the Batcave, considering Batman is beyond paranoid for a looper, but it was very amusing to see him not react to Baymax's kind reassurances. Bruce probably knew where he came from, but he's currently not saying anything lest he lose concentration and fall into the trap of cute and cuddly behind him.

* * *

'Inner peace.'

Samurai Jack sat on a clearing of a forest on the mountain, eyes closed, using a meditation technique he learned from a Kung-fu fighting Panda. After long loops of never returning home and constant fighting, he has come to accept the times of peace given to him in-between. A samurai he may be, and a warrior of justice even more so, but even heroes needed time to rest and relax.

The he was in is a fused loop between his world and one of another. The future that Aku sent him into was this one, according to his loop memories, and is a lot safer than his baseline.

And so he sat, enjoying the serenity offered by the forest. Down the mountain was a city named San Fransokyo. Although it was a very advanced city in what should have been American borders, it bore a lot of resemblance to modern hub-loop Japan.

He often would go down there to enjoy the culture offered by the mixture of two cultures. He would even go to road-side stands for food.

Regardless, peace did not often come to him. It was times like this too, however, that some form of evil other than just looping Aku, likes to disturb this serenity. Sometimes, they are not even evil, they just enjoy disturbing others.

Take the Warner Siblings for example. As if on cue, they ran past the foliage, with their loud theme music playing in the background, as a portly security guard ran past him to catch them.

"Dah, come back here with youse."

The clearing was empty once more, until of course, there was heavy stomping behind him.

"Ssshhh!" said a voice from behind him. Without even looking, he knew that a little girl in red was currently pulling a giant blue beast along with her, as they tried to find a door back to their own world.

Making no indication that he's heard them, they tiptoed across the clearing, then made a break for it and ran away.

The clearing was silent once more.

'Perhaps now it will stay this wa-'

"AHAHAHA! I'VE FOUND YOU NOW, SAMURAI JACK" yelled a currently UnAwake Aku from one of his robots. There was over a dozen or more black robots surrounding him.

"NOW! PREPARE TO MEET YOUR DOO-"

"Hitokiri Strike," Jack muttered as he swung his blade once as he propelled forward.

*Shiiiiinnngg*

All robots in the vicinity were slashed cleanly in half. They slid down from their bodies and exploded soon after.

*Cher-clunk*

He sheathed his blade. When his finely honed samurai senses told him there was one more robot in the area, he was about to unsheathe his blade and slash it into pieces if it wasn't for the fact that it looked unthreatening at all.

The white robot looked more like a marshmallow, with a large potbelly and a small head, featured with two black eyes and a line. It radiated with a childlike innocence that had prevented it from being cut down with the rest of the other robots.

It lifted an arm, and waved. "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare unit."

The unit looked very soft and huggable. Like something meant for children. Jack relaxed a bit. This was no minion of Aku. He has travelled and experienced too much to mistake this innocent creature as one of his creations.

"I will scan you for injuries." *Beep-beep* "Scan complete. You have sustained a small laceration on your right forearm."

Jack looked to his right forearm. There was indeed a small cut on it.

'Hmm. I seem to be getting rusty. I should hone my skills more.'

"May i suggest an alcohol spray, wiped with hydrogen peroxide to prevent any infections?"

"...Sure. Thank you."

The robot did as it suggested, and cleaned his wound. He then put a band-aid on it.

"You have been a good boy. Here, have a lollipop."

Smiling awkwardly, Jack accepted the gift. He then returned the clearing, back to where he sat. The sun was already going down, but he'd watch it go. Looping can often distract one from the beauties of nature.

'Inner Peace.'

The white robot waddled next to him, observing him, before plopping down next to him. His hands tucked into one another, as he mimicked Jack and watched the sun go down.

'Peace at last.'

* * *

2.10 (MrEgret): [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts]

**Introducing... (3 of 4)**

Mickey glared at Master Xehanort as the mad Keyblade master went on about his master plan to restart the Keyblade War. _It's just a shame that Sora's not Awake,_ he thought to himself, as he got ready to cast some illusions to cover his and Riku's escape.

Suddenly, right in the middle of his gloating, there was a loud CHOMP, and Master Xehanort yelled in pain, leaping out of his throne and grabbing his rear. He landed in an ungainly heap on the floor and the other members of the new Organization XIII could only stare in open astonishment at what was now sitting on their leader's throne.

Riku did a double-take. "Mickey, isn't that...?"

Mickey suddenly beamed. "Good boy, Pluto!"

The dog in question was grinning, and wagging its tail happily. He held a piece of Xehanort's trousers firmly between his teeth.

Young Xehanort was the first to recover. "You...!" he growled, as he called his Keyblade into existence, and launched a laser beam at the insolent pup.

Except the dog wasn't there anymore. He had jumped off the throne when he saw the Keyblade, and the beam narrowly missed the tip of his tail.

Pluto landed on Master Xehanort, bowling him over, and then trotted over to Mickey. He looked at Ansem and Xemnas, and growled.

"Wha-what?! What is the meaning of this?!" Master Xehanort shrieked, as he got to his feet. "HOW DID THAT DOG GET IN HERE?!"

Pluto spat out the cloth, revealing a small, glowing star attached to his collar. Young Xehanort's eyes widened. "Impossible..."

"Now, Riku!" Mickey shouted, as he pulled out a sketch of a watch. He crushed it in his hand, and suddenly, time slowed to a crawl.

Riku was off immediately, taking full advantage of the slowed time to avoid Ansem and Xemnas. He grabbed Sora, hoisted his body over his shoulder, and was back at Mickey's side just as time snapped back to normal.

"Time to go, Pluto!" Mickey ordered. Pluto nodded and picked up the cloth in his mouth. Mickey and Riku grabbed a hold of Pluto's collar, and they vanished along with Sora in a flash of light.

Master Xehanort slammed his hand on the ground. "Hang that dog!" he growled "Now we'll have to wait for the thirteenth vessel of Darkness to appear on its own..."

He then noticed the time spell keeping him and the other members of Organization XIII pinned to this time period flaking away. "Hmm... No matter. The plan can still be salvaged. The x-Blade will be made anew..."

One by one, the incarnations of Master Xehanort faded away, until the throne chamber was empty once more.

* * *

"Wait a minute. Pluto's Looping?!" Riku asked disbelievingly.

Pluto nodded rapidly. He seemed extremely pleased with himself.

"Yep!" Mickey replied cheerfully, as he patted Pluto on the head. "Just Woke Up recently, too. Apparently he Replaced Rex the Wonder Dog in a Fused Loop with DC before we finally ran into each other while Awake."

He laughed to himself, as he went to go check on Sora. "Imagine my surprise when I heard him talk for the first time!"

Riku stared at Pluto with wide eyes. "You can talk?"

Pluto nodded.

"Then why didn't you say anything when you showed up in Castle Oblivion?"

Pluto shrugged and, replied, "Well, I couldn't think of anything especially apropos to say at the time."

Riku wasn't sure what he found weirder: the fact that Pluto could talk at all, or the fact that he spoke with a _cultured British accent_.

The silver-haired boy sighed and went to go check on Sora, with Pluto following close behind. _Well, this is going to be interesting,_ he thought to himself.

* * *

2.11 (MrEgret): [Disney]

**Introducing... (4 of 4)**

Oswald and the Blot faced each other on the blasted peak of Mickeyjunk Mountain. Despite the chills racing up his spine, Oswald stood his ground against the inky menace.

"Hey, ugly!" he yelled, drawing the Blot's attention to himself. "Pick on somebody your own size for a change, huh?"

The Blot surged forwards instantly, making a snatch for him with one of his claws, but Oswald was already moving, leaping out of the way, and bounding over to the exposed opening of the Thinner Bottle. He prayed that Ortensia would stay away, so that she wouldn't have to see him sacrifi-

_Wait, what's with all these fireworks?_

Oswald just stared at the piles upon piles of fireworks that were arrayed in intricate patterns around the Thinner Bottle. I don't remember setting these here...

Suddenly, he saw the shadow of the Blot fall over him. He slowly turned around and saw the Blot rear back to deliver the killing blow. There was nowhere he could run, not without compromising the plan. He closed his eyes and awaited his fate. _Ortensia... I'm sorry..._

"FIRE ALL!"

Suddenly, every single firework lit simultaneously, and streaked upwards in a graceful arc, before coming down on on the Blot's head. Oswald clapped his hands to his ears, as the air was filled with the sounds of rockets going off and the pained screams of the dying Blot. He stumbled away from the noise, tripped, and smacked his head against a giant bottle cap embedded into a large rock. Just before he passed out completely, he saw a familiar black shape looking over him.

* * *

Oswald awoke (and Awoke) in a comfy bed with large pillows, in a brightly-lit room. "Huh. Ortensia's house? Not a bad start."

"Glad to see you're Awake," Ortensia said, as she walked into the room with some aspirin and a glass of water. "Mickey said that you had some medicine for that bump on your head in your subspace pocket, but this should help with your headache."

Oswald looked at her confusedly. "What headache?"

Then, he winced as some sick maniac set off a firecracker in his sinuses. "Ah, that one," he wheezed.

He took the proffered aspirin, dry-swallowed them, and then knocked back the glass of water, while Ortensia looked on with some concern. "Feeling better?" she asked.

"Better."

Ortensia moved and sat on the bed next to Oswald. "So, what happened while I was out?" he asked.

"Well, Mickey and I set up that trap we were talking about last Loop, the one with the fireworks. When you went up to try to trick the Blot into the Thinner Bottle, we set it off and the Blot blew up something fierce."

She grinned weakly. "I maaaaay have overestimated the amount of fireworks needed to kill it, though..."

"How many did you use?"

Ortensia rubbed her arm, and blushed a little. "All of them."

Oswald's eyebrows shot up. "Wow."

"Yeah. After we got you out of the way of the resulting tidal wave of Paint, we had to reassure everyone living in OsTown that Mickeyjunk Mountain wasn't a volcano."

Oswald chuckled. "Must've been quite a bang."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"No worries; we can always make more fireworks. I imagine that reconstruction efforts have already started?"

"Yep! Gremlin Gus has a contingent of Gremlins patching Mean Street together as we speak. You planning on joining them?"

Oswald smiled. "Yeah, but I think I'll take a little breather first."

Ortensia crawled up onto the bed and curled up next to him. "Good. I'll join you."

For the next few minutes, Oswald and Ortensia just rested together in blissful silence. Oswald stroked Ortensia's head absently, and listened to her quiet purring while her tail flicked back and forth. _Yeah, definitely not a bad start at all._

* * *

2.12 (Blazingen1): [Big Hero 6]

**Big Hero 6 Loops, Awakening Part 1**

Waking up falling from his bed was not the way Hiro expected to start his morning.

"You okay there sleepy head?"

Hearing his brother's voice for the first time in over a year was even more so.

"Tadashi?"

Opening his bleary eyes to see his brother back

"Wha...? Tadashi!"

Hiro scrambled to get up and practically crashed into his older brother.

"Whoa whoa there, little brother, what's gotten you so worked up?"

Hiro was confused. He was crying. He had never hoped to hear his brother's voice again, not since that night where he went into the fire. Losing his only blood relative left in his world was devastating, especially for a growing 14 year old.

...But was that really the case?

Once Hiro has calmed down, he told his brother about what he had remembered. his brother concluded that what he had was merely a vivid dream caused by nervousness, since he was a rather shy boy and he was going to demonstrate his invention to a large crowd.

Hiro accepted the most probable theory.

'I hope he's right.'

'No...' he had been wrong. He had been very wrong.

'No no no No NO!' Hiro mentally yelled in his mind. It had all gone exactly according to the 'dream' he had. His brother is running towards the fire where he died that night.

"TADASHI! DON'T GO IN THERE!"

Hiro, still panicked at the same thing happening again, had mistimed his approach, and followed his brother into the burning building, at the exact moment the secondary explosive was triggered. The concussive blow was enough to kill anyone close to it, like a 14 year old boy. Hiro died burning.

* * *

"GAAAHHH!"

Hiro woke up once more falling off his bed.

"What? What?!"

It took a moment for the heavily breathing Hiro to calm down and answer his confused and panicked elder brother.

"NOTHING! Nothing. It was just a nightmare."

"That doesn't sound like just a nightmare."

"... I dreamt that I lost you." It seemed that Hiro didn't want to say anymore than that. Sometimes being the older brother is rather difficult when his little brother is a hormonal teenager. So he did what he could, and just gave him a hug. Hiro hugged him back, but his mind was racing at what he had remembered.

He was alive when he should be dead. He now had three sets of memories, and it seemed like he had travelled back in time.

'Just what is going on here?'

It had happened again. That was the thoughts of Hiro Hamada, the young prodigy, held a hand against face as he tried understanding what was wrong with time. Everything had gone exactly as it did in the first timeline, except for the part where Tadashi perished. He had managed to stop his brother from entering the building, but he had not prevented the effects of the fire on him.

* * *

(flashback)

_"TADASHI! NO!"_

_Tadashi looked back at his distressed brother, holding him back._

_"Someone has to help."_

_"NO! I'm not losing you! You're the only brother I have left. Don't leave me!"_

_"Hiro..." Tadashi was conflicted. Just as he was about to make his decision, he looked back at the burning building and noticed the secondary explosion._

_"Look out!" as Tadashi his brother shielded him from the blast._

_"TADASHI!"_

(End flashback)

* * *

People say that Hiro should be thankful. He should be grateful. Because it could be worse, and at least his brother is alive and breathing. They were right. Worse things could have... had happened, but now his brother's pain is prolonged. He had avoided death that night, but the blast still burnt the right side of his face and probably had 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over his body. Not to mention the coma he is in right now. Hiro visited every day, when he's not busy that is. Right now, he was in his corner of the room monitoring the space probe he sent up there.

He needed evidence that time had repeated itself lest he look like a crazy kid with an overactive imagination. It had happened before, with that police officer. Over the period just before the presentation, in secret, Hiro had worked on a separate project. It was difficult to hide it from his older peers, but with some stealth, he launched a geostationary satellite to observe the earth.

Hiro sighed. For a genius, this dilemma was certainly taking its toll on his psyche. Usually it was simple for his big brain to comprehend the problems in front of him, but this time loop thing was defying all known theories on time travel.

"Sigh." He hit his head on his desk. "Ow."

Three beeps and the huggable white vinyl robot Baymax inflated himself from his red charging station and waddled over to Hiro.

Hiro had taken the liberty of visiting the Lab and borrowing Baymax for the time being. It was rather difficult to convince the other members of his former Hero group not to ask why he wanted to borrow Baymax, but in the end they settled for his reasoning that he wanted to make a system in Baymax that will help Tadashi heal faster.

Anyways, Baymax waddled over to Hiro. He lifted an arm and waved.

"Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. I heard a sound of distress. What seems to be the trouble?"

"Baymax I need you to scan me. Tell me of any abnormalities within my brainwaves."

"I will scan you now." *Beep-beep* "Scan complete."

"...Baymax?"

"Your neural transmitter activity indicates that you are experiencing stress and exhaustion; you should rest; but there are no abnormalities in brainwave activity."

"... So nothing's wrong with my brain huh?"

'So why am I remembering three timeline's worth of memories.'

"... This doesn't make any sense."

Although the details of each timeline were different, there always seem to be points that are the same, a 'fixed point' so to speak. How his parent's death differed each timeline. One was in a fire, another was in a car crash and the first one... he couldn't even remember.

"Tadashi."

Baymax spoke up after a few moments of silence. Hiro looked to the white marshmallow staring at the hat placed on Tadashi's bed.

"Tadashi."

Was that... grief he's hearing from Baymax? It sounded as if Baymax grieving for his creator?

"He's in the hospital, Baymax. He saved me from the explosion, and got 2nd and 3rd degree burns all over his body. He's currently in a coma, and the Doctors have no idea when he'd wake up... But that's not the only problem."

Hiro stood up and walked over to Tadashi's bed, completely missing the widening of Baymax's eyes. Baymax was 'surprised'.

"Baymax, you must think I'm crazy or something but it's true! I swear on all my knowledge that time is repeating itself... sigh. Now I'm just making myself look crazy in front of a nurse robot for all sakes. Heck, I'm sure you're gonna call for an ambulance right about now."

Silence followed after that. After waiting for a response and getting none, his attention pointed to Baymax, who appears to be wide eyed and blinking repeatedly.

"...Tadashi is alive? Did he not perish in the fire?"

Hiro's eyes widened. From what he said, it was if Baymax already knew Tadashi was supposed to die in that fire.

"...Yeah. He's alive. I stopped him in time before the secondary explosion kicked in. Why do you ask?"

"It is because I have conflicting data that suggests otherwise."

Hiro walked up to Baymax, eyes still fixed to his.

_'No... It can't be him, right?'_

"Baymax, repeat what was mentioned in the conflicting data."

With a quick scan to his memory card, he replied, "You said, quote: "Yeah. He should have. But there was a fire, and now he's gone." Unquote."

It really is him. Hiro's eyes watered up, not able to fully keep in his relief, his sorrow, and all kinds of other emotions. Whatever has happened to him was also happening to Baymax as well, but first, one final test.

"Baymax. Fistbump?" he said as he held out a fist.

Baymax lifted his own fist, and in and mimicked an exploding motion with his fingers. "Balalalalaalalaa."

"BAYMAX!" Hiro practically tackled and hugged the soft robot. It is really his Baymax, the one who stood by his side and became part of his family. he wrapped his arms around as tightly as he could onto the robot's large inflated belly.

"It's you! It's really you. I'm not alone in this," he said sobbing into Baymax's vinyl hide.

Baymax, who was still confused, but feeling the sentiment behinds the words of his friend, just hugged him back, wrapping his big chubby arms around Hiro. Two friends had reunited.

* * *

2.13 (MrEgret): [Disney]

It had started out as a relaxing vacation.

Just a quick visit to a neat old hotel that was recently reopened, before they set off on their flight to London the next day. Nothing fancy, nothing overly elaborate. Just a relaxing overnight stay, before heading off on their flight after breakfast.

"Ludwig, they're getting closer!"

"I know, Donald! Just focus on helping Mickey keep that ward up! Goodness me, the wiring of this elevator..."

They did not anticipate the hotel being _cursed_.

In retrospect, that was a rookie mistake. Always anticipate curses in old buildings, especially if there's a terrible fire in the building's history.

Proton streams crackled through the air as Minnie and Daisy blasted at the approaching ghosts with makeshift proton packs, made from vacuum cleaners and neon lights and held together with duct tape and sheer force of will. Those ghosts that weren't atomized by the coruscating energies shrieked horribly and clawed at the glowing bubble of force that surrounded the party. Despite the best efforts of Mickey and Donald, the force field was slowly shrinking.

"Oswald! Ortensia! I need a stuttered pulse of electricity through Connections 3 and 4!" Ludwig barked. "And quickly!"

Oswald and Ortensia pointed matching remotes at the indicated connections, and started zapping them in three-second intervals, while Ludwig pointed at some unidentifiable piece of machinery deep within the elevator with a sonic screwdriver.

Dodging an errant discharge of protons, Minnie fell back towards Mickey, who was still standing proudly despite his legs shaking from exhaustion. "Mickey, shouldn't you call down the thunderbolt now?"

"I tried that... when... the ghosts... showed up..." he panted. "Regular... sorcery's... all I've got left. Stupid... hotel... curse..."

There was a resounding _CRACK,_ as the force field began to splinter. Donald and Daisy moved to stand back to back, because if they were going to end the Loop by being killed by ghosts, then by the Nine Old Men, they were going to go out in style.

Oswald snarled in frustration, and smacked the side of the elevator door. "Open up, darn it!"

As if on cue, the elevator door sprung open with a cheerful _ding._ Everyone, ghost and Looper alike turned to look at the open door. Oswald looked from the door to his fist, and back to the door. "Uhhh..."

"CHEESE IT!" Ludwig yelled.

The Loopers promptly hurled themselves into the elevator, right before the force bubble shattered completely, and the ghosts howled in outrage at being denied another set of victims. Minnie and Donald kept an eye on Mickey, who had collapsed after getting within the elevator, while Oswald punched in the floor number, and then hammered the "Close Door" button repeatedly.

The doors swung shut just in time, as one of the ghosts lunged for the clustered Loopers. Fortunately, thanks to the curse leveled on the hotel, the elevator was no more penetrable to the ghosts that haunted it than it was to the living.

"That was way too close!" Daisy stammered.

"Yeah..." Donald agreed. "Whose idea was it to book our rooms here, anyway?"

Everyone present slowly turned and looked at Mickey, who was just coming to.

"Ohhh, my head..." he groaned, as he sat up. He then noticed everyone staring at him with varying degrees of stinkeye. "What?"

After narrowly avoiding death by ghost, the Loopers spent a few minutes just bumming around on the elevator as it steadily rose to the top floor.

And rose.

And rose.

And rose.

Minnie was the first to realize that something had gone wrong.

"Um, guys?" she asked. "Shouldn't we be at the top floor right now?"

"Yeah, we should!" Mickey said, as he came to the same realization. "The hotel's messing with the elevator! Let's get out of here!"

Right before the Loopers could force open the emergency exit, the speaker in the elevator crackled to life.

**"ATTENTION: THIS ELEVATOR IS SCHEDULED FOR ROUTINE MAINTENANCE. PLEASE CHANGE ELEVATORS ON THE NEXT FLOOR. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION."**

"Not like we have much of a choice," Donald grumbled, as the elevator slowly ground to a halt.

* * *

The elevator doors rattled open with a _ding_ , and Mickey and Donald peered out into the brightly-lit hallway. "Donald, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" Mickey asked.

"If what you're seeing is something that look like the set of an old episode of the Twilight Zone, then yeah."

The Disney Loopers tentatively stepped out of the elevator, and looked around the hallway. It resembled a regular hotel hallway, save for two important factors.

First, while the lobby and the lower hallways had looked old, though lovingly tended to, this hallway seemed to be brand new, as if the hotel had opened during the last five months rather than during the last eight decades.

Second, and more obvious, was the fact that absolutely everything, except for the elevator and the Loopers themselves, was in black and white.

"I'm having flashbacks to my cartoon days..." Oswald muttered, as he looked at himself in one of the mirrors. "If that stork shows up again, he's getting an earful."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about the stork, Oswald," Ortensia replied, while peering out one of the windows. "Look at that thunderstorm!"

Ludwig took out a preposterously ornate watch. After scrutinizing it for a few seconds, he then pulled out a cup of tea, dipped the watch in it a few times, then checked again. "That can't be accurate..."

"What's up, doc?" Oswald asked, walking over to him, and looking over his shoulder.

"Ah, this people-finder is on the fritz again," he lamented. "It should be pinging like a Looper with monophobia, what with all of the people in this hotel and the like, but right now, the only people it's registering are in our group!"

"Whoa, hold on! We're the only ones on this floor?" Oswald asked.

"No; we're the only ones in this hotel!"

Before the two geniuses could ponder the conundrum further, Mickey and Minnie peered around a bend in the corridor, and yelped in surprise. "Hey! Take a look at this!" Mickey yelled.

The others hurried over and took a look down the corridor. Some of them had to rub their eyes, to make sure that they weren't playing tricks on them.

There, instead of a hallway, was a rain-slicked street, like something straight out of a cyberpunk Loop. The tastefully wallpapered walls had given way to dilapidated storefronts, and the ceiling was replaced with a gloomy night sky, filled with rain clouds and the occasional flying vehicle. In the distance, there was enormous skyline, glowing with neon signs depicting various Japanese kanji. The rain was coming down in buckets, adding a distinct noir-like feel to the whole scene.

The only thing that remained of the hotel corridor was the elevator door at the end of where the hall was supposed to be. Its shining brass grille and ivory-white buttons provided a sharp contrast to the monochrome scene.

Mickey's eye twitched. He was being reminded of Mizrabel's castle, and not in a good way. Minnie's hand felt her way into his, and he gripped it tightly. "Well," he sighed, "there's the elevator, fellas. We better get moving if we want to get our stuff and check out of here."

"Right."

The Loopers braced themselves, before walking out into the stormy night. As they made their way down the street, Donald looked back for a second, to make sure that Ludwig and Daisy were following.

The hallway where they had just come from was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

As the elevator trundled ever upward, the Loopers were able to catch flashes of other floors through the brass grille. Much like the floor they were previously on, they looked nothing like hotel floors. Among other things, they saw:

A warped backstage area of a Broadway theater, where the lights bounced off of a thousand, thousand dusty mirrors.

A child's bedroom, all colored in pink and white hearts and clouds, except for a single closet painted black.

The burning remains of a city, with all of the people replaced with cardboard cutouts depicting screaming mobs.

A tableau depicting a party in a speakeasy during the Twenties, save that all of the people were faceless mannequins that desperately needed dusting (it took a while for the Loopers to stop sneezing afterwards)

A pitch-black area, where nothing could be heard, save the endless clanking of some great machine, and the monstrous groans of several unseen beasts.

And so on, and so on, and so on.

"Say, fellas?" Mickey asked. "You ever get the feeling that you just wandered into somebody else's story by accident?"

"How do you mean, Mickey?" Ludwig asked, while he and Oswald fiddled with the people-finder to pass the time.

"Well, normally, with the "cursed hotel with illusions" plotline, we'd be running into some sort of nightmarish confrontation with our own deepest fears and insecurities right about now. This just feels like a bunch of random rooms."

Donald nodded. "Yeah, I've been noticing that, too. We should be knee-deep in ghosts by now. What gives?"

Daisy was a bit more confused about Mickey's statement. "You've been through this before?"

"Yep. Eighteen times, as of now. It was scary the first few times, but it gets kinda boring after a while."

Minnie and Ortensia, in the meantime, were poking around the elevator, when they came across the compartment usually reserved for the emergency telephone. Seeing as there wasn't anything else noteworthy about the elevator save the occupants, they opened it up. As expected, there was no telephone, or indeed any way of calling for help. Instead there was a beaten-up, torn journal.

"Probably from one of the previous passengers," Minnie reckoned. "Maybe there's and explanation for all this nonsense." She cracked the journal open, wrinkling her nose at the scent of mildew, and started skimming through the pages.

* * *

_To whoever comes after_

_If you are reading this, then I am, in all likelihood, already dead or worse. This hotel is a place for the damned, where they wander through twisted reflections of all they might have been and all they will never be. There is an evil here, vast and eldritch, that imprisons all that come here. We didn't realize, no! We were just bystanders, come for a costume party! We were once eleven, but now there is only me. The others were taken, by the ghosts and the floors and the hell of it all. Oh! Oh! Impossible angles, times that never should have been, things that should not be! There was a floor, where the dead walked again! Alive and not alive, dead and not dead! I was a doctor, you know, and I knew that they could only lie still! But they walked! They sang! They SHRIEKED!_

_I must escape soon. I can hear the walls beginning to whisper, sing softly of lands that should not be! But I am too clever for them! My escape is assured and my tale will be known to_

* * *

Minnie flipped through the rest of the journal, which was blank, before gingerly closing it. "Okay, I think I know what's going on, guys."

Everybody looked up from what they were doing. "Well, what is it, Mins?" Mickey asked, while putting away a paddle-ball.

"We're in one of those cosmic horror story deals where a bunch of unsuspecting people are subjected to Things Man was Not Meant to Know, and go crazy."

The other Loopers looked at each other. "I don't feel particularly crazy," Daisy said. "What about you, Donald?"

"Nope. I feel fine."

Mickey shrugged. "Maybe it's like the Library at that Unseen University we visited a while back: the stuff we've seen would drive any man insane, but, well, none of us are actually _men_ , are we? I mean, Minnie and I are mice, Donald, Daisy and Ludwig are all ducks, Oswald's a rabbit and Ortensia's a cat, so..."

The other Loopers nodded. They could see his point.

"So, if the whole point of this hotel is to drive men mad, and none of us are men... then what are we doing wasting our time here?" Mickey finished.

There was a few seconds of silence, save the clattering of the elevator as it rose into infinity.

Donald sighed, and pulled out an unusual metal rod that looked like a chrome, stylized version of his Mage's Staff. "Alright, if nobody's going to do it..."

He pressed a few buttons and several blue lights embedded within the rod lit up.

 _[Ready]_ "Okay!"

Donald planted his feet firmly on the floor of the elevator, and pointed the rod at the wall. "Royal Quackery! Engage Shooting Mode!"

Mickey and Minnie's eyes widened, and they quickly moved to the other side of the elevator. The newer Loopers just looked confusedly at them. "What's the big deal with that rod thingy?" Daisy asked.

"Daisy, remember when I gave you that rundown on the various magic stuff that you could find in the Loops?" Minnie asked.

"Yeah...?"

"That's an Intelligent Device. A magic item from Nanoha's universe. It's the thing that lets people do Divine Busters."

The other Loopers quickly joined Mickey and Minnie. They may not have been Looping long, in the grand scheme of things, but even they had heard of Nanoha. And her way of "befriending" people.

Donald grinned savagely, as Royal Quackery extended from a simple rod to a full staff, and a set of magic wings manifested around the "hat" of the device. "Releasing shooting locks!"

[Shooting locks released. Please install cartridge.]

Donald snapped his fingers, and a cartridge fell out of his subspace pocket into his hand. He attached it to the side of Royal Quackery, and a rather large magical circle manifested underneath him.

The brass grill of the elevator started to ripple and change, as if the hotel could sense the preposterously large amount of magical energy that Donald was about to bring to bear. Mickey could see it changing, from brass to iron and from iron to steel.

Donald snickered to himself. "It's been way too long since I did this." He flourished the staff, and jabbed it at the wall. "DIVINE BUSTER!"

* * *

Everyone within a quarter of a mile of the old hotel jumped in shock, as several floors of the hotel were obliterated by a massive blue beam of energy. Those who were especially close to the blast claimed to have seen or heard all sorts of unusual phenomena afterwards. The most common reports were of "shining figures" flying up and away from the hotel after the energy beam had died down, though reports of squamous tentacles being deep fried and inhuman mouths screaming in agony from the top windows were not unusual.

The local authorities could offer no explanation for these reports, other than a flimsy explanation involving gas leaks. The ruins of the hotel would be visited for months afterwards by all sorts of individuals form paranormal investigation teams interested in the reports of ghosts, to research teams from prestigious universities, who were trying to find what exactly caused such a massive burst of energy. The "Big Blue" incident would be a subject of national interest for years to come.

* * *

Donald wiped his brow, as he put Royal Quackery back into his subspace pocket. "I forgot how exhausting those Divine Busters can be. I really need to practice more often."

The other Loopers simply stared in shock at where the wall of the elevator used to be. They could see down the length of the entire hotel, where the beam had simply erased an entire floor's worth of rooms.

Mickey was the first to recover, and he gingerly stepped out of the elevator, which had stopped ascending after getting a second exit forcefully installed. "Okay. Nice work, Donald. Now, I think we should get out of here before the police arrive; this is going to be kinda tough to explain."

Donald flushed with embarrassment. He had forgotten about that. "Oops."

Daisy whistled. "Wow. You think you can teach me that, Donald?"

Donald got a bit flustered. "Uh, well, um..."

Daisy laughed, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "My hero."

It wasn't until he was on Mickey's Gummi Ship and flying away from the ruins of the hotel that Donald finally stopped grinning.

* * *

2.14 (Blazingen1 and Crisis): [Big Hero 6]

**Big Hero 6 Loops, Awakening Part 2**

"How is it you remember that what happened in the last timeline?"

"I was not aware of what happened in the previous timeline but my memory data suggests otherwise. I also contain medical files scanned from many other patients, one that are not present in San Fransokyo."

"Hmm. Baymax, can I open your access port for a bit?"

Baymax nodded. Hiro pushed it open, revealing not only the Baymax's green data chip, but a purple data chip, that obviously wasn't there the first time as well.

"Did Tadashi program another data chip?"

"My internal scanners do not detect the presence of another data chip."

"Huh. Must be faulty."

Baymax not knowing Hiro was referring to the chip, he replied, "I will initiate an internal scan to check for any irregularities within my circuitry."

Hiro turned the data chip around to see the hidden message on it.

"To: Hiro Hamada?" he said curiously. Figuring that the data chip was meant to be sent to him, he inserted it into his computer and watched as over 400 terabytes of data poured out of it. Hiro's eyes widened.

"Whoa."

Quickly glancing over the contents, he selected one labelled "Blueprints".

"...this is some sick tech." Inside the file were detailed blueprints of many inventions, unknown to him and this world.

"Look at all this. 'repulsors', 'mutagen', 'tree house robots?' Look at this, it's a compact version of your armour. Whoever designed this is a genius. And this! 'Heal pulse emitters'! If I'm reading the calculations right, it's meant to stimulate quick and harmless cell regeneration to the point of healing! I could use this to cure Tadashi! But the materials required... oooh. They're not gonna be easy to get."

Meanwhile as Hiro engagingly scanned over the contents of the data chip as well as making mental notes of some ideas he concocted, Baymax had finished his internal system scanning, and had noticed a flaw.

"Hiro, I have some concerns."

"A-huh." He answered rather distractedly, still looking over all the files in the data chip.

His programming that once said 'You will not harm another human being' has become 'you can choose not to harm another human being'. Instead of being hard-coded into his programming, it's become an easily overridden subroutine. In other words, rather than an imperative, it's become a suggestion, one that he now actually has to consciously follow rather than being instinctive. Thus Baymax concluded that he may be malfunctioning.

"From my internal scans, it indicates that there is a fault within my programming."

"A-huh." Again, another distracted response.

Remembering the events that almost led to Callaghan's death at his own hands, and the minor injuries he may have caused to Hiro's teammates, Baymax silently decided that he should go somewhere else, since malfunctioning medical care units can possibly harm patients, especially with safeguards offline.

"In the interests of keeping you safe, I shall move to a secluded area where I can safely power down for repairs, since I cannot deactivate unless you say you are satisfied with your care."

"A-huh. You go do that."

Still distracted by all the data extracted from the disk, Hiro never noticed when Baymax walked out of the room.

Hiro hmmed as he scrolled through the contents of the data card. "Patients?"

He clicked on the icon, and was awarded with different video files and bio-data of many other patients. He quickly played a video of a cherry blond little girl playing in the snow, then to two boys, one with a triangular shaped head and the other looking like an "F", a platinum blonde little girl blast ice of all things to Baymax's hand, one depicting a purple unicorn, then one of a red lizard with a flaming tail and finally he glanced over one video about a rusty square-ish robot.

"Hmm. Interesting. Hey Baymax, do you remember any of these people?"

Finally noticing there was no response, did he turn to look at the room, empty of the huggable white robot.

"Baymax?" panic engulfed Hiro as he scrambled around the room. "Baymax?"

*Tire screech!*

*Beeep-beeep-beeeep!*

Poking his head out of the blinds, like he did the first time Baymax disappeared, his mind immediately went "Oh no." He looked out the window as Baymax waddled as fast as his short stumpy legs could go, not towards the abandoned factory where Callaghan was, but in the direction of the mountains.

"Oh no, Baymax!" he yelled as he scrambled for his clothes.

'Not again!'

* * *

Finally catching up to the white balloon, huffing and puffing mind you, did he stop to catch his breath, and saw that Baymax was sitting in a forest clearing completely alone.

*Huff**Huff**Huff*

"Baymax, are you crazy?! What're you doing?!"

"I was removing myself from your presence to safeguard you from any harm I can possibly create."

"Huh?"

Baymax explained the diagnosis of his internal systems, where his programming now is no longer followed the original settings. What Baymax doesn't know, is that from what is being explained, Hiro's genius mind went over all laws of robotics, and from that, did Hiro figure out that Baymax may no longer be following any of them at all. In other words, Baymax is now a robot with "Free Will".

"I do not wish to harm anyone." If Baymax had a face, he would be having a sullen expression as he looked down at his belly.

"Then don't."

*blink*

"Look, Baymax, accidents do happen at times, but part of having Free Will means that if you don't want something to happen, then you do your best to make sure it doesn't."

Hiro slowly walked up to the sitting robot.

"If you're worried about the time I removed your healthcare chip, then don't... That was my fault, not yours. I am never making that mistake again. That wasn't you, that was me. I programmed the karate chip, and I was the one who was angry to the point that for a moment, killing Callaghan was all that was in my mind. But you? You are a healthcare robot, one who was just given the 'freedom of choice'."

He placed a hand on Baymax's shoulder and looked at him straight in the eye. "You are what you choose, and those decisions will shape you to be who you are. You can choose to be healthcare unit, or you can choose to be a hero, it's your choice. Sure, it can be hard and scary at times, making your own decisions with no foreknowledge of what could happen, but that doesn't mean it's any less worthwhile. And you still want to help people, right?"

Baymax was silent for a bit, before answering.

"I do wish to fulfill my design as a health care unit."

Smiling, Hiro replied, "Well, you're not going to do that moping around here."

He reached out his hand. Baymax grabbed hold of it. Together, they hoisted his body upwards.

"I still have some concerns." (Looks like Baymax is still a bit indecisive. Let's remedy that, shall we?)

"You're just confused. Trust me; I know, after all, it's a human emotion."

Hiro wrapped his arms around Baymax's large waist. The marshmallow robot looked down at his patient/friend, and tilted his head in inquiry.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm giving you a hug. It looked like you needed it." Hiro then proceeded to pat Baymax's head, akin to how _he_ did it the first time, and using _his_ words, said, "You will be alright. There. There."

If Baymax could smile he would right now.

"Now come on buddy. Let's go home."

"OoooOOookkaaAAyyYy."

"Baymax?"

"LoooOOoow BattteeeeErryyyyy." Baymax drooped a little as he swayed around like a guy on alcohol.

"Not again!" Hiro exclaimed as he slapped his hand onto his face, then proceeded to help Baymax drag his hide home.

* * *

2.15 (MrEgret and Evilhumour): [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [Keys to the Kingdom]

SATURDAY AND THE RABBIT

"Donald, are you saying that your plan to find our tickets to the opera... that took us months to get the money to buy... and that you lost after that freak windstorm... is to visit an ocean that exists _outside of the known universe?_ "

"Don't worry about it, Daisy! Everything truly lost turns up there; we'll find it like _that!_ Honest!"

"And how do you know that?"

"The Anchor from that universe told me so! You can ask him!"

"...Actually, I kinda want to see this for myself."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Oh boy, oh boy! I'll go tell Mickey and the others!"

"Okay, but if that bomb shows up again, there's going to be trouble."

* * *

In the middle of the endless storm, the little steamboat sailed on. Mickey was at the helm, naturally, and was doing his level best to keep the ship on course and right-side up.

"Riku!" he bellowed as a particularly large wave buffeted the ship, nearly sending him sprawling. "Do you still have that invitation?!"

"Yeah; I've got it right here!" Riku yelled back, holding it in his hand. Mysteriously, the invitation was completely dry, despite the pelting rain and crashing waves.

"Well, read it already! Donald and Daisy are running out of coal for the engine, and Minnie and Oswald say the darn thing's not going to last much longer in the storm anyways!"

"Aye-aye, sir!"

Riku wiped some of the rain out of his eyes, and tried to make out the words on the invitation. "I, Arthur Penhaligon, Rightful Heir to the House, invite the bearer of this invitation and his companions to join me and the Duchess Wednesday to a luncheon of seventeen removes, to be held a day from today, House time..."

Just then, the storm abruptly stopped, and the waves settled down to a much more reasonable level. The steamboat and its passengers were in a wholly unfamiliar section of Ocean. Despite only sailing a few miles away from the coast of Florida into the Bermuda Triangle, there was absolutely no sign of land anywhere.

There was sorcery on the air. Mickey could feel it in his bones.

"Well, fellas," Mickey announced, "here we are: the Border Sea! All hands on deck, so we can do a crew check!"

Meanwhile, in the Upper House, a particularly beautiful superior Denizen smirked as she read a report from one of her underlings. "So, the "Loopers" have arrived, have they?" she murmured to herself. "Excellent."

* * *

After a few hours of chugging through the endless Border Sea, Oswald saw a red speck in the distance. "Hey, Mickey! There's something ahead! Maybe a buoy!"

"I see it, Oswald! We'll be alongside it in a few minutes!"

Suddenly, a larger speck in the distance appeared, and started to grow in size, until it was no longer just a speck, but obviously another ship. Weirdly, it looked more like an office building that had been made to float, than like any actual ship.

Oswald pulled out a telescope to take a closer look. "Mickey! The other ship's picking up somebody from the buoy!"

Riku suddenly popped his head out of the window of the boiler deck. "That'll be Arthur," he announced. "I'll send him a ping."

There was a single loud chime on the air that reverberated through the Loopers' bones. Through the telescope, Oswald saw that nearly everybody on board the other ship had jerked to attention briefly before looking around in confusion. "Hey, Riku?" he asked. "Was a ping that loud really necessary?"

Riku frowned in confusion. "What? But I sent out the quietest ping I could manage. That shouldn't have happened at all..."

Suddenly, Mickey heard a faint shouting coming from the other boat. "We're being hailed! Where's my wand..."

He pulled out his wand from the Potterverse, pointed it at his own throat, and murmured, " _Sonorus_."

When he raised his voice again, it was as if he was speaking through a megaphone. "AHOY! THIS IS CAPTAIN MICKEY MOUSE OF THE STEAMBOAT WILLIE! PERMISSION TO COME ABOARD, SIR?"

* * *

It had not been a very good day for Arthur Penhaligon.

First, while he was recovering from his re-broken leg, his entire bed was swept into the Border Sea with him aboard, along with Leaf. He had no idea where he was or where she was, his cast was coming undone, and his bed was sinking.

He was able to grab ahold of the buoy, only for his hand to be stained red, and for those freaky birds to emerge and fly off while calling him a thief. Then, just when he was picked up by the Moth, that weird chime had gone off, and everyone except him had snapped to attention.

He knew of only one sort of being that could be responsible for this, and he was in no shape to take on one of the Morrow Days.

He clutched at the Mariner's Medallion, his only real defense, and thought, _Mariner, I have no idea if you can hear me, but if you can, send help NOW!_

His building state of panic abruptly turned to confusion when a steamboat that looked like it sailed out of a Walt Disney cartoon pulled up alongside the Moth, and the captain announced himself as Mickey Mouse. _What the hell? Is this a trap or something?_

Whether or not it was actually Mickey's voice, it seemed to shock Captain Catapillow. He couldn't' stop mumbling "Um", "Ah", or "Er," before turning to Dr. Scamadros. "Do you believe it to be prudent to let them onboard, Doctor? They may be Raised Rats looking for secrets to steal..."

Dr. Scamadros shook his head, as the tattoos on his face and neck changed from ticking watches to crowns looped around scepters. "Unlikely, Captain. None of the Raised Rats to our knowledge have the talent or the power to create a sorcerous chime of that magnitude. In fact, I believe that only a superior Denizen or similar creature of equivalent authority can do so."

"Oh dear. In that case, we should probably, ah, greet them. Mister Sunscorch, if you could..."

"Aye, sir!" Sunscorch replied, before turning to bark orders at the crew. Arthur started to move to get out of the way, but his busted leg put paid to that idea, and he collapsed on the deck.

Sunscorch pulled Arthur to his feet. "Easy there, lad," he cautioned. "You're no help to us with that bum leg of yours. You lot! Get Arth here down to the ship's doc, and get his leg fixed up!"

As a couple of Denizens supported Arthur and started walking him down below decks, he was able to catch a glimpse of several guy lines pulling the two ships together, and a rope ladder being brought out before the pain shooting through his leg made him black out.

* * *

In the confines of her office, Superior Saturday looked at the picture that her sorcerers had provided her of the 'Loopers.', complete with helpful notes and addenda on the sides. "Now, which one to bring to me?" she asked herself. "Not the female duck; she's barely more temporally significant than an ordinary mortal. I need a more experienced Looper to help me..."

She looked at the picture of the Mouse, briefly considered him, and then dismissed him. The last thing she needed was another rival, and according to the notes, he appeared powerful enough to rival even her glorious personage in strength.

She went through a similar thought process when considering the male duck and the silver-haired boy, but the rabbit caught her eye. "Oh? This one is different."

Yes, from the reports written on the margins, the rabbit was giving off a level of magical energy that was roughly equivalent to one of her sorcerers. Powerful enough to be useful, but not enough to be a threat to her exalted position.

Perfect.

She called the Sixth Key to her hand, and with a few quick flicks of the wrist, conjured a letter. She wrote out an invitation to tea for the rabbit, and him alone, to be held in her chambers forthwith. After folding it up, and sealing it with her personal seal, it was but a mere trifle to send the letter on its way. A regular Denizen would have to pay postage first, but she was Superior Saturday, and such concerns were beneath her.

"Soon," she whispered, "the Incomparable Gardens will be mine, as they should have been all of those years ago..."

* * *

Mickey and his friends looked up at the very confused looking men and women, who seemed to be better suited to be in an office then the seas, struggle with how to properly tie together the two ships. A man, the tallest of the bunch and dressed the best outfit out of them looked down at them, and bit his lip with indecision.

Finally, he turned his attention to Riku and spoke, "Um, ah, greetings Captain Mickey Mouse of the Steamboat Willie." He then turned his head to another man, and continued to go "um" as he tried to think of something.

"Wait a moment," Riku said, holding his hand up, "I'm not Mickey, he is."

He pointed to his friend, which caused all the being on the ship to wince, reminding Riku of what Arthur told him of Denizens. He decided to make it a bit easier for his friends. "Grand Keyblade Master Mickey, second to the Master Magician Yen Sid, King of his land, Captain of the Steamboat Willie, and other titles, may I help you up?" he asked. He gave his friend a sly wink, watching the Denizens straighten up and relax at the list of titles that Mickey had.

"Well of course, Riku, but I'd like Minnie and Daisy up first." Mickey smiled and nodded his head as the Denizens started to lower down rope for their group.

As the girls started to climb up the ship, they did not notice a speck flying closer to their group as few ever look up. As Riku climbed aboard the ship, and Oswald started to bring up the rear, the speck turned out to be an envelope that smacked him between the eyes and back down onto the deck of the steamboat.

"Oswald, are you ok?!" Mickey shouted, ready to jump back down.

"Yeah, not the heaviest thing I've ever got hit with," The rabbit grumbled, rubbing his head and looking at the letter. He stared at it; it was soaked with powerful magic and also had his name on it. Out of instinct, he opened it and frowned when there was nothing inside.

It took him a few second to realize the envelope _was_ the letter and started to read it.

* * *

_Greetings Oswald from the Secondary Realm, often called Disney Kingdom, first in precedence._

_I, Superior Saturday, Mistress of the Upper House, Supreme Sorceress of the House, Wielder of the Sixth Key, do hereby invite you for meeting in my glorious chambers for tea concerning the matters of the Loops._

_Crumpets will be supplied._

_Superior Saturday_

* * *

Oswald couldn't hold back his laughter. "Hey Mickey, can you believe this? I know you guys warned me how dangerous this Saturday chick could be and how crafty she is, but does she think I would really just go to meet her?"

"Yes I do, for that letter had a transportation spell weaved in it for once you finished reading my message, Oswald," a decidedly _female_ voice responded.

Looking upwards, he could see he was no longer on his brother's steamboat but in a beyond fancy tearoom in front of a very beautiful and cross looking woman.

And in her hand was a peacock feather, the Sixth Key.

She then gestured downwards, which Oswald followed with his eyes. With a gulp, he picked up the cup and took a drink. "Huh, tea. Swell."

* * *

Superior Saturday and Oswald spent some time sipping tea in silence. While Oswald was loath to admit it, it really _was_ rather tasty. He would have to filch some of it for Ortensia later on.

"So, Oswald, why don't we cut to the chase?" Superior Saturday asked, setting her cup and saucer down on the table. "What do you know about the history of this Loop?"

"Well, there's the basic stuff, obviously," Oswald answered calmly. "You and your cronies tore up the Will to prevent the universe from going kaput, but each of the individual pieces started messing with your minds so that you'll end up carrying it out anyways. Mister Monday picked Arthur Penhaligon, a mortal kid with asthma, to be the Rightful Heir as part of an attempt to exploit a loophole that would have left the Will impossible to fulfill, but through the First Part's meddling, he actually managed to survive. I'm sure you know the rest."

Superior Saturday nodded. "And the future? Does my invasion of the Incomparable Gardens succeed?"

"Nope."

Superior Saturday was momentarily stunned by the flat and matter-of-factly manner in which Oswald replied. Shock quickly turned to rage, and she rose to her feet. "No?! What do you mean, _no?!_ "

Oswald was unimpressed. "I mean exactly that. No, your invasion does not succeed. In fact, it fails in the worst possible way."

Superior Saturday loomed over the rabbit, her beautiful features twisted in fury. "Tell me," she hissed. "Tell me how I fail, or I will strike you down here and now!"

"If you insist," Oswald replied. "Basically, the Piper returns after being thrown into Nothing, forms up an army of New Nithlings - essentially mortals with some extra bits wrought from Nothing-and launches _his_ invasion around the same time as yours. While you find a way around the Drasil Trees' constant growth and actually get into the Incomparable Gardens, Arthur turns up at the worst possible moment to claim you Key, and your Army gets sacked by the Piper's. You surrender and become his Second in Command, only for him to stab you with a Nothing-poisoned blade when he finds out that you were the one to throw him into Nothing in the first place. A few minutes after that, Arthur gets the Last Key, Dame Primus merges with the final Part of the Will, and _absolutely everyone dies._ "

He took a hearty bite out of a crumpet at the end of his spiel and gulped down some tea. Superior Saturday, not knowing what else to do, slowly sank back into her chair. "That's what happens? The invasion fails and my treachery is rendered moot?"

Oswald sighed. "Yes. In a baseline run, that is what happens. Your envy-driven plans lead to your own destruction, along with everything that you once stood for falling to Nothing. Bitter pill to swallow, isn't it?"

Superior Saturday could only nod. "Is there nothing that can be done to change this?"

Oswald poured himself another cup of tea. "There is one way."

"And what is that?" Superior Saturday asked.

"Let go of your envy, and call the whole thing off."

Superior Saturday was on her feet again instantly, and she was pointing the Sixth Key at Oswald's head like a revolver. "You DARE to mock me?!" she shouted.

"Not in the slightest, Superior Saturday," Oswald answered. "I've been down the road you're going down, and there's nothing there at the end. Nothing you'd want."

"And what makes you think that you can possibly relate to me? Tell me! _Tell me!"_ she hissed, leaning down to stare him in the face.

Oswald suddenly grinned. "Perhaps I should _show_ you."

Before Superior Saturday could react, Oswald pulled out a strange door-shaped device, and slapped it on her forehead. The door swung open, revealing a glowing vortex, and Oswald began to concentrate. Soon, an astral projection of Oswald formed, and floated into the vortex. If there was a telepath in the room, they would have heard one thing:

"Saturday's mindscape, here I come!"

* * *

The mental representation of Superior Saturday glared at the massive gray cloud, interspersed with earth and roots, which hung tantalizingly out of reach. She was so close to her goal, so close to reclaiming what was rightfully hers, she could taste it. All she needed was one more strong push, and the Incomparable Gardens were hers!

She clenched her fists eagerly, not noticing the faint outlines of vines that were forming all over her body. "Yes...soon I will reclaim what has been denied to me for so long..."

"Oh good!" an unfamiliar voice shouted. "At least we're on the same page!"

She spun around to see one of the many elevator doors surrounding her viewing platform open up, and disgorge a heaping mound of Censor parts. Standing on top of the resulting mess was a cartoonish rabbit dressed up like a classic British explorer, complete with pith helmet, false mustache, and machete. "Dr. Saturday, I presume?" he asked cheekily.

"Who... who are _you,_ to enter my innermost sanctum?" she asked disbelievingly.

The rabbit ripped off the outfit, and took a bow. "Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Psychonaut extraordinary, at your service!"

Saturday's psyche could only stare in disbelief. "What."

Oswald pulled out a set of battered files with a flourish. "You mentioned reclaiming what's been denied to you, right?"

"Yes..."

"Well here you are, then! One set of repressed memories, fresh from the vault!"

Saturday automatically reached out a hand to accept them, but before she could, the outlines of vines on her arms suddenly manifested, and jerked her arms back. "Argh! What is this?!" she shouted while struggling to break free.

Oswald started running forward to help her, when more vines exploded through the floor, coiling and writhing around like a bunch of crazy snakes. Saturday's vines quickly coiled around her midsection, pinning her arms to her sides. Tinkling laughter filled the air, as the central mass of vines began to sprout buds, which bloomed into beautiful-looking flowers. The largest flower of the bunch, with a bud wider than Superior Saturday was tall, blossomed to reveal the top half of a noble-looking lady dressed entirely in black. The vines wound together to form one large vine, and bent over so that the lady in the flower could take a closer look at Oswald. "So..." she began. "You're the one who's been meddling in this Denizen's mind, are you?"

"So what if I am?" Oswald answered. "I have a job to do, and I'm not going to let a bunch of stupid vines get in the way!"

The lady laughed again, and Oswald shivered involuntarily at the subtle, ugly undertones of that laugh. "It is no matter. Those vines can be regrown. Now, I believe that you've taken a few troublesome files during your little trip up here."

She extended her hand imperiously. "I'll thank you to hand them over to me for proper disposal."

Oswald pretended to think about for a few seconds. "...Nope."

The lady frowned. "The files. _Now._ "

Oswald shook his head, as he put the files back into his subspace pocket. "No, I really think that Saturday needs to see these. Besides, why would I do business with someone who wants me and everyone I love dead, Part Six of the Will?"

The lady sneered at him, and the vines reared up to their full height. "You know who I am, and you still defy me?"

"What can I say? I've never been really big on authority figures. Kinda ironic, considering I am one back home..."

Oswald suddenly jumped to the side, and a vine shot up out of the ground, and slammed down where he was standing mere moments before. "Yes, let's try to catch the trained Psychonaut off-guard with a _sneak attack!_ " he said sarcastically. "It's not like he's trained extensively in combat clairvoyance or anything!"

Part Six snarled in frustration, as multiple vines shot through the air, all aimed at Oswald's head and heart. He jumped into the air, narrowly avoiding getting skewered, and landed on one of the more horizontal vines. Using the vines like stepping stones, he bounced up to the top of the vine, where Part Six's main body was, and proceeded to do the unthinkable.

He, a mere mortal, punched one-seventh of the Architect's Will and Testament in the face.

Several vines crashed to the ground as Part Six was sent reeling, partly from the strength of the haymaker, and partly from the sheer audacity of what he had done. Saturday felt the vines binding her loosen, just a bit.

"Oswald!" she yelled. "Whatever you just did, do it again!"

"Gladly."

Oswald ducked as Part Six reared forward to grab him, the entire bud tilting along with the main body. He grabbed onto a petal, swung himself upwards, and landed on her back. He then proceeded to slam on her head repeatedly, his fists glowing with psi-energy. With every punch that landed, a few more vines dropped to the floor, and Saturday's bindings grew weaker, until at last she was able to break through them on her own. By that point, text was running like blood from Part Six's busted lip, and her face was starting to lose its coherence.

Oswald jumped off of his high perch, and landed more or less gracefully next to Saturday. "Now, how about that? Was that a beatdown, or what?"

Saturday looked past him, and her eyes widened. "I would be more impressed, Oswald, if she was not getting back up again."

She had a point. Part Six had forced herself upright, and she had a dangerous gleam in her eye. "You... DARE!" she screamed. "Insolent worm! You dare oppose the Will of the Architect?"

Oswald's ears drooped a little. "Oh boy."

Part Six threw her hands up into the air, and screamed, "Now, you shall know the fullest extent of my WRATH!"

Suddenly, every single vine throughout Superior Saturday's mental landscape changed into text, and flowed towards Part Six. She started laughing madly, as the text engulfed her, forming a dark cloud of adjectives and adverbs. As the laughter started to get increasingly rougher and scratchier, Oswald pulled out the files, and handed them to Saturday. "Read them, Saturday, from front to back," he instructed. "I'll try to hold off that mental construct for as long as I can, but for the love of Walt, _read them!_ It may be the only way either of us will leave here with our minds intact!"

The dark cloud suddenly burst open, revealing that Part Six had transformed herself into a monstrous crow the size of a Boeing jumbo jet. She trailed three magnificent peacock feathers that vaguely reminded Saturday of the Sixth Key, and she had three eyes in each socket. She screeched horribly as she took to the sky, scattering inky-black feathers everywhere, before suddenly swooping at Oswald, talons bared. Oswald leaped way just in time to avoid being crushed, and was clipped in the shoulder by the resulting flying debris. He gritted his teeth, and began taking potshots at Part Six with psi-blasts.

As the battle between Oswald and Part Six raged on, Saturday ducked behind a pile of debris, and cracked open the files. Inside, there were a series of pictures. "Wait a minute..." she began. "Aren't these...?"

Suddenly, she cried out involuntarily, as a series of images flashed through her mind.

* * *

The Architect making her, the first Denizen, from out of Nothing, and placing her in the Upper House to maintain order.

The Architect splitting herself into her female aspect and her male aspect, the Old One.

Saturday looking over the Secondary Realms, with increasing levels of concern, as the Architect and the Old One quarreled.

Saturday reluctantly helping the Architect to seal the Old One away in the lowest depths of the House.

The Seven Trustees, discovering the Will of the Architect years after her disappearance, and tearing it to pieces.

Saturday, tossing the Piper into Nothing after he tried to claim the Incomparable Gardens for his own.

Saturday, looking upon Lord Sunday's Incomparable Gardens, as her piece of the Will whispered words to foment resentment in her mind, as it fell past her in the rain...

* * *

All of these images, Saturday dimly realized, were her memories, memories that the Will had stopped her from recalling clearly until now. But, there were another set of images interspersed with the first, images featuring a certain rabbit...

Oswald, being drawn by Walt Disney for Universal Studios.

Oswald, sadly waving goodbye to Walt as the former went to Wasteland and the other left to form his own animation studio.

Oswald, grumbling to himself as he read about how Walt's new creation, Mickey Mouse, was going on to fame and glory.

The Mad Doctor and Oswald, colluding to create animatronic pals similar to Mickey's friends, so that he could pretend to be Mickey.

Oswald, looking on in horror as a monstrous Blot ravaged his home, his people, and his family with the treacherous Mad Doctor's help.

Oswald, brooding alone in a cold dark room, next to the bottle holding the beast that petrified his wife...

* * *

All very grim images, similar to Superior Saturday's newly un-repressed memories. But, as Saturday looked on, the images began to change.

* * *

Oswald, meeting Mickey for the first time.

Oswald, teaming up with Mickey to save Wasteland from the Blot.

Oswald, hugging Ortensia after bringing her back with Mickey's help.

Oswald and Mickey, shaking hands, acknowledging each other as brothers.

Oswald, coming Awake to the Loops for the first time.

* * *

One didn't need to be Supreme Sorceress of the House to make the connection.

Saturday closed the files gently, and looked at the battle again.

Oswald was not in good condition. He was breathing harshly, and there were traces of ink dripping from several wounds all over his body. "Had... enough... you... old... crow?" he gasped, while clutching his side.

Part Six cawed harshly; presumably her way of laughing. "Now you see the folly of standing against the Will of the Architect? She created the totality of existence, of which you are merely an unfortunate by-product. I will re-establish myself in this Denizen's mind, and see to it that the Will is carried out. Have you any last words, mortal?"

Oswald grinned weakly. "Sixteenth-century... Italy... called. They want... their building style... back."

The raven glared at the insolent little mortal. "Then let the Will be done."

The beak came down, and Oswald knew that he wouldn't be able to move out of the way in time, not without opening himself up for a fatal gouge from the talons. He closed his eyes and waited for the beak to smash his skull in, and negate his astral projection with lethal amounts of feedback.

The blow didn't come.

Oswald waited for a few more seconds. The blow still didn't come. He opened his eyes, wholly expecting to be in the next Loop.

Instead, he found himself still in Superior Saturday's mental world, exactly where he was before the blow landed, with one noticeable change.

Specifically, Saturday was standing over him, and blocking Part Six's beak with a glowing blue shield half again as wide as she was tall. The files were nowhere to be found, and instead, she bore the peacock-feather quill of the Sixth Key in her hand.

Oswald smiled as he shakily got to his feet. "Found... something... interesting... in the... files... have we?" he asked as casually as he could manage.

"Oh yes, quite the read," Saturday replied calmly. "We must discuss them at length once you are out of my mind, but first, I have a few edits I need to make."

"Of course. I'll just... get out of... your way... then."

"Much obliged."

Oswald limped over to the elevator where he had come in, and collapsed on a soft-looking section of Censor parts, ready to enjoy the show.

The shield flashed and Part Six reeled back as if she had been hit. "WHAT?! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" she screeched.

Saturday flicked the Sixth Key and dismissed the shield easily. "Shut your oversized beak and listen, you pile of spelling errors."

"YOU DARE SPEAK BACK TO THE WILL OF YOUR LORD AND-URK!"

Part Six found herself quite unable to continue with her tirade, as her neck was suddenly ensnared with a great length of rope. Saturday smirked. "That's better. Now, let me explain a few things to you. I am Superior Saturday, the first Denizen ever created by the Architect. I was around when you were first written into existence, which makes me _your_ superior as well, by dint of experience. Throughout your tenure in my mind, you have done nothing but addle my wits and lead me astray from my true purpose, which is to maintain the House and see to it that the Laws are upheld. You do not accept authority, and are a _clear and present danger_ to the House and the Laws. Your continued existence is unacceptable, and will no longer be tolerated within the confines of this mind. Now, _get out of my sight, and never return._ "

She punctuated every syllable of her last sentence with a swipe of the Sixth Key, which caused gaping wounds all over Part Six's body, and finished up by writing a single word with the Key: _Erase._

Part Six let out one despairing, strangled cry, as a single massive Biblophage manifested in front of her and sank its fangs into her neck, causing her to dissolve into a disgusting pile of inky goop on the floor. The Biblophage slurped up the resulting mess, and then quietly dispersed into a cloud of Nothing that blew away on a passing breeze. At the same time, the clouds parted, and the mental Upper House was bathed in the glorious sunshine from the Incomparable Gardens. Oswald felt like applauding.

* * *

Mickey looked at Donald who also gulped from the glares that Minnie and Daisy were giving their husbands as they paddled on the Border Sea, with Riku and Suzy laughing up a storm from the adventure they had in the recently departed Duchess Wednesday. Leaf was shaking her head as well. This whole House thing was crazy enough, but the whole multiverse thing was beyond insane, and the fact that her parents were _right_ was also scary in its own right.

"So, what happens now Riku?" Arthur asked, placing the third key into his belt, and he started to sink back into the water only to be pushed upwards by some unknown force. "You tell me that I do try to get home, but there is some sort of Nithling preventing me from doing it? I mean, I do understand that you said Leaf manages to get rid of it somehow but I really don't want to put her trouble."

"That won't be a problem Art!" a familiar voice shouted.

Everyone's head snapped to the side where an elevator's doors opened. A Denizen wearing a dove grey morning coat that wield a cane, surrounded by what could only be a full legion of Sorcerous Supernumeraries, stood behind a certain rabbit.

"Oswald, you're all right!" Mickey shouted with joy, seeing his brother back in one piece. He had thought that he would have to wait for the Loop to start over again to see him again, considering it was Saturday that kidnapped him.

"Sure am!" Oswald replied, as he walked towards the dock, with the Mariner finally showing up his own turtle ship with the Steamboat Willie being towed along.

"How are you still alive...and why are Saturday's goons with you?" Mickey asked with some concern, starting to bring out his Keyblade before he felt that ache in his mouth again. He was glad that he hadn't actually summoned his Keyblade yet; if a ping was turned into a fog horn, and if trying to summon a Keyblade was like an overload of pure magic, he was actually scared of what the actual presence of such a thing would do.

"Well, after I helped her clear up some trouble in her noggin, she was mighty grateful." He turned his attention to Arthur and his grin fell way to a simple smile. "She's destroyed your Cocigrue, Arthur. She also stopped all her plans against you, and has nearly all of her people willing and waiting to help repair the damages in the Far Reaches and the Border Sea. Also, she asked me to give you this."

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an object that caused every Looper's jaw to drop as well as the new Wednesday's Dusk.

"I, Oswald the Rabbit, Steward of the Sixth Key and the Upper House, do hereby grant you, Lord Arthur, Master of the Lower House, Lord of the Far Reaches, Duke of the Border Sea, mastership of the powers and domain per the desire and wishes of her ladyship Saturday."

Arthur blinked and then he shook his head. "I, Lord Arthur, Master of the Lower House, Lord of the Far Reaches, Duke of the Border Sea, do accept the Sixth Key, the Upper House and all the powers that fall beneath it." As Arthur spoke, the quill flew from the rabbit's hand towards Arthur's and surprising everyone, _nothing_ physically happened to Arthur.

Blinking, Arthur placed a hand to his head and groaned. He then looked up at the wide grin that Oswald was sporting at everyone's low jaw. "Oswald, did you-"

"Yup!"

"Her ladyship does wish to meet with you, Lord Arthur." Saturday's Noon spoke, clicking his silver tongue. "By your reaction, I would assume you have 'Awoke', correct?"

"Yes-wait, are yo-"

"No, Lord Arthur," the Denizen bowed respectively, "All Superior Denizens, such as us _true_ Dawns, Noons, and Dusks, as well as the Morrow's Days, are aware of the fact that time is repeating, but we cannot recall the time repeats. As the situation indicates, Saturday has overcome that limitation due to Lord Oswald's actions. She wishes to meet with you in an open council, well as start to train you in matters of proper House Sorcery, among other things."

Arthur stared at the Denizen for a moment before he answered, "I suppose, if Saturday has really changed, it would be nice to have her as an ally instead of a foe like always." Turning his head to his friends, and with a sad look as the Third Part of the Will had already disappeared on him (no doubt alerting Dame Primus of his 'betrayal') he asked, "Do you guys want to come? I mean, Leaf, you really don't have to get dragged into this mess, not if we can stop it this time."

Leaf shook her head. "If I'm going to be along for these 'Loops' like you said I am, then I want to be kept in the loop in case I really _do_ wake up next time."

"You know me Art, I'm always up for sticking it to the old bat." Suzy grinned at him, her promise to behave properly forgotten.

"Likewise, buddy!" Riku shouted as he started to swim over to the dock. "I want to see more of this place, and I want to see if I got something that can give her a run for her money."

"And I am _sure_ that I can finally get my papers now, Lord Arthur, now that we both have the Upper House working with us and my fellow colleague aiding me, right Noon?" Dr. Scamandros said with a bit of a hostile look in his face as he glared at Saturday's Noon, his tattoos showing cats and dogs hissing and snarling at each other. Sunscorch shook his head, clearly wishing to remain there at his post as Noon of Wednesday as well as Admiral of Lord's Arthur fleet.

"I suppose that can be arranged." Saturday's Noon responded with clear annoyance on his face and voice.

"Great!" Mickey shouted as his ship came within swimming reach, the Mariner helping the fellow captain up. "Let's get everyone settled and then we'll move on to meeting Saturday." He smiled, lending a hand to help up Minnie when Donald let out a shout of joy.

"Look Daisy, our tickets!" The duck held up the opera tickets to his wife. "I told ya we'd find them here!"

With that, everyone started to laugh as Daisy took a purse that she had lost long ago and started to smack her foolish husband.

* * *

2.1: Even if neither of them were Awake, this would still qualify as a "slow Tuesday."

2.2: An oldie but goodie from the MLP Loops.

2.3: The travels of a marshmallow robot.

2.4: It wasn't until it was too late that Vader remembered that he also let Goofy program the flight computer in his TIE Fighter.

2.5: The continued travels of a marshmallow robot.

2.6: The last time he tried Force-choking a robot was during a Fused Loop with the Terminator universe. It ended poorly, for everyone involved.

2.7: What do you know. An opera with a _happy_ ending.

2.8: Genius and Caffeine: a winning combination.

2.9: Further wanderings of an automaton with the consistency of a popular spongy sugar candy.

2.10: Pluto would later receive one of his favorite doggy treats, and would play a game of fetch with his master. He considered this to be perfectly adequate compensation.

2.11: When she heard about the story later on, Trixie would rate it a "7 out of 10."

2.12: A boy and his robot, together again.

2.13: They were later awarded several million dollars from the franchise to which the hotel belonged, when they successfully argued in court that the abomination living within the hotel's walls ruled out by definition the possibility of the hotel becoming a death trap as an "act of God."

2.14: Baymax begins to follow in Pinocchio's footsteps.

2.15: Meet interesting people, and help them rip demonic legal documents out of their minds! Join the Psychonauts today!


	3. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Three

**Author's note:** This chapter consists entirely of Loops that were written and compiled in the _MLP Time Loops_ prior to the founding of the _Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops_ thread. It does not include a handful of Loops that involved the setting but no native Loopers.

**Author's note 2:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-09. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter 3**

3.1 (Saphroneth): [Kingdom Hearts] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 19.5.

"Okay, guys," Sora said, summoning Fimbulwinter and Fafnir. The two keyblades crackled with frost and fire, and air began to swirl around him. "In fast, beat up Axel, then we can finally get our Gummi ship back this Loop."

"Gotcha!" Donald quacked, his own legendary weapon snapping with power.

He and Goofy fell in behind their Anchor, as he broke down the doors of Twilight Town's old mansion.

"GREETINGS!" a large, blue-black animal shouted. She (he?) reminded Sora of a cross between a unicorn, Hercules' friendly pegasus... and Saix, somehow. "YOU WOULD BE THE DESTINED CHILD WHOSE MEMORIES WE HAD TO REBUILD IN THY DREAMS?"

"Er... yeah?" Sora looked around, trying to spot something different. Nope, the mansion was the same as ever... but those winged-unicorn statues now looked kinda suspicious. "Where are you from?"

"EQUESTRIA." The... whatever-she-was said, lowering her voice enough that Sora could at least detect a gender. "NOW... WHERE IS THE NEAREST POOL? WE NEED A HOLIDAY."

* * *

"Filling in for Auntie Luna suuucks," Nyx grumbled. "Moon goes up, moon goes down. It's boring. Hmmm... wonder if I could make it go... sideways?"

Naminé shrugged. "I'm just grateful for the rest."

* * *

3.2 (Melavio): [Beauty and the Beast] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 19.13.

Rarity looked around as she Awoke, and noticed a few off things. First, she was in a castle that certainly was not the Royal Pony Sisters castle, nor was it Canterlot, nor even the capital of the Crystal Empire. Secondly, she was very much a human again. Lastly, and strangest yet, there was a candelabra and a clock that were currently conversing with her. They seem to be looking at her with varying expressions of worry and curiosity. Searching through her memories, Rarity noted that she was Rarity Belle and had come to this castle to beg for her father's release from the clutches of the evil Dragon.

At least Spikey-Wikey was likely in the loop with her.

"Ah! Mademoiselle, it is a pleasure to meet you! My name is Lumière, and this square fellow of mine is Cogsworth," the candle holder noted, gesturing to his friend.

"A pleasure to meet you Mademoiselle," the clock stated before bowing.

Rarity smiled and curtsied, "Why thank you for the introductions, monsieurs. My name is Rarity, and I'm looking for the Dragon to release my father."

Lumière's smile faltered, "Ah well, our Master is a bit temperamental, so let us go elsewhere first and-" *WOOOSH* A large creature descended from the rafters and landed behind the two animated objects. Gulping, Lumière and Cogsworth both turned around to find... their Master smiling tenderly?

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle Rarity. It is good to see you again," stated the large purple dragon. He bent down to take Rarity's hand in his claw and gave it a gentle kiss.

_Good, Spike is awake this loop._ "Enchente, Monsieur. As I explained to your wondrous servants here, I am looking to secure the release of my father."

Spike cocked an eyebrow, "I'm sure we can arrange something." Both of the loopers began to walk towards where Spike knew the dungeons would be, but were stopped by the loud rumbles of Spike's stomach and the matching sound from Rarity's. Both blushed before Spike spoke up. "Um... I don't suppose you would grab us a quick meal, would you Lumière?"

Looking back at the two, Spike and Rarity found Cogsworth desperately trying to clean his glass face and Lumière with his mouth open. Lumière quickly closed it as the question floated down to him and decided to go with the flow. Perhaps they would get this curse broken yet.

"But of course, Master. Follow me." Both loopers followed the bouncing candle into a grand hall before sitting down at an equally grand table. Coughing to clear his throat, Lumière began to speak.

"Monsieur and Mademoiselle. It is with deepest pride and greatest pleasure that we welcome you tonight! Now, we invite you to relax, to pull up a chair, as the dining room proudly presents... your dinner."

* * *

"Marvelous," Rarity pronounced. "I must admit, I don't tend to eat meat, but this meal was good enough that I might – almost, almost! – consider doing so more often."

Spike nodded, seeing what she was actually saying. It was a reminder that she normally didn't have the palate for meat – on account of not normally being human.

"Anyway. My father?"

"Of course." Spike stood, hands on the table. "There is only one possible remuneration I can accept for releasing your father. Your service to me... forever!"

Rarity barely had time to react before Spike shrugged. "Worth a try. What about twenty years? Ten? Five? Okay, help me sort my wardrobe and a kiss for luck, and that's my final offer."

Unable to help it, Rarity burst out laughing. "You are the most atrocious negotiator I have ever dealt with!"

"Well, in my defense..." Spike paused, then shrugged. "Nope, got nothing. Anyway, my wardrobe?"

"Most certainly. Though it won't be any great hardship..."

As they left the room, Rarity frowned. "Wonder who the Anchor is? Maybe Twilight's around somewhere."

"Could be." Spike waved a hand – maybe yes, maybe no. "But then, this world's hardly small, and we could be on the other side of it from the anchor. Twilight was here once – she was a different kind of unicorn to normal, so maybe that's who the Anchor normally is."

* * *

Belle Bell, owner of a small bookshop in Ponyville, paged through a book on her counter. She was told by one of the local loopers, one Fluttershy, that the main anchor of the loop would be coming to meet her once she arrived from Canterlot. Belle was excited to meet another looper that loved books as much as she did. The door jingled, signaling a new entrant into the shop.

"Welcome to Belle's Books, where the whole world... is... *SNORT*" Belle was holding her hoof to her snout in order to contain her laughter. Before her was quite certainly the local anchor Twilight Sparkle. On her back was a quite familiar individual to Belle. If that individual was suddenly two feet tall and adorably fluffy.

The Beast snorted as Belle collapsed laughing. "I wanna go home."

* * *

3.3 (Masterweaver): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 26.8.

Twilight had a BRILLIANT plan this loop. She'd filled her friends in on it, arranged various spell matrices in the Everfree, and just managed to get back in time for the summer sun celebration. On cue, Nightmare Moon appeared, looking down at the crowd of ponies and going into her speech.

"And now, the night! Will last! Forever!"

Twilight smirked internally, opening her mouth--

"I wouldn't be doing that mate."

Twilight blinked.

A strange brown stallion, mane and beard tied up in dreadlocks and beads, swaggered forward. He was wearing a roughshod sort of jacket and a ratty old tricorn, eyeing Nightmare Moon lazily. The goddess of the night gazed down at him dismissively.

"And who are _you_ to oppose me?"

"Oh, nonono. Not opposing the night thing, really. I'm just a humble sailor, stumbled into port for the Summer... set thing."

"...We're landlocked."

"See, that's the problem. I'm completely lost." The stallion waved around vaguely, half stumbling. "Sailor, use the stars to navigate. Love those things, by the way, great lil' pinpricks of light in the sky."

"Twilight," Rainbow whispered, "should we do something?"

The unicorn shook her head slightly. "I want to see how this goes..."

"Ah! So you admit the virtue of the night!" Nightmare Moon stamped a hoof. "Thank you, noble sailor. Now then--"

"But you see the problem is... if it's night here, then what's it out at sea?" The stallion held up a hoof. "Not. Not night. Thing of it is, if you're out at sea and it's day, you're completely lost. Less you find land. But that only ensures you're a little less lost, less you find a map. You need a lot more equipment when it's not night, then when it's night. You see? I love the eternal night, but put it here, landlocked, and when I get out to port I'm not going to be able to see the stars, lass."

Nightmare Moon blinked. "I... see thy reasoning, I suppose. Still--"

"Here's an idea. Let's make eternal night mobile." By now, the stallion had somehow stumbled onto the stage. "You and me, and all us night lovers, we go round the sea. And all the day lovers stay here, on dry land, and grow things. Then, when we get hungry, we walk up, take what we can, and sail off."

"Thou refers to piracy!"

The stallion considered her words. "Hmm. Yes, I think that is the right word."

"Why would we engage in such acts against those whom we wish respect from?!"

"Why wouldn't you? I mean, isn't that what you're doing now?"

Nightmare Moon looked genuinely shocked. "No!"

"Wait, so you're not asking for tribute?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Ah, sorry then. I think I misinterpreted things." He sighed. "Carry on with your hostile takeover, by all means."

Twilight tried hard to keep her face straight.

Nightmare Moon gave the stallion a long, strange look.

He tilted his head.

She snorted, and turned back to the now quite bemused ponies. "As we were saying, the night _will_ last forever--"

"You know, I just realized something."

The alicorn growled, whirling on him. "What?!"

"I think, maybe, the night lasts forever anyway. I mean, the moon keeps moving, and the sun keeps moving, and really the only difference is which is in the sky. So keeping the moon where it is sort of seems redundant to me. Of course, I'm just a very lost sailor. Could be wrong."

"No," Twilight offered politely, "I'm pretty sure you're right." She got a brown hoof wave.

"So what I'm thinking is, keeping night here means that everybody else in the world, they end up not getting night. That doesn't seem fair to me."

Nightmare Moon stared at him as if he was insane.

"Show of hands! Sorry. Show of hooves, who here thinks that the night is too wonderful to keep locked on one place?"

Everypony in the hall shot up a hoof, Pinkie flipping over so all of hers could dangle upward. Nightmare Moon choked.

"Now, see, all these ponies love night so much, they want to share it... with the world. So, back to my original suggestion. Keep the eternal night, but keep it moving. Savvy?"

The black alicorn stared at him. "But... that's just the same thing as what there was before!"

"Is it?" He blinked, glanced up at the sky, and turned back to her. "I hadn't noticed."

Even Twilight wasn't sure if the stallion was being sarcastic.

Nightmare Moon held up a hoof, trying to formulate an argument, but her mouth merely opened and shut in confusion. Finally, staring out at the crowd, she released a frustrated scream. "FINE! Moving eternal night it is! But we're going to be watching closely and if we don't see proper respect for the night, we are going to stick Celestia back in the sun!" With a flash of her horn, she was gone, and a moment later Celestia stepped onto the stage slightly confused.

"Ah.... hum. Well. That was... not... expected..."

"I rarely am, love."

Twilight facehooved. Okay, time to host an intervention. Her horn glowed, teleporting the stallion and herself into the library; she had to figure out what the hay was going on.

* * *

"...so this is your first time outside your home loop?"

"I suppose it is." Jack shrugged. "Leastways, this don't look like anywhere in the Caribbean. I take it you've never heard of Davy Jones?"

"No. Well, welcome to Equestria, enjoy your stay, and if you do anything to destabilize or threaten the world I teleport you straight to the moon." Twilight smirked. "Other then that, you're pretty much free to do whatever, mister..."

"Sparrow Jack." He blinked and shook his head. "No, wait. Jack Sparrow. Captain. Captain Jack Sparrow."

"A pleasure to meet you captain. Oh, since it is your first time out of your loop, you'll need the Welcome to the multiverse speech. Oh I'm so excited, this is my first time giving it!"

Jack Sparrow suddenly felt a sinking feeling.

* * *

3.4 (Masterweaver): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 27.10.

"Jack. Sparrow."

The stallion turned around. "Twilight Spoirkle! Fancy seeing you on this fancy ship. Fancy, innit?"

The unicorn raised an eyebrow. "Yes. It's very fancy."

"Flying ships, I said. Flying ships. You know, that's very clever, I'm going to have to figure out this one."

"Do you know who this ship belongs to?" Twilight continued calmly.

"Hold up. Let me ask the crew. NAVIGATOR!"

A blonde pegasus saluted, swaying slightly. "Yes Captain?"

"Who does this ship belong to?"

"That'd be you, captain!"

Jack smiled, turning back to Twilight. "So, apparently, this is my ship."

The bearer of magic sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Cloudkicker, why are you helping him steal this ship?"

"Steal?" The violet pegasus fluttered over. "This. This isn't stealing. This ship is his, fair and square."

"THIS IS PRINCE BLUEBLOOD'S PERSONAL YACHT!"

"Was," Jack said calmly. "Right up till he gave me the deed, see, I've got a contract." He rustled at his pockets, muttering something about fingers before he finally pulled out a scroll. "Signature, legal mumbo jumbo, aaaaand... ah, seal of office. Which is his tattoo thing."

"Cutie mark," Cloudkicker corrected.

"That's what I said."

Twilight groaned. "I'd accuse you of casting some sort of spell if I could figure any of this out--"

"You hear that Berry? You're a witch!"

Berry Punch stumbled up from below deck. "Really? Want some of my brew?"

"Is it rum?"

"MOSTLY rum!"

"Bring it on up witch!"

The purple mare cackled as she descended again.

"We totally need to have a threesome with her," Cloudkicker commented.

"I agree. Twilight, care to join us?"

The unicorn let out a tortured groan. "Why are you being so... so childish?!"

Jack tilted his head. "I take it, that's a no."

"HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN?!"

The pirate shrugged. "Funny story, really..."

* * *

Blueblood moaned as the light assaulted his eyes. "Ugh. That is the last time I ever drink... any. Any peasant drink. What was it called, Room or something?" He blinked and shook his head. "I should have it outlawed...."

He blinked again.

He blinked a third time.

He looked around his room.

His bare, unadorned, not-even-having-any-furniture room.

There was a frantic scramble to find his bed, before he realized it was out on the lawn... alongside every other item in his house... and a number of auctioneers.

* * *

"And that is why I am the grandmaster of liar's dice."

Twilight stared.

She couldn't figure out whether Jack was joking.

* * *

3.5 (Saphroneth): [Kingdom Hearts] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 29.11.

The pegasus looked around. "Okay, where the hell am I now? Donald, was this your doing?"

A unicorn trotted unsteadily over. "Wasn't me," he said, with a slight rasp to his voice. "I thought it was your clothes."

"Nope." The pegasus shrugged. "How are you doing with walking?"

"It ain't easy." Donald tripped and nearly faceplanted. "At least you've got wings, Sora. And experience at being four legged!"

"Hey, that's a point." Sora spread them, and flailed at the air until he was aloft. "I'll go look for Goofy."

"Sure, whatever..." Donald sat back, trying to work out how his magic had changed. And, for that matter, how to hold his staff.

* * *

"Huh, new Loopers," Twilight said, as Dash finished describing them. "Well, I don't recognize them from the description. One of each type?"

"Yep, same as usual." Dash nodded. "Strange thing is, only the pegasus is finding, well, walking easy. And even he moves more like Gilda."

"Really?" Twilight nodded. "Huh. Interesting. Well, I'd better go and meet them. Go let Princess Luna know, I think she's Awake."

"Aye aye, Twi!" Dash saluted, and vanished in a _crack_ of displaced air.

* * *

"Oh, right..." Sora said, looking up. "So this is where _you_ came from."

"It is indeed," Luna replied. "You would be Sora, yes?"

"That's right." The pegasus crossed his eyes, and a keyblade flashed into being between his teeth. " _There_ we go, I've been trying to get that to work all morning..." he added in a mumble.

"You know him?" Twilight asked, interested.

"I Replaced one of the people from his Loop once," Luna explained. "That was the same Loop wherein little Nyx did my job."

"Oh, yes, the sideways moon incident," Twilight said, nodding. "Yes, you did tell me about that place. Keys, wasn't it?"

"Pretty much." Sora concentrated, and the keyblade flashed between a dozen different forms. "I've got a _lot_ of choice by now. Anyway, what's your world like?"

"Mostly peaceful, actually..." Twilight said, shrugging. "We can handle most of the villains who show up just fine. Though, actually..." she trailed off, a grin spreading across her face.

"What?" Luna asked, seeing it.

"I was wondering how Sombra would react to being hit by a Keyblade." Twilight shrugged. "Should be interesting."

* * *

3.6 (Richardson): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 36.1

The sea babbled at the hull of the boat. It should have been a good sound, a welcome sound. So why did her head hurt so much? Her loop memories trickled in, tip-toeing around her semi-conscious mind.

"Oi, luv, my rum."

Her eyes snapped awake. Bad mistake, hangover plus mid-day sun reflecting off of the sea did not a charitable equation make. "Ooooh. My head."

"Well, that's what you get for drinking all of my rum. Here, take a bucket."

"To-URK- ugh, that in?" Twilight took the bucket, hiding it under her chin as her feet grew oddly wet.

"No, to bail out the boat it, though I have found it to be most delightfully useful for the first. We're sinking, and I would rather that we make our entrance to Port Royal in dryness and style. One must have a proper sense of showmanship in this line of work." The mysterious figure talked to much. Twilight tried to brain of who he was, but her think was broken and she had a case of the dumbs.

"Who are you again? Everything is all-JACK!"

"Captain, Captain Jack Sparrow. Good to see you're finally awake-awake. Ever since we met, this confoundable loop has kept on- what did your friend call it? Ah, yes, it kept on shipping me with you. My Rum please."

"The wha-? I was drinking this?"

"Quite fond of it." Jack took the bottle from her, distractedly pitching it overboard to her confusion. "You drank it all, love. Rum's gone. Now start bailing."

"Bailing, why-" Twilight stopped talking as a jet of water started hitting her in the face.

* * *

3.7 (Stainless Steel Fox): [TaleSpin] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 48.1.

Scootaloo Awoke looking through a grating. A quick self inspection first confirmed she had hands, but wasn't human, a pony-anthro? No, a _pegasus_ anthro, though her wings were hidden under a shapeless green sweater. Down below a red wolf in a fancy braided jacket was going on in fractured common to a bunch of other dogs in various forms of scruffy gear about how rich the box sitting on the table in front of him was going to make him. Then the loop memories hit. Air pirates, the mouthy mexicano moron was one Don Karnage, and she was currently in an air vent on a pirate airship called the Iron Vulture. Awesome!

She was apparently one Scootaloo 'Scoots' Skyscorcher, and a soon to be ex-pirate cabin-boy. She rifled the memories, orphanage, bullied as a freak, while this world had bird anthros with wing hands, pegasi didn't exist, runaway, hooked up with the air-pirates because she was mad about planes. She'd managed to keep both wings and gender a secret from the bozos, which wasn't hard as apart from Karnage the entire bunch had more toes than brain cells. She'd been with them a year, gotten fed up a lot sooner, and wanted out.

Which led to her current situation. This was apparently Don Karnage's biggest score, stolen from some big wig industrialist by the name of Sher Khan, and she intended to steal it and set out on her own, acquiring a plane and license as soon as she was of age. As plans went, it was kind of shy on the fine detail, but then she was only twelve years old. Scootaloo decided to go with it, she certainly didn't know enough about the world to start making her own plans yet.

She opened the grating and dropped down onto the table beside the box. "Wow! That really is a neat treasure! No lesser pirate could have stolen it!"

As she expected the egotistical canine preened, "Yes, of course, I am the fantabulous Don Karnage yes/no?"

"Oh yes, and I wanted to thank you for teaching me how to lie, cheat and plunder. I guess you could call this my final exam..." She scooped up the box and sprung over his head, dropping the red bandanna that showed her pirate affiliation over his head. Using the head of the largest pirate, Dumptruck, as a stepping stone, she landed at the door and kept running. Thankfully this body had her regular lightning reflexes and acrobatic skill.

"It was... wait what?" The pirate finally caught up and yelled, "Stop that boy!"

Scootaloo charged out of the control room and down metal gantries, yells and cries following her. She met some pirates on the way down and yelled, "Get up there and help the Captain, right away!"

As they ran upstairs, she thanked Celestia for stupid villains. Dropping down to the floor of the main hangar deck, she snatched a grapnel launcher from the rack of blunderbusses along one wall and charged towards the open hangar door, shaped like a raptor's beak. Ignoring the yelling growing behind her, she charged up to the lip and dived off. She barely heard from above Don Karnage's voice yelling, "No, my treasure!"

Plummeting from several thousand feet would be a concern for most people, even a pegasus whose stubby wings didn't allow her to fly. She had plenty of fixes in her subspace pocket, but she decided to get some practice with her in-loop abilities. Her wings popped out of slits in her jumper and she angled her body to power dive towards a cloud, and plunged into it, arresting her fall. Her cloud-walking abilities were another secret she'd managed to keep from the pirates.

She popped her face out of the cloud to check the giant air-ship above her, which was already shedding single engined biplanes like a dog shedding fleas. Whatever else there was nothing wrong with their reactions when it didn't involve actual thought. They plunged after her, and she made sure none of them were headed right for her hiding spot before ducking back in. She tucked the box inside her jumper and made it secure.

She let them dive past her and buzz around below as the cloud floated away from the search area. As she waited for them to drift out of sight, she directed a thought towards Pansy. _Any luck finding other loopers?_

_No-pony from our world, though they may simply be out of range. Locally, I don't have enough to work with yet. Clover's the real expert._

_Don't do yourself down, I wouldn't trade you for a dozen Clovers. Keep trying._

She got an impression of appreciation from Pansy, and the question, _So what's the mission plan?_

_Get to this Cape Suzette place where Shere Khan is, return his property, see what we can get out of it, if anything. After that, who knows, ascend and age myself a couple of years then go after a plane and a pilot's license. From what I know, this world is practically built for pilots. Which means I could have a huge amount of fun here. If I don't find some kind of quest... this looks like the sort of world that'll have one, and I tick all the boxes for a starting out hero._

The pirates had moved out of sight, and Scootaloo figured it was safe to move. She pushed her way down to the bottom of the cloud, and peeked out. Aha, a twin engined cargo job, just what she needed. She quickly fixed pads of clouds around her hooves, and power dived again, unslinging the grapple gun. A quick shot and a dash of weather magic wrapped the grapple around the leading edge of the rudder, and she swung her feet under her, pumping weather magic into them to act as flying skates. Her in-loop self didn't know how it worked, just that she could do it. Her wings could propel her as well, but not as fast as even a slow plane, and unlike her wings, a plane didn't get tired.

She'd been careful to dive below the pilot's line of sight, as the last thing she wanted was for anyone to see her abilities. After about half an hour, they started descending towards a tropical island with some sort of resort that looked to be part tree-house, and partly built out of a wreck of an old galleon. Various wooden docks stuck out into the water at odd angles, with dozens of seaplanes of various makes and models moored at them. The big neon sign said 'Louie's'. Now this looked like a fun place...

She unhooked the grapple gun and let it drop, flying down under her own power, looking for a quiet spot to land. She found it on a beach a short way around from the main docks, and made a neat two point landing. Folding her wings back inside her jumper, she strolled around and climbed up the docks and to the main entrance. She could hear singing from inside, some guy going on about how he was 'gone'. She slipped in the door to see filled tables and a big bear in a flight shirt and wearing a fruit salad on his head singing and dancing. However, he did seem to be looking towards the door and did a double-take as she entered.

Noting it for future reference, she made her way over to the bar where an orangutan in a Hawaiian was mixing up some cocktail concoction. She bounded up onto a stool and waited for him to notice her.

"Hey, short stuff, where'd you spring from?"

"Just flew in, but now I'm here, and I'd like a drink." She pulled an Equestrian bit from her subspace pocket. "I don't have local money, but I can pay."

The orangutan picked it up, weighing it in his hand, bit it and tapped it against the counter. "Well don't that beat all! Where'd a little guy get something like this?"

"Family heirloom." Scootaloo shrugged. "So, it'll cover a drink and a meal?"

"Cuz, if this is the real deal, you're covered for pretty much everything. Oh, hey Baloo, sounds like your pipes are all in tune."

"You know it Louie, heh... mind if I borrow your new friend for a minute?" The big bear was trying to sound relaxed and failing.

"Not my call cuz." He indicated the bear to Scootaloo, "This is Baloo, best pilot in the skies. He's good people. If you like planes, he's the guy to talk to. Tell you what, I'll make you one of my triple split specials. Finest sundae west of Timbucthree."

"Sounds great!" Scootaloo looked over at Baloo. "One for Baloo here as well?"

"I never pass up free eats." Baloo's voice was jovial, but still strained. He waited until Louie had moved away and said, "Who are you, and where's Kit?"

"The name's Scootaloo Skyscorcher, and the only kit I've got is what I'm wearing. Let me guess, you're a looper, and I've replaced someone called Kit who you were expecting instead."

"Hey yeah, but what's a looper... are you talking about the way things keep happening over and over?"

"Oh horse-feathers, sounds like you're new to all this. How many times has it happened for you?"

"About thirty, forty times, you know what's going on?"

"Oh pony, looks like my turn to give the 'welcome to the multiverse' speech." She glanced around, and whispered, "Pansy, holo-projector and a perception filter please."

She proceeded to give him loops 101, complete with pretty pictures. Over the loops they'd gotten it down to a fine art. As she put away the projector. "To sum up, looks like you're Anchor for this world, Kit will return next loop, and from how close you two are, he'll probably start looping soon too."

Baloo was shaking his head. "Kiddo, that's gotta be the craziest story anybody's ever tried to sell me. But I never saw anything like that gadget you pulled either, so I guess I've gotta believe it. So where's little britches?"

"Could be he's skipped this loop, could be he's swapped with me. Pretty much anything can happen with the loops."

* * *

"Great and Powerful Trixie, you've got to vanquish the ursa."

The Unawake stage magician freaked as she watched two hundred hooves of astrological ursine stride down the main street of Ponyville. "But... no-pony can vanquish an Ursa! I just made up the story to make my act better!"

Snips and Snails went through the border checkpoint of 'Uh oh!' and joined her in the land of freaking out.

She mustered her magic, got ready to try and stop it, when the beast's jaws gaped, and it said in a surprisingly teenage voice, "Hey, pony lady, I don't want trouble, I just want someone to tell me what the heck is going on! What kind of crazy dream is this? I go to sleep in my bed at Higher for Hire, and next thing I'm waking up in some cave somewhere with those two running around my feet! What am I, what are you, what's going on?"

"What? What..." Trixie was eloquent in her incomprehension, at least until her eyes rolled up and she fainted.

"Well that was helpful." The bear groused. "You two, do whatever you do for fainted ponies, I'm sitting right here until someone comes up with some answers." He sat back on his haunches in the main square, carefully, checking to see he didn't crush anything by accident.

* * *

"So what normally happens next?" Scootaloo asked, as Louie brought over their triple split sundaes, towering concoctions of fruit, ice cream and whipped cream.

"Don Karnage and his yahoos generally show up, looking for Kit and that gem. I usually have us hightail it out of here before then, but I don't think we can make it..."

The doors slammed open, and Karnage and his goons strode through them. Scootaloo dropped down behind her stool and whispered, "You go get your plane started, I'll distract them."

"You sure kiddo? These are dangerous guys."

"Don't worry, I've got this. Make sure those sundaes are to go, I'm not missing out on that."

"I am sorry to fracture the festivities," the pirate captain announced, walking in and picking up a drink off the table, "but I have a little announcement."

Scootaloo was already using the tables as cover to get around to a balcony, the perfect place to attract their attention. Meanwhile Karnage was wasting time posing and threatening Louie. Oh, he was getting extra for that!

She got in position and made her preparations just as one of the pirates fired a warning shot at the roof.

"Hey, no need to wreck the place, Karny!" she called out. "I was just leaving anyway!"

The red wolf crook's head snapped round, and he yelled, "Get him!"

Three pirates charged up the stairs towards her just as she jumped up on the rail, snatching a tiki mask to use as an improvised board, and slid down the bannister, springing and tumbling over the hands that grasped for her. She'd already plotted her route from when she flew off the end, and spun end for end while grabbing a bowl of soup from a passing table. The pirates finally managed to get themselves turned round and followed her back down the stairs. As they did, she flung the bowl to smash just under where the lead pirate, a whiny suck-up be the name of Mad Dog was about to put his foot. He slipped, fell and in the process tripped the pirates charging down after him, leaving them in a nice pile at the bottom of the stairs.

Of course, Scootaloo had other problems to cope with, namely a problematic pirate captain with a pointy cutlass who'd jumped into her path, legs wide and sword out. She'd turned back to face him, and he sneered at her. "It is the funny joke you are making, but I shall have the last ha ha!"

"Pass!"

Scootaloo snatched the nearest thing she could see, a serving fork from a half eaten roast, and folded backwards, limboing low on her board to slide between the pirate's akimbo legs, and fending off the cutlass with the fork. Just to finish off, she prodded him from behind with the fork as she slid onwards, sending him jumping with a yowl of pain.

She straightened up just in time to push her way through the now empty doors, and cursed not having enough time to say something like, _The forks are strong in this one..._ Pansy, who'd gotten caught up on hub universe fiction, groaned inside her head. She was heading down the pier, slowing as she ran out of momentum, and at the end was a yellow cargo seaplane with a red bow and its engines turning over.

Baloo stuck his head out the open door. "You okay, kiddo?"

"Never better!" She bounded off the tiki mask as she noticed a familiar heavily armed tri-plane docked near him. "Get moving, I'll be along in a moment!"

She might not be in Apple Bloom's league when it came to gadgets, but she knew something about aircraft engines. She flipped the cowling and ripped out a number of important wires, throwing them out to sea.

There was a howl of fury as Don Karnage burst out of Louie's, followed by his goons. "Stop him... Shoot you ridiculous rodents!"

Scootaloo ducked as a blast from a blunderbuss shot over her head, then weaved her way along the dock as other blasts peppered the air around her. At least one took off half the propeller of another pirate biplane. She reached the already moving Sea Duck and dived through the doorway, slamming the door after her.

"I've bought us some time... Maybe I should have flown it away... no, too much start up time."

The seaplane was already surging forward under Baloo's skilled coaxing. "C'mon baby... wait, you can fly?"

"Anything from a Sopwith Camel to a Star Destroyer!" Scootaloo responded proudly, "Though in-loop, not yet, though I've been mad for planes as long as I can remember."

"Well you'd better buckle up!" The Sea Duck lurched as the keel unstuck from the water and it soared up into the sky. "Yahoooo! Oh man, there's no better feeling than hitting the blue!"

Baloo threw the Sea Duck into a barrel roll, taking the chance to check the island below, "Hey, looks like you got Don Kebab and his mixed meatheads all riled up."

"That was the idea. You should know that while that guy can keep an idea in his head, unlike the rest of them, two is beyond him. I didn't just escape, I publicly embarrassed him. He's going to want to catch me alive himself simply so he can personally chop me into bite sized pieces. That means he's not letting the rest of his goons follow us until his plane's fixed, and it should keep him from taking it out on the bystanders at Louie's."

"Yeah, but when he gets fixed up, he's going to be after us horse, foot and marines."

Baloo was slightly shocked by the calculation in the young ponies voice, and some part of it must have leaked into his voice, because Scootaloo looked over at the bear in the pilot's seat, then turned and hung her head. "I'm sorry. I've kind of taken you for granted. I'm not your friend Kit, I'm just someone who met you a few hours ago and already I've dragged you into danger with me."

"Hey kiddo, don't sweat it. Ol' Karny and me have crossed propellers plenty of times, and he's always been the one who ditched at the end of it. Besides, I'd never leave anyone in the clutches of that two bit pirate."

"Well anyway, thanks. So where are we heading?"

"Cape Suzette, you're going to love it!" They were straight and level, and he looked over at the pegasus, grinning. He flipped open a compartment to reveal two slightly melted triple splits. "I even got dessert. Chow down."

It only took a few moments to polish off the sundaes, and Scootaloo looked over the plane she was in properly for the first time. The cockpit had the look of long use, but had been well cared for and extensively customised. Some of the tweaks almost seemed familiar. She consulted her in-loop memories. "Wow, this is a pretty sweet setup. A Conwing L-16 with Super-Flight 100 customised engines? This thing must really move!"

"Good eye kiddo!" Baloo patted the console. "Yup, she's my baby. Me and Wild Bloom have spent a lot of time getting her just right... Wait... what?"

"If that's who I think it is, sounds like I'm not the only fused looper. Earth-pony, good with gadgets? Yellow coat, red mane in a bow?"

"Pretty much, though she wears a jumpsuit... Except she should be a male lion called Wildcat. But I remember meeting up with her, working together on the Sea Duck, everything just as clearly. Oh man, this is too weird!"

"Welcome to the wonderful world of fused loops. Your in-loop memories say one thing, your real memories say another. We've gotta get you doing some mental exercises to help you keep things straight."

"Whoa, I ain't any kind of brain, kiddo." Baloo shook his head.

"Neither was I, but even I managed to learn them. Besides, if you can get it down, you can learn to create a sub-space pocket, a way to store things so you can carry them between loops."

"Now that sounds like a mighty useful thing to know!" The big bear glanced over at the young pony, who was looking at the control yoke in front of her with a familiar eagerness. "So, you said you can fly. Can you fly a Conwing L-16?"

"Never tried, but I'd love to find out!" Scootaloo reached out and took hold of the yoke, closing her eyes for a moment as her fingers closed around the grips. She seemed to freeze for a moment, attentive to something only she could sense. "Hello, Sea Duck. Baloo's lucky to have you."

Baloo had seen Kit take his first grasp of the Sea Duck's controls dozens of times, and for all his natural talent, he was quite naturally somewhat clumsy when he actually took the yoke. Scootaloo was different. When her eyes opened, they flicked back and forth across the instruments as easily as his own. She held the Sea Duck steady and on course like a veteran pilot, and he started to believe what she'd told him, not just with his head, but with his heart.

"Can I, please?" she asked, and didn't need to say more. At his nod, she started doing gentle turns and banks around their base course. She'd flown planes far faster than this, and far more advanced, but she could feel that this one, for all it's primitive technology and limited flight envelope was something special. What she really wanted to do was try out some real stunts, she knew the Sea Duck could take them, but she was only too aware of the privilege she'd been given by flying the Sea Duck at all, and she didn't want to abuse it.

However, her piloting experience included a lot of combat flying, and it was that that caused her to suddenly go into a wing-over and dive.

"Hey what the..." Baloo was answered by the whistle of machine gun bullets behind them.

"Six coming in four o clock high!" Scootaloo rapped out, putting the Sea Duck in a tight roll that put her into a nearby cloudbank. "You have the stick?"

Baloo had grabbed his own yoke as soon as they'd started spinning, but he'd let Scootaloo complete the manoeuvre, as it was pretty much what he'd have done himself. "Roger little dodger, now watch this pre-formance!"

The cloudbank ran out unexpectedly, ejecting them into a maze of towering storm clouds, lightning crackling around them. The pirate biplanes shot out a few seconds later, but scattered and no longer in the deadly staggered echelon formation they'd previously held. Baloo played an expert game of tag with the pirates, swooping, zooming, turning and spinning to somehow out-manoeuvre fighters in a cargo plane.

Scootaloo was itching to get involved, but this was Baloo's world and his plane. She wasn't used to being a passenger while somepony else was paying the freight. However, she tried to sit back and appreciate the big bear's clear mastery of the situation. At one point he managed to do a wing-over and return to fly straight through the bad guys, scattering them like pigeons, then trolled them into following him into a power dive, right to sea level.

The seat of her pants that Scootaloo wasn't wearing felt distinctly uncomfortable as they headed for the water, but it was clear Baloo had some plan in mind, and she managed to hold on to her impatience and the sides of her seat as at the last split-second he pulled a lever whose function had puzzled her and leading edge flaps flipped up, altering the angle of attack and giving him the lift to pull out into level flight. Several splashes behind them indicated the lead pirates hadn't been so lucky.

"Okay, now that was cool!" The pegasus glanced up and back. "But there are some still up there and they've got us pinned against the sea. I've got some tricks of my own that might help..."

"No need kiddo, see those puffs of smoke?" Baloo pointed to some cliffs ahead with a narrow gorge between them. There were white puffballs appearing from around the tops.

"AA Fire?" Scootaloo asked, and was answered seconds later by bursting noises from above. She glanced out of the window and saw explosions above in the heart of the pirate pack. They scattered and high-tailed it out of there with Karnage's plane in the lead.

"Yep! The cliff guns of Cape Suzette. Drives 'em crazy!" Baloo said with a lazy grin as they climbed away from the sea. Scootaloo switched her gaze away from the approaching cliffs and to her companion, who was relaxing back in his seat.

"You know, you remind me a lot of Rainbow Dash... I think you saw her in the pictures. She's the rainbow maned pegasus and she's the most awesome flyer in Equestria. She's also the Element of Loyalty and would never leave some-pony hanging."

"Sounds like you think a lot of her."

"Well yeah, she basically took me under her wing, taught me everything she knew and is pretty much my big sister. I guess you and Kit have something similar. I really hope he starts looping soon himself. You both deserve it."

There was no calculation in the pony's voice this time, and Baloo made a decision. "Well until he gets back, seems I'll be needing a replacement navigator. You up for the job?"

"Am I ever!" Scootaloo returned eagerly.

"Then welcome aboard, Scoots." Baloo opened a storage compartment and handed her a green baseball cap. She put it on as they flew through the gorge and out into a wide lagoon.

"Oh, wow!" Once again, Scootaloo had seen far larger and taller cities in her time, but this was one of the prettiest. Art deco towers with sky bridges made a wide crescent around a vast lagoon with an island in it, and were built back into the hillsides of the bowl that enclosed it. And everywhere there was air-traffic, dirigibles, sea-planes, flying back and forth. It made Canterlot sky-port look like a village cross-roads in January.

She noticed one of the biggest towers had a logo which her in-loop memories told her stood for Shere Khan, and that jogged her memory. She pulled out the box. "Oh, hey, I've still got this. Want to hand it over to Khan before Karny and his merry mutts make another grab for it? In short, what's the plan, big man?"

"Huh, normally Kit hides it back at Louie's... Welp, I hook up with Kit, head on back to base, find out I missed the last six payments on the Duck and have to stump up three large ones, three thousand bucks or they'll foreclose at nine tomorrow." He grinned. "Of course lately, as soon as I find myself back at Louie's at the start of each... loop? I ring up a bookie in Cape Suzette and put on some accumulators I know will pay out. Easy money.

"But first time round, we did a high ticket mission which I blew when Karny captures Kit, and he offers to share the reward for the gem in that box, except it's not a gem, it's some sub-electron dohickey that can create a lot of power. Khan's willing to fork over a solid hundred thousand for it's return, and Karny wants to use it to build a lightning cannon to come plunder Cape Suzette."

He shrugged. "Man, first time round we went all over the place to try and get that thing back. Turns out Becky, that is Rebecca Cunningham, bought up the company from the bank to run, which made her my boss. Now I don't fuss about business, flying's all I'm interested in, so I was trying to find the fifty k to buy myself out of hock. Cutting out the drama, the pirates make their play, we stop them, destroying the stone in the process.

"I end up back behind the eight ball, flying for Higher for Hire, Becky's new name for the company, with her as the boss lady. Of course, now I've been round the block a couple dozen times, I can get round that easy enough, and did, but you know, it's like that time I saved Khan's life and he gave me pretty much anything I asked for, or when I found out I'd inherited a fortune and a big house. It got lonely being just me, or even me and Kit. So now I let her buy the place just to get her involved."

"Sounds like quite a lady." Scootaloo replied. "Is she your special some-pony... some-body?"

Baloo barked out a laugh. "Me and Beckers? Not in a million years! We'd drive each other crazy, heck, we do drive each other crazy! She's a stickler for everything being just so, and I like to take a more relaxed att-i-tude. She's pushy, bossy, mercenary, comes up with crazy moneymaking schemes at the drop of a hat... and she's someone I'd trust with my life, and a good friend."

"Except for the moneymaking part, that sounds just like another friend of mine, Diamond Tiara. I wonder if she'll be showing up here. If Apple Bloom is here, we might see some others..."

"Man, how many more are there?"

Recounting the other members of the Crusaders took them all the way round the bay and until they taxied up to the dilapidated dock that led to the ramshackle building that housed 'Baloo's Air Cargo Service'. Except the was freshly painted and now said, 'Higher for Hire'.

"What the Sam Hill?" Baloo shook his head in disbelief, and stormed out of the Sea Duck and up the dock.

A pink female pony of more adult proportions with wavy purple hair held back with a bandana was backing out of the doorway. She wore a white turtleneck and violet slacks, and was carrying a bale of old newspapers neatly tied up with string.

"Hey lady, who are you and what do you think you're doin'?" Baloo called out.

She dropped the bundle besides a bunch of others and turned to face him. "The name's Tara, Tara Cunningham, and as of 9 am this morning I own this place and that plane."

"But that's not till tomorrow, and you ain't Beckers..."

Wild Bloom came out, equally grown up, wearing a tatty set of overalls and carrying a box of junk. Her mid-Usland accent was even more pronounced than usual. "Sorry Baloo, I tried to boost the radio to get you the message, but the bank came with the paperwork yesterday. She's got a bunch of lawyer's papers and everything."

Baloo started to get mad, then realised something. "Then I've got just one question for you all. Are you Awake?"

The stress he put on the word clearly hit a bullseye. Tara slumped slightly and said. "Oh darn, and I wanted to see if I could turn this place into something that could give Khan Industries a run for their money."

He heard Scootaloo's voice behind him. "Guys, this is Baloo Von Bruinwald, Anchor and our host for this loop. He's still in his first century. I gave him the intro speech and told him about us. Do we have Sweetie Belle and Nyx on board?"

The two ponies in question came out, younger than usual and wearing rompers. Sweetie Belle exclaimed, "Present, and I hate being a rug-rat!"

Diamond Tiara waved a hand at them and said, "Meet my 'daughters', Belle and Nyx Cunningham."

Wild Bloom rubbed the back of her head and said, "Sorry guys, but this world doesn't have computer records, if you want to bump your ages a bit, it'll have to wait until we can find the paperwork and rig it."

Baloo was looking around at the five of them, and just shook his head. "Man, and I thought my life was complicated enough already!"

Scootaloo grinned as she joined up with the other Crusaders. "Don't think of it as complicated, think of it as interesting!"

* * *

3.8 (BlankSlate): [Gargoyles] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 51.7.

Twilight's head tilted so sharply she felt her neck crack. Ponyville had looked completely normal when she'd arrived there. No-one else had been awake, so she'd decided to take a mild vacation and run a vanilla loop.

Now, she was kind of regretting that idea.

The Castle of the Two Sisters was... rather _different_ from what she'd expected. Instead of the graceful lines and elegant style of the Castle she was used to, this castle was...

...well, rather obviously actually a _castle_. In the sense of a fortified structure, with all the heavy, rugged stonework one would expect from a place designed to withstand an active siege. A forty-foot tall rampart guarded the interior buildings and towers, with sturdy battlements and wall towers at the corners providing cover for the massive (though rusted and, unfortunately, closed) iron portcullis at the gate.

Toss in that the whole thing was actually on a massive promontory sticking out over a lake that didn't exist in the baseline and Twilight was suddenly sure she was sitting in a fused loop.

Right about that moment was when she caught notice of several fliers inbound, coming from the castle. A howl split the air, and Twilight's head jerked down to see what seemed to be a massive diamond dog jump off the walls and run towards her and her friends. Answering cries came from above as five pegasi descended.

Even before they got close, Twilight could clearly see that the approaching pegasi were.. not the normal type. For one thing, their eyes were all glowing a brilliant green-tinged white. A quick glance down showed that the approaching diamond dog had the same eyeshine.

"Do you think Nightmare Moon has them under a spell, Twilight?" muttered Rarity. "Pony eyes don't... _glow_ that way."

"I think a better question," Dash butted in, "would be why do they have wings like a bat?"

Twilight shook her head, though the combination was niggling familiar in the back of her mind. Glowing eyes, bat wings, howling...

Four of the fliers stayed above as one descended to land. Twilight set herself, ready to take action... only to realize that the pegasus just kept getting bigger. A moment later, the massive black-maned pegasus landed, and Twilight shivered.

The bat-winged pegasus was even taller than Celestia. More, it was massively built, to the point that in comparison Snowflake was a starving half-grown colt, though this one had wings appropriate to the great mass of the pegasus.

The eyes flared slightly brighter for a moment before the light faded away, leaving a pair of dark, yet otherwise normal eyes. "What brings you to this Castle?" The voice was deep, powerful, and male.

And _familiar_...

Twilight barely kept from yelling aloud. And just as tightly kept her body tense; suddenly relaxing as she now knew (well, 97% certain) that these newcomers weren't a danger to her or her friends would set off suspicions everywhere.

"I am Twilight Sparkle, student and protégé to Her Highness Celestia. I have journeyed here with my friends in search of the magics needed to defeat Nightmare Moon."

The pegasus growled low in his throat. "I and my clan will aid you then. This... Nightmare Moon is our enemy as well." He motioned to those above, who likewise descended.

"Yay!" cheered Pinkie. "So what's your names? We need to get the party planned for new friends!"

"Ach, always with names," grumbled an old brown pegasus with a scar across one eye. " _Everything_ must always have a _name_."

"It never fails," chuckled the red pegasus with a white mane. He, and the last two pegasi, were all clearly younger, about the age of Twilight and her friends.

Twilight let her gaze wander from a chubby blue pegasus to the last, a green pegasus slightly smaller than the others who had no mane, as their leader nodded firmly.

"I am called Goliath. And this is my clan..."

* * *

3.9 (Detective Ethan Redfield, Gulping): [Gargoyles] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 67.9.

Chess was a game. The ultimate goal of the game was to place the King in a position where it cannot escape and it will be captured in the next move. There were many strategies, most were centered around controlling the central four squares. Twilight wouldn't say she was a master at this game, but in her many eons spent looping, she had read almost every book written on the subject, probably on every subject at one time or another. She knew every strategy that could be employed, from the Sicilian's Defense all the way to the Stonewall Attack. In her boredom, she read every chess game and even participated in chess tournaments, along with Checkers, Go and countless other board game tournaments.

But even with her experience, she was losing this game. The two ponies were laying across from each other at a Canterlot Resort Hotel in the city's finest district. Twilight rarely came to this district since it was populated by the richest snobs in Equestria. It was only at an Awake Shining's request that she came, since the pony across from her had replaced Blueblood this loop. Said male pony had a dark tan coat with a chocolate mane and beard, sporting a unicorn horn. His flank held a black chess piece resembling the king, not too dissimilar from Lelouch's when he looped here but lacking the symbol for Geass. Another dozen moves were made by both players, when it finally came to an end with a knight and a rook sealing her king in place. The female anchor sighed, only for her to look up as the Stallion started clapping, "Excellent game, Miss Sparkle, or should I say Princess Sparkle?"

Twilight replied, "Twilight, if you would. If you must though, I'm not a princess this time around, so Miss Sparkle will do, Mr. Xanatos... or do you prefer David or Chess Master?"

"Most call me Xanatos, you may as well. You're well versed in this game. The English Opening was inspired, not a common choice since reversing the Sicilian's defense to be used by white is quite complex a strategy. If I could rank you among the loopers I've played, you'd be at the same level of the girl I faced in the Fire Emblem Awakening loop, when I replaced Virion. Both of you favored protecting your individual pieces than protecting the King. An admirable trait, though unwise since in these loops, the anchors are the kings. If we lose the anchors, their loops will be lost forever."

Twilight crossed her hooves, "Do you have a point in there, Xanatos?"

Xanatos lifted the chess pieces and re-arranged them on the board, idly looking at the two kings, "I always have a point, Twilight. If you overextend yourself in chess, you will create openings for your enemies to slip through, capturing the king. For example-"

The looper stood up, walked over to his dresser, pulled out two sphere like objects, "This is an anti-magic generator, and the other a gravity generator that increases the weight of everything within its radius. If I were to activate it, how would you counter me?"

Twilight gave a smirk, "Shining knows I'm here, and he knows to check in on me within the hour."

Xanatos returned the smile, "Good, but what if you were the only known looper, I induced an attack by Chrysalis long before her appointed time and had her replace one of the Elements of Harmony? Of course, if you didn't have back up such as your brother then you'd have planned differently, but my point is – I wouldn't have just one plan, but several running in conjunction at the same time. What if it's in a universe where your powers are gone and subspace pocket inaccessible?"

Twilight's head ran both scenarios at the same time, however Xanatos held up a hoof, "Another time for that. My point is, always plan to win. Plan everything out days in advance. Practice every conceivable scenario and how it could go. Have multiple plans running at once. If plan A fails, Plans B through F may still succeed. Finally if you fail, have an out. Better to spend a loop in Eiken than have your entire universe erased."

"It's worth noting that I have... Learned a modicum of humility over these days." The bearded stallion flinched noticeably at this admission, something that Twilight had no trouble picking up on.

"You've gotten on one of the First's bad sides, haven't you?" Twilight's tone was surprisingly bereft of sympathy, sounding like she was speaking to someone who had built an extremely expensive house on a floodplain.

"Among others, yes. The problem with playing the Game is simple. Not everyone wants to play with you. Sometimes they're direct about it." A hoof came up to rub his jaw, nudging it slightly to confirm that it was, indeed, whole. "And that's if you're fortunate."

Twilight let out a low, soft whistle. "Finding out you were stuck in a time loop didn't really do much for your judgment, did it?"

"Not at first, no. And it did not help that my reputation tends to precede me. My name is, literally, synonymous with scheming. Complex scheming that operates entirely by eliminating the competition's winning conditions." He sighed, and shook his head.

"You've learned to appreciate the small victories, I take it?" Twilight's tone was more than a little sly, and there was really nothing Xanatos could do to object to her teasing, because really, that's his own fault.

"The value of being able to eat solid food over the course of an entire loop is well ingrained in my mind, yes. Also, checkmate."

Twilight's attempt to muffle her laughter cut off sharply as she looked down at the board. "...Was admitting to the drawbacks of being you something you did on purpose to distract me, or just you unconsciously seizing the opportunity after you'd already gotten going with your thoughts?"

Xanatos just stared at the chessboard. "...Truth be told, I don't know."

* * *

3.10 (Vulpine Fury): [Gargoyles] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 67.13.

"Mister Xanatos, I am reminded of one of my good friends in another Loop..." Celestia said as she gracefully navigated the room and decanted some exceptional Prench wine. "He said something that I think applies here."

Xanatos boggled as the peytral and tiara floated over his head and shoulders.

"As I was saying, Joshua said... 'A strange game. It seems the only way to win..." A surfboard crossed Xanatos' field of vision. "... is not to play.'"

* * *

3.11 (Dalxein): [Frozen] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 77.2.

"Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked after zooming in through the library's window. The unicorn hadn't even had time to properly reorganize the place after her arrival from Canterlot this loop. "Snowflake's been replaced by a looper, and... uhh... it's weird."

The purple mare sighed and nodded. "How weird?"

"Well, she's not used to being a pegasus... or flying. We got her to my place before she decided she wasn't going anywhere until someone explained what was going on, and I figured you'd do better than me with this one."

Nodding again, Twilight cast a cloudwalking spell on herself before teleporting the both of them to Dash's cloud flat. There sitting on a puffy couch made of cloud was a regal mare with gossamer wings, her coat an icy blue and her mane a braided silver. On her flank was an intricate snowflake pattern.

"Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I'm the local Anchor here in Equestria." When the mare nodded understanding, she continued. "What's your name?"

"My name is Elsa... and I am very confused."

Twilight grinned.

* * *

After she'd finished her 'welcome to the multiverse' speech, Rainbow having left halfway through to go manage the Summer Sun Celebration while they were busy, Twilight asked, "So, are you your world's Anchor?"

Shaking her head, partially to clear her mind after the information dump, Snowflake- or rather, Elsa, answered, "I do not believe so. My sister's fiancé, Kristoff, is most likely our Anchor. He sometimes speaks of loops where neither myself nor my sister recall the loops. My sister, myself, Kristoff, and we believe his reindeer Sven, all began looping in time simultaneously."

Twilight nodded. "Probably the crash, then."

"The... crash?" Elsa tentatively probed.

"I haven't worked it into the speech proper yet because it tends to be very intimidating, especially with how overwhelming everything else is in one's first fused loop. Fairly recently, an entire reality collapsed. The strain on the system led to new loopers in established loops, and new worlds gaining anchors and loopers, to minimize the damage."

"An entire..." Elsa paused, taking a moment to recollect herself. "That is indeed very troubling to hear."

"Don't worry too much," Twilight said, trying to calm the mare down some. "There were extenuating circumstances, and in all my time as an Anchor I've only seen it happen that one time. Both our worlds are safe."

It wasn't much, but hearing that _did_ help to comfort her a bit. "And... are there many other loopers and anchors about?"

This had the purple mare laughing "Oh, _loads_ of them! I don't think I've met even half of them, but that's still quite a lot of po-eople..." She caught herself at the last moment. "I like to think that I'm fairly old and well-versed as far as Anchors go, but there are a lot that've been looping longer than me, and none of us even compare to the first loopers, who're truly ancient compared to the rest."

Seeing the goggle-eyed mare in front of her, she giggled. "Sorry, I'm trying to say that it's a big multiverse out there, and there's no end of new people to meet in the loops." Her grin faltered. "There's also no end of trouble you can get into in the other loops, as well. Some of them are pretty horrible, which is why we decided our loop would be a sanctuary. We do our best to make sure that our loop is as peaceful and pleasant as possible for any looper that needs a vacation. Our loops are usually about five years long, and that's not much compared to some of the longer loops, but we try to help with the time we're given to do so." Sensing a segue, she pounced on it. "So, how long are your loops?"

"Between five and ten years, usually," Elsa answered. "The only constant seems to be that they include my coronation somewhere along the line."

"Coronation?" The unicorn gasped. "You're a princess?"

This had the Pegasus grinning. "I am a _queen_. Queen Elsa of Arendelle."

Of all the reactions she was expecting, having the unicorn speed in front of her staring intently at her forehead was not on the list. Flinching away from the sudden close proximity, she asked "What... are you doing?"

Something seemed to snap back into place in the purple mare as she twitched and her eyes widened. "Oh, sorry. It's not that common that we see royalty from other loops here in Equestria. Most of our 'royals' are alicorns - ponies with both pegasus wings _and_ a unicorn's horn."

Elsa tilted her head and raised an eyebrow.

"Sorry, what I meant was that Fused Loops have a tendency to be ironic or humorous with one's role or status or especially their name or job - the pony you're taking the place of this loop is named Snowflake, for instance. Given that's also your cutie-mark." She received another blank look and popped off a quick summary. "It's a magical glyph or symbol on our flanks usually received in adolescence depicting a strong aspect or talent deeply ingrained in us. Magical ponies are magical." She showed her own starburst as an example. "Anyway, yours is a snowflake. I'm going to hazard a guess that means something personal to you?"

The pegasus' mouth worked soundlessly, even as she glanced down at the ice crystal on her rear that she'd inspected for a time between Dash's exit and return, for a moment before she nodded. "I was born with a curse - incredible power over ice and snow..." She paused trying to find a nice way to put the rest.

"That doesn't sound like much of a curse," Twilight hazarded, tentatively.

"I accidentally plunged my kingdom into an eternal winter until I learned to control it," the queen said, deadpan.

Twilight was about to say something, but then shut her mouth with an audible 'click'. "Alright, that sounds more like a curse."

The Pegasus nodded. "It's controlled in part by myself, and in part by my emotions. It's taken several loops of trial and error to fully understand it, but negative emotions like fear and doubt wrest control away from me. I've been solving the issue by blotting them out with love and joy."

"That seems like a terrible solution," Twilight pointed out, worry clear in her voice.

Her concerns were waved away. "It's worked well enough so far, especially with all these loops of practice. I haven't accidentally frozen the entire kingdom in ages." She began to chuckle, but when the unicorn didn't share her mirth she stopped. "It was a joke, dear. I haven't lost control of my powers since my... baseline, was it?" At the mare's nod, she continued with a small grimace. "I'm not adapting to the loops as well as Anna and Kristoff. My sister jumps headlong into everything and her beau can be rather savvy when the urge strikes him, or he has need to be. Sometimes I feel like I'm still the stuffy princess locked away in her room, watching them have fun and play pranks while I manage trade agreements and paperwork..." She shook her head and chuckled. "No, I have enough fun when they drag me out to play, too. Maybe I should be the one to prank them next time, though... They just seem to be taking this so much better than me." She glanced down shame-faced.

The purple pony scooted over to nudge the queen. "Hey, it's actually pretty impressive that you haven't gone crazy yet. I don't know a single pony that didn't go a little nuts adapting to the loops." She made a show of thinking to herself. "Except Zecora, but I'm keeping a camera handy just in case."

"You've been at this for so long and yet you're still so... _chipper_ about it. How do you manage it?"

"Our universe is approximately 40% Pure Harmony, 25% friendship, 15% love, 10% hijinks, 5% kindness, 4% sugary treats, and like one percent assorted evils, megalomaniacs and in-jokes," Twilight said. A moment passed before her deadpan straight face broke and she snickered, causing the queen to break down in giggles herself.

"So." The unicorn continued, "We've got about five years in a peaceful loop to look forward to. But first we have to make sure you've got the tools to enjoy it properly - since you're a pegasus, that means learning to fly." She gave a tentative smile to the regal mare. "If you think you're up to it?"

A meek smile mirrored back at her. "I think I can manage... but how are you going to-?" A bright flash and suddenly the unicorn in front of her also bore a pair of wings. "...ah."

"Sorry, I just think you're better off learning the basics from me before Rainbow Dash gets ahold of you..."

* * *

3.1: One of the earliest Kingdom Hearts Loops, if not _the_ earliest, to be published.

3.2: He's so fluffy!

3.3: Can't argue with the man's logic here.

3.4: Also can't blame him for wanting a flying ship.

3.5: Notice the callback to 3.1.

3.6: More of Captain Jack Sparrow being Captain Jack Sparrow.

3.7: Baloo and Kit's introduction to the Loops. Still one of my favorites - I've referenced it in a later MLP snip.

3.8: Gargoyles in Equestria. Like the above, I've referenced it in passing in a later MLP snip.

3.9: Xanatos makes for an interesting Looper.

3.10: To quote Saphroneth's own response... "First order of Regent Xanatos: Come and help me with all this paperwork, Twilight."

3.11: Welcome to the multiverse, Elsa.


	4. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Four: Sunset Over Forks

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-16. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

**Author's note 2:** Content has been edited from original posts. Original version indicated you could tell who was Pinging, or at least what Loop they came from; I have modified the sentences to remove this aspect.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Four**

4.1 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 1

Minnie grumbled as she tried to start up the red pickup truck and set off to school. Of all of the towns in all the worlds in all the Loops, Yggdrasil saw fit to dump her into Forks, Washington.

The Forks, Washington featured in the _Twilight Saga_.

As _Bella Swan_.

With _no indication_ if Edward was Replaced or not.

The only things stopping her from writing the Loop off entirely were the presence of an Awake Charlie Swan, and the fact that she had detected at least a few other Loopers the last time she pinged. So she wasn't entirely alone.

"Still," she said to herself as the truck finally started up with a roar, "I think I'll try to do a better job than Bella did. Can't be too difficult."

* * *

_Okay, this is a bit harder than I thought,_ Minnie thought, as she looked around at all of the kids gawking at her. "Um, may I help you?" she asked.

She then spent the next few minutes answering questions about her life in Phoenix, Arizona, since the student population of Forks had apparently never been to the big city before. During a lull in the questioning, she was able to get a good look at the table in the corner, and sighed to herself at who she saw sitting there. _Oh, Mickey..._

Mickey was sitting with a group of unnaturally pale and beautiful teenagers, who were apparently preoccupied with staring at the wall. Out of the school lunches they bought, only Mickey's showed any sign of being touched. He was also paler than normal, and he looked rather grumpy about the whole thing. He was writing something on a piece of paper.

Mickey noticed Minnie staring at him, and perked up immediately. He waved nonchalantly, and Minnie waved back as demurely as she could manage with one hand occupied with a lunch tray.

As Minnie smiled (possibly drooling a little. Possibly.) a voice piped up behind her.

"I see you found the Cullens."

She eeped in surprise and nearly dropped her tray. Man, Jessica could be _sneaky_ if she wanted to be.

Weirdly, Jessica seemed to be replaced with a teenage version of Jessica _Rabbit_. And now that Minnie thought about it, a lot of the students in Forks seemed to resemble younger versions of various Disney characters. _Must be one of these "Cartoon Cast" Loops,_ she thought to herself.

"Who are they?" Minnie asked, to get the exposition ball rolling.

As Jessica began to expound on the history of the Cullens, Minnie stole another glance at Mickey. He was, unbeknownst to his adopted siblings, holding up a crudely done sign reading "HELP ME!" in bright red ink. Minnie nodded slightly and winked at him.

Jessica caught the subtle interplay between the two Loopers. "Got your eye on Michael, huh?"

Minnie blushed. "Maaaaaaybe..."

"I gotta admit, he's pretty cute," Jessica continued, "but I wouldn't waste my time, if I were you. He doesn't date. Apparently, none of the girls are good-looking enough for him."

While Minnie pretended to nod in reluctant understanding, she was laughing inside her head. _Oh Jessica, if you only knew..._

* * *

4.2 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 2

Minnie was especially on guard today, as she pulled into the school parking lot. If what Charlie told her was true, then today was the day that Bella almost gets hit by a van, and Edward all but blows his cover as a vampire to save her butt.

The first thing she did upon parking the truck was to immediately get on the sidewalk, and distance herself from the parking lot. The second thing was to check if Mickey was on standby. He was, and waved at Minnie again, to the disdain of the other Cullens. She then started moving towards the school in a manner reminiscent of a soldier trying to stay in cover as much as possible.

She looked back briefly, and saw the van suddenly come screeching out of nowhere, and nearly crash into the truck.

Then, it stopped, and backed up a bit. The headlights gleamed blood-red, and Minnie could have sworn she heard it growl.

The van reoriented itself until it was pointed right at her, then, to her horror, it started forward again.

"Everyone move!" she yelled. Luckily, her popularity among the students of Forks seemed to lend her some sort of authority, and the students in front of the van hurled themselves out of the way as it screamed forwards. She faked left, then jumped to the right, clinging onto the chain-link fence surrounding the school, and scrambling up and over it. The van's headlights swiveled slowly back and forth, casting a pallid red glow on the surroundings as it looked for her. Minnie took the opportunity to access a few powers that she hadn't used in a while.

A magic curtain suddenly manifested around her, as she exchanged her trademark bow for an explorer's cap. At the same time, a small outlet appeared on a nearby telephone pole. "I hope this works..." she fretted.

* * *

Mickey had, by this point, shrugged off the other Cullens' entreaties to not get involved, and was already moving into a position where he could intercept the apparently possessed van. "I'll say this for Twilight vampires: they can sure move if they want to," he said to himself as he prepared to jump onto the roof of the van.

Suddenly, Minnie, all dolled up in explorer getup, tossed out a grappling hook, which latched onto the school roof. The van snarled as it finally got a lock on Minnie, and roared forwards. Right before it could run into Minnie, she shot up out of reach, rappelling up to the roof. The van grunted in surprise, as it suddenly felt a violent pull to the right. It tried to fight against it, its tires carving deep grooves in the schoolyard grass, but eventually its engine gave out. It let out a final, despairing groan as it slowly turned upside down, and slid over to the telephone pole. The engine sputtered and died, and the lights went out.

Mickey looked up at Minnie who was working her way back down to the ground, and sighed. "Well, so much for staying inconspicuous..." He went over to the other students and started checking up on them, while the sirens of the arriving ambulances echoed in the distance.

* * *

4.3 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 3

Later, in the hospital, Mickey and Minnie compared notes with Charlie Swan.

"Let me get this straight: the van _chased_ you when you got out of the way?" Charlie began.

Minnie nodded as she sipped a cup of hot chocolate. "That's right. There were also signs of the car acting like it was alive. And angry."

Charlie nodded slowly. "I talked with Tyler while you were getting your drink. He's the kid that was driving the van."

"What'd he say?" Mickey asked.

"He said that he initially thought that he had lost control of the vehicle due to the ice, but he panicked when the car started operating its own gear shift."

He turned to Minnie. "The poor kid's still in shock about what happened. Maybe you could talk to him, let him know that what happened isn't his fault."

"I'll get right on that, Mr. Swan," Minnie replied.

As Minnie got up from her comfy seat and went to go check up on Tyler, Charlie realized something. "Oh gosh. If this is happening here, then what's happening to the other Loopers?"

* * *

"You're joking."

Oswald stared at Leah as they sat around the campfire. In the distance, Oswald could hear crickets chirping. Rather loudly, too.

Leah shook her head. "I'm afraid not. You're the third wheel in a love triangle."

"Aw, for crying out loud! I got enough of that in the soap opera loop!"

Leah snorted. "Welcome to my life. Everything seems to revolve around those two idiots and their relationship, whether it wants to or not."

"Must be a rough life," Oswald sympathized.

"You have no idea."

Leah paused to think for a moment. "At least this isn't the movie variant. I get dropped in lava near the end of the Breaking Dawn phase when that happens."

Oswald shuddered. He knew the sensation of getting burned alive well enough to know it was one of the worse ways to end a Loop. "Well, let's try to keep the exposure to lava to a minimum, then, hey?"

Leah smiled. "Yeah, that's usually a good idea."

Oswald clapped his hand together. "So! On to a much lighter subject: is there anything funky about werewolves in this universe? I'm not as up to snuff on this series as I would like."

"Well, the only major thing you have to worry about is imprinting. Other than that, you basically can change into a wolf and back whenever you want."

"I'm going to deeply regret asking this, but... what is imprinting?" Oswald asked.

Leah sighed deeply. _Hoo boy_ , Oswald thought. _This wouldn't be pleasant._

"Well, it's like this..." Leah began...

* * *

A FEW MINUTES LATER

Leah watched on with some concern as Oswald set up a great number of restraining devices in the middle of the clearing, ranging in complexity from simple pairs of handcuffs and rolls of tape, to what appeared to be a stasis field and several robot drones.

The fact that he kept saying the word "Nope" over and over while he was doing so only added to the concern.

"Um, Oswald? Are you sure this is all necessary?"

Oswald paused in the middle of locking himself into a straitjacket with telekinesis. "If this imprinting thing is as integral to the minds of shape-shifters as you make it out to be, then removing it is going to put a lot of strain on the mind, yes?"

"Wait...Oswald, are you planning on removing the imprinting mechanism from your mind?" Leah asked warily.

"Yes. Is that a problem?"

Leah looked at the various chains, straps, stakes, and varieties of tape that were currently pinning Oswald to the ground. "Well, it's going to be extremely difficult. I needed the wolf-like part of my soul basically redesigned from the ground up to get rid of it, and it took me a few weeks to essentially relearn how to be a wolf afterwards."

"But you're fine now, right? Know all the ins and outs of being a wolf, right?"

"Right...?"

Oswald nodded firmly, as he finished buckling himself into the straitjacket with a flourish, before he settled himself in the middle of his elaborate containment devices. "Then you could teach me once I wrap up here, right?"

"I suppose I could..." she agreed. Her voice then hardened noticeably. "But this is going way too far! I mean, you're basically going to be doing the psychic equivalent of open-heart surgery on yourself, with a butter knife! I know how much imprinting sucks for people like us, how much it can _hurt_. But surely, rearranging your entire psyche to get rid of it would do a lot more damage in the long run?"

Oswald looked Leah in the eye, and the werewolf could feel the utter seriousness radiating off of him. "Leah, I appreciate the sentiment. I really do. It means a lot to me that you're concerned about my mental health when for all intents and purposes, this is the first time we've ever met. But Leah, you've got to understand: I'm a Toon. Our relationships define darn near _everything_ about us. Do you think Mickey would still be Mickey if he didn't love Minnie with all his heart? Do you think Yosemite Sam could still be Yosemite Sam if he didn't hate Bugs Bunny with the passion that he does?"

His eyes started to fill with tears. "And do you think I'll still be Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, if I just gave up Ortensia for the monstrous spawn of Edward and Bella? I might die trying to do this, Leah, but at least the Loop reset will take care of that. I'm not so sure about the imprinting, and frankly... I don't want to find out."

The clearing was silent for several tense seconds, as Leah mulled over this information. Oswald's ears began to droop, just a little.

At last, Leah relented, sighing deeply. "I have enough food in my subspace pocket to last us both several weeks. I'll stay here and make sure that you don't go crazy, or kill yourself while you do this."

Oswald smiled, and wiped his eyes with his ear. "Thank you,' he whispered.

He steeled himself for the task at hand, and closed his eyes.

* * *

As Mickey, Minnie and Charlie left the hospital (having secured permission from Carlisle to let Mickey sleep over at Minnie's place), they heard what sounded like faint screaming, coming from the direction of La Push.

"Does anyone else have a sense of foreboding, or is it just me?" Charlie asked.

"I've got it too," Minnie replied.

"Same here," said Mickey. "I sure hope that other Disney Looper is okay..."

"Well, I'm going off to La Push in a couple of days, to check up on the Quileute tribe living there and make sure that the Cullens aren't planning anything," Charlie offered. "I'll be going over the weekend, so you two can come with if you like."

"Sounds good to me."

"Sure thing!"

* * *

4.4 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 4

Oswald blearily opened his eyes, squinting at the bright sunlight. He was lying upside down against a nearby tree, and was bleeding a little bit from his nose. Every single one of his restraints had been busted, and his straitjacket was in tatters. There were claw marks and tooth marks all over the wrecked restraints, and the robot drones were all smashed.

"Morning, sunshine," Leah quipped, as she strode out from behind one particularly clawed-up tree.

"What... happened...?" Oswald mumbled as he slowly rolled onto his side.

"I still don't know how you did it, but your little mental surgery worked. Your wolf aspect is now one hundred percent imprint-free."

"How do you know?" Oswald asked, as he sat up, clutching his head and wincing in pain.

"You're a really powerful psychic that was doing nothing to prevent his thoughts from being projected throughout this entire clearing. It wasn't hard."

Oswald flinched. "Sorry."

Leah waved him off. "It's fine. I needed the practice to maintain my personal shields anyway."

Oswald pulled out an Elixir from his subspace pocket, and chugged it. He sighed in relief as his nose stopped bleeding and his headache cleared up. "Did I do anything weird, or bizarre, while I was sorting things out?"

Leah leaned against the tree to think, counting on her fingers. "Well, around midnight, you were gabbling in some weird language I didn't quite understand. Then, about fifteen minutes later, you screamed really, _really_ loudly. I wouldn't be surprised if they heard you down in Forks. After that, you shifted for the first time, and gnawed through the restraints."

"You are one speedy wolf, let me tell you," she continued. "Tough, too. I had a hell of a time trying to keep you from running off into the woods. I eventually had to tap into some Force mojo, and slam you into a tree to stun you. You kept on whimpering until around one, when you shifted back, and conked out."

"That explains where I woke up," Oswald replied, as he got to his feet. Just then, his stomach growled. Loudly. Oswald looked down and then blushed. "Uh, do you still have that food you mentioned?"

Leah nodded. "Yep."

She then pulled out what appeared to be a large bag filled with fresh meat. Fresh, raw meat. Fresh raw meat that looked like it had very recently been alive.

Oswald sighed. "Of course. I have to re-learn how to be wolf, don't I?"

"I figured that learning what wolves normally eat would be a good place to start."

Oswald nodded, then tapped into his Looping memories, trying to remember how to shift into wolf form-

And suddenly a rather stout little wolf with black fur was sitting on his haunches in the empty clearing. Curiously, it looked more like a wolf that stepped out of an old cartoon from the days of black and white, than it did an actual wolf.

Leah had to suppress a giggle at the sight of Oswald in wolf form looking confusedly around the clearing, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. _He's really like a big old puppy, isn't he?_ she thought to herself.

She decided to speak up to get Oswald's attention, which was currently focused on his new fluffy tail. "Oswald."

Oswald looked up from chasing his tail. [Oh, man,] he responded telepathically, [this is awesome! I think I can smell the lake from here! And I have a TAIL, and it's LONG and FLUFFY and-]

" _Oswald."_

Oswald had the decency to look sheepish. [Sorry. New body comes with new instincts, it seems. Strong instincts.]

"Yes, that's one of the details that takes some getting used to, especially for a new shifter. Let's get you fed up, then we can practice for a while, okay?"

[Sounds good to me!]

Oswald drooled happily as Leah pulled out a dog bowl, and filled it with meat. As Oswald began mauling the food, Leah gave him some pointers. "Remember, Oswald, wolves don't have molars like humans do. You have to rip the meat apart into smaller chunks that you can swallow whole."

Oswald looked up, with a large chunk of meat hanging out of his mouth. [Mmmf ffmmf fm?]

"...How is your voice muffled? You're speaking telepathically!"

Oswald shrugged, which looked rather odd on a wolf. [Mmmf mfmmmf mffffmf mffmm mmfmff.]

Leah pinched the bridge of her nose. "I'm not gonna ask."

* * *

LATER, THAT VERY SAME PLOT...

It was a glorious, not-at-all-rainy evening as Mickey, Minnie, and Charlie drove over to La Push. Charlie had explained to the two mice that this was usually when Bella would meet Jacob for the first time, and hear his "scary story" about the existence of vampires.

"I never really got how she would instantly come to the conclusion that her boyfriend was a vampire, even if a lot of the stuff in the story matched up with what she knew about the Cullens," Charlie said. "Heck, I thought that they were just a bunch of rich snobs that didn't get out much, before they up and told me that they were vampires."

"Well, I know a bunch about what vampires can do, thanks to Loop memories," Mickey began, "but I still don't know a lot about the other supernatural stuff around here."

"The only other major supernatural faction around here are the werewolves," Charlie replied. "There's quite a few packs around here, all descendants of the Quileute tribe. I made a point of getting in touch with Leah Clearwater at the beginning of the Loop; she's the go-to person to learn about this stuff if you don't want to deal with the Cullens' bull."

"Who's Leah?" Minnie asked, while polishing her Voice Stealer.

"She's the Anchor of this Loop. Only female werewolf in this universe. Nice girl, if a bit moody at times. But then, given all the crap she's been through, I can't blame her. If those ponies hadn't helped her out..."

Mickey and Minnie shuddered. They knew what could happen if an Anchor went crazy.

"Maybe we should have a talk with her," Mickey said after they drove a while in silence. "If we're going to go off the rails--and I feel like we're going to go off the rails sooner rather than later--then maybe she has a few ideas."

* * *

4.5 (Mr. Egret; addition by wildrook): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 5

Mickey, Minnie, and Charlie walked along the beach, towards a small campfire burning in the distance. Mickey's special vampire eyes could tell that the smoke was a vivid blue, for some reason. Charlie just shrugged when he pointed it out. "I don't really know why it does that," he admitted. "Chemistry never really was my strong suit."

"Are you sure that Leah's campfire over there?" Minnie asked.

Charlie paused for a moment, then slapped his forehead. "I knew I forgot to do something," he muttered, as he proceeded to pull a large flashlight out of his subspace pocket. He pointed it at the campfire, then switched it on and off three times in rapid succession.

The campfire proceeded to go out and light up again three times. "A signal?" Mickey asked.

Charlie nodded as he put the flashlight away. "Yep, Leah and I came up with a system a little while after I started Looping. That signal lets me know that she's not with any non-Loopers."

The campfire then went out and lighted itself again two more times. Charlie started. "Mickey? Minnie? You said there was at least one other Looper here, five total counting us, right?"

"Yeah...?" Minnie responded, wondering where he was going with this.

"Well, it looks like he met up with Leah. That's the signal for 'Other Looper present'."

Mickey and Minnie promptly took off running. Mickey, forgetting about his vampire speed, suddenly shot forwards, kicking up a large cloud of sand, before tripping on a stray piece of driftwood, and falling flat on his face. Minnie and Charlie, being mere mortals, ran at a much more sedate pace, and did not trip on anything at all. Minnie stopped to help Mickey get to his feet.

"Well, that was embarrassing," Mickey grumbled, as he spat out some sand.

"Even vampires need to watch where they're going sometimes, Mickey," Minnie playfully replied, while she brushed sand off of his clothes with a feather duster.

* * *

Oswald fidgeted restlessly as he waited for the three figures in the distance to reach him and Leah. Even with his fancy new eyes, he couldn't make out who they were in the gloom.

Plus, he was smelling something sickly sweet, like a dose of cherry-flavored medicine, that he just couldn't place.

Leah set aside the blanket that she was using to obscure the campfire. "Okay, that was Charlie's signal. He's coming this way, and he's brought friends," she announced. "He knows you're with me, too."

"Well, that's fine and dandy," Oswald replied. "Do you smell something weird, or is it just me?"

"Yeah. Disgustingly sweet, right?"

"Yep."

Leah cursed softly. "Okay, that means at least one vampire. It's unlikely that Charlie got himself turned this early if he's Awake, so that means that one of his friends is a vampire. Poor bastard."

Suddenly, one of the figures started approaching the campfire at speed, a large cloud of sand rising behind him, before he abruptly fell on his face. Leah blinked. Vampires in this universe were far too graceful to just trip while running, even at that speed. "I think we found one of your friends," she said casually.

"Most likely," Oswald agreed, equally casually.

At last, the three figures moved into the light of the campfire. Leah recognized Charlie, and nodded easily to him, but the two other figures had her and Oswald doing a double-take.

"Mickey?" Oswald asked tentatively. "Did you get in an accident at the stained-glass factory or something?"

"Very funny," Mickey replied dryly. The light from the campfire, to his dismay, was making his skin sparkle again, and he was not happy about it.

Leah looked at Mickey, then to Minnie, who was holding a feather duster for some reason, then finally at Charlie. "Don't tell me..."

"Yeah; they've Replaced Edward and Bella," Charlie affirmed.

There was a pause, then Oswald suddenly yelled in disgust, and sprinted for the lake, diving in, and scrubbing all over himself with a bar of soap.

"What's with him?" Mickey asked.

"I imagine it has something to do with what happens at the end of the Breaking Dawn phase of our Loop," Leah replied.

"Breaking Dawn phase?" Minnie asked quizzically.

Leah passed out paper copies of the Twilight Saga to the two mice. "It's the last book in the series. Long story short, the person Oswald's replacing is destined to become the soulmate of the child of the two people you're replacing."

There was a pause.

"AW, GROSS!" Mickey and Minnie shouted in unison, before they sprinted off after Oswald. "Wait for us!"

Leah and Charlie just watched the three Disney Loopers try in vain to wash the disgust off of them. "They took it well," Charlie quipped.

(wildrook)

Leah just looked at Charlie with a deadpan expression. What DIDN'T help was that George Boy's "The Crying Game" was playing on one of the radios.

* * *

4.6 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 6

It was a few weeks after the Campfire Incident, and Minnie was feeling antsy as she walked down the street. "Ohhh, where is that restaurant?" she fretted aloud.

According to the books that Leah gave her and Mickey, this was around the time when Edward swooped in on his shiny silver Volvo to save Bella from some ne'er-do-wells. Despite the infuriatingly patronizing and frankly creepy way that Edward acted then, the books treated it like a Romantic Moment.

The universe, Minnie thought to herself, was _far_ too attracted to what it thinks are Romantic Moments.

While she could definitely defend herself if it came to a fight, Minnie didn't want to deal with that right then, so she kept to the main streets, and moved as fast as she was able to without attracting attention, while she looked for the restaurant where she was to meet up with Jessica. She jogged pasts store after store, dodged errant traffic, and weaved in and out of crowds of people, all while trying to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

Unfortunately, she was Bella Swan's stand-in, which made her the center of attention wherever she went. If she ran into a guy, he tried to get her number or just swooned over her. If she ran into a girl, she either tried to become her new best friend or spat hatred and malice at her.

This last group, Minnie noticed, was composed entirely of blondes.

Eventually Minnie dodged an autograph seeker, took a wrong turn, and found herself in one of the seedier parts of town. "Of course," she sighed. "Why did I expect anything else?"

Suddenly, her mouse ears picked up the sounds of footsteps. Three pairs of feet, she reckoned. "It's starting," she whispered.

She turned to face the approaching figures. They were dressed like a bunch of everyday thugs, but their faces... their faces were utterly obscured by a strange blurring. No matter how hard Minnie focused, she couldn't make out any features. They didn't move like humans normally move. They reminded her of CGI figures that hadn't been properly rendered.

One of the figures stopped, and appeared to sniff at the air, his head twitching back and forth. Then, all three figures suddenly looked at Minnie. She gulped. "Uh oh."

Suddenly, the figures sprinted forwards, just a little bit faster than was humanly possible. Minnie was already off and running, but she knew that the figures would catch up to her before she could reach the end of the block.

Luckily, she had prepared for this encounter all of last week.

Minnie dove into a nearby alleyway, and ducked behind a dumpster. "Looks like it's time to break out that costume..." she muttered.

* * *

The three figures slowed their run when they saw their target enter the alleyway. There was nowhere she could run, now. They could take their time getting there, and build up some dramatic tension before the vampire swooped in to rescue her. After all, it wasn't like she could defend herself, right?

The lead figure slowly peered into the alleyway. If it had eyelids, it would have blinked.

Minnie was gone. Nowhere to be seen at all.

The three figures walked confusedly into the alleyway, their limited minds trying to make sense of this recent development. If Minnie was not present for them to almost ravish, then they couldn't fulfill their role in the script. If they could not fulfill their role in the script, then what were they to do? The script was everything to plot devices such as them. Without the script... what use were they?

As the figures considered this, they slowly slumped to they knees. They could not fulfill their directives. As such, they had no purpose. Purposeless plot devices were to remain sleeping until they had a purpose once more. But this time, something was... different.

For the first time in their relatively short existences, the three figures wondered if they would dream.

* * *

Minnie looked down from her hiding spot on the roof and watched the three figures fall quivering into the fetal position. She was dressed up in her Cowgirl outfit, complete with popgun and stick-horse, and she was seriously considering doing the three figures a kindness and KO-ing them with magical cork-bullets. "Okay," she mused to herself. "I have to admit: out of all of the possible responses to me bouncing up here, I was not expecting _that_."

Different plot devices reacted in different ways to main characters going off the rails, she realized. Mechanical plot devices worked themselves to the breaking point, while biological plot devices had existential crises. "But how would other plot devices react?" she asked herself, as she bounced from rooftop to rooftop. "I'd better ask the others about this."

Just then, her stomach growled. She pulled a face. "Oh yeah; I came out here to go get a bit to eat..."

She put her question out of her mind for the time being, and began looking for the restaurant Jessica was at. "Okay, it's gotta be around here somewhere..."

* * *

4.7 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 7

"I wonder where Oswald went," Leah mused, as she walked away from the Emily's shack. She had been making a point of visiting Emily more often, but she could only stay in a house full of Sam Uley and company for so long before she had to leave or punch him in the face. Luckily, she was able to leave this time.

Leah looked at the note that Oswald left her, when she woke up in their tent, and couldn't find him in the campsite.

_Leah,_

_Sorry I wasn't there for breakfast. I had to go off to La Push to pick up some supplies for the baseball game. I'll be back before lunch._

_Take care,_

_Oswald_

The only baseball game that Leah could think of was the Cullen ball game, which always went to hell one way or another. Either it cued the introduction of that coven led by James the Tracker, prompting Bella and the Cullens to bugger off to Arizona or some such nonsense, or it led to the Cullens bringing the wrath of the Volturi down on their heads early, if the universe had some form of logic outside of "Bella Swan and Edward Cullen are always right" that Loop. Either way, it just meant more shit to deal with.

Of course, that was when she and Charlie were the only Loopers present. Aside from Twilight Sparkle and company, Loopers from other universes weren't very common, but when they showed up, the Loop tended to go wildly off the rails at that point.

Leah's train of thought was interrupted when her unnaturally sharp ears picked up the sound of clanking and grinding gears coming from the campsite. "What's that, now?" she asked herself, as she took off running into the woods.

* * *

Leah just stared at what was left of the campsite. "What the fuck."

Oswald popped his head out of the chassis of the robotic dragon and pointed at her. "Oi. Language."

"No, I think it's appropriate for this situation. What the fuck _is_ all this?"

Oswald clambered out of the chassis, and jumped to the ground. "With any luck, it's the answer to the whole 'vampires everywhere' situation," he replied, as he wiped off some oil stains with a dirty rag lying on a nearby log.

Leah stared at Oswald. "The solution for the vampires is a giant robotic dragon."

"Yep."

"That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard."

Oswald grinned. "That's the beauty of it: it's utterly idiotic. _That's_ why it'll work."

Leah sighed heavily. "I'm going to regret asking this, but... _why_ is it good that it's a stupid idea?"

"It's simple. Given the oh-so-clever and oh-so-speshul nature of those insufferable Cullens (Loopers excluded, of course), any rationally-planned attempts to fight them are doomed to failure. The only plans that have any shot of succeeding are the ones that they cannot possibly expect, which are, by default, the stupidest plans imaginable. They'll be expecting Mickey turning on them, and a couple of werewolves hunting them down. They won't be expecting this baby."

Oswald patted the dragon's leg affectionately, while chuckling. One of the dragon's wings snapped off, and hit the ground with a thud.

Leah and Oswald looked at the broken wing for a few seconds. Leah then slowly looked back at Oswald, with an expression of cynicism usually reserved for long-time politicians.

"It's meant to do that," Oswald said, though he didn't sound as certain as before.

Leah sighed again. _I hope Mickey and Minnie have a better plan..._ she thought to herself.

* * *

4.8 (Mr. Egret; addition by wildrook): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 8

Minnie had experienced many types of pain over the Loops. She had been hit with the Cruciatus Curse, by Voldemort himself, when she had replaced Bellatrix Lestrange. She had been partially de-rezzed during a Tron loop gone sour. She had even been Dipped, and then reconstituted, during a particularly nightmarish Loop in a Toontown gone mad.

But this pain was an agony that surpassed all others.

"Ooh! This dress looks absolutely _stunning_ on you! Much better than that tacky red one!"

_Yggdrasil on high, grant me the strength to withstand this trial_... Minnie prayed to herself, as she looked in the mirror at the unbelievably gaudy blue dress that Alice had forced her into this time. Her favorite dress, the red one with white polka dots was lying on top of a pile of similarly discarded clothing. Next to that pile was a much smaller pile of "acceptable" clothing. Minnie's inner fashionista wept as she saw that the dresses were all extremely expensive brand names, and not at all suited to her body shape. Or _Alice's_ body shape, for that matter.

_Still_ , she thought to herself, as she tuned out Alice's squealing over the supposedly appalling state of her shoes, _it could be a_ lot _worse. Mickey had to live with this awful woman_.

Speaking of Mickey, Minnie wondered how he was holding up right now.

* * *

Mickey sat in stony silence while Carlisle and Esme lectured him on the impropriety of actually making friends with members of the Quileute tribe.

Well, Carlisle lectured. Esme just sort of stood in the corner, frowned prettily and occasionally chimed in.

Fortunately, it seemed that Carlisle loved the sound of his own voice, to the point where he was too caught up in his lecture to see if Mickey was actually paying attention. This gave Mickey time to think of a way out.

His hand strayed towards the salt shaker on the table. _I'm not sure how effective some salt in the eyes will be on a bunch of vampires,_ he thought, _but it should buy me some time for me to go grab Minnie and bug outta here..._

His train of thought, along with Carlisle's speech, stopped abruptly when a sound not unlike a tea kettle coming to boil was heard coming from upstairs. Ignoring Carlisle's protests, Mickey went over to investigate. He had barely set foot on the first step when Alice and Minnie came tumbling down the stairs, causing a tremendous ruckus. Alice was hugging Minnie to her chest, and gabbling something about "future visions" and "the kewlest future ever," while Minnie was doing her level best to break out of Alice's grip.

Mickey was by her side almost immediately, and quickly pried her from Alice's grasp. "Are you okay?! What happened?!" he asked urgently.

Minnie coughed a few times. "We were *cough* trying on some of her dresses, when she *cough* got one of her freaky future vision things. I tried to sneak out of the room when she squealed, then tackled me and we *cough* fell down the stairs."

"But it was such an AWESOME vision!!!1!!!one! She was going to marry Mikey and be a VAMPIRE, and there was going to be a WEDDING with lots of DECORATIONS and PRETTY DRESSES and and and--"

Mickey and Minnie slowly backed away from the clearly deranged vampire lady while she was babbling about the right shoes to go with Minnie's theoretical wedding dress. "Well, guys, it's been fun," Mickey said hurriedly, "but I gotta get Minnie back to her father before he starts getting suspicious."

"But couldn't we turn Minnie now so Alice's vision can come true?" Carlisle asked.

"With all due respect, Mr. Cullen, I wouldn't let myself be turned if you paid me," Minnie answered primly.

Carlisle just looked at her confusedly. "But you'll be immortal! An angel among men! You'll be able to stay with Michael forever..."

"Actually," Mickey interrupted, "I would prefer being a mortal with her."

Carlisle chuckled in what was obviously meant to be a paternal way. "Michael, you know that's impossible. Once you become a vampire, there's no turning back."

Mickey frowned. "Then I'll cherish what little time we have together before she ultimately passes on. It's her decision to become a vampire or not, and she said no. Now, if you'll excuse us, _father_ , I have to get Minnie home."

Carlisle flinched as if he had been hit. While Mickey had been responding, his posture and demeanor had unconsciously changed. He seemed to utterly _exude_ sheer gravitas, the kind that one would associate with an emperor issuing a decree to his subjects, rather than an upstart teenager talking back to his parents.

With magnificent disdain, Mickey turned away from Carlisle, and offered his arm to Minnie. "Shall we, my dear?"

Minnie gratefully looped her arm through his. "I would be delighted, Mr. Mouse," she replied with an exaggerated posh accent, spoiled at the last minute by a giggle. Mickey was just so _cute_ when he tried to act his age.

Noses firmly in the air, the two mice spun on their heels and strolled out of the house, with the nonchalant ease that only several lifetimes of running kingdoms and media empires can provide.

Carlisle and Alice just stared at the retreating backs of the mice with jaws agape, utterly shocked that someone could dismiss their radiant presences so readily. Esme, in the meantime had wandered into the kitchen, and was making cookies. Everyone ignored her.

(wildrook)

Oswald then chuckled as he put away the camera and sneaked off.

"This would be entertaining to pass to the other loopers," he replied. "Can't exactly send this to the host of America's Funniest Home Videos, though."

And to think, he was close to bringing in Ashton Kutcher for that one moment.

* * *

4.9 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 9

On the grassy plain, the standoff was absolutely rife with tension. The six Unawake Cullens stood on one end of the field, all dressed up for a game of vampire baseball, and obviously wanting to get far away from here. On the other end of the field, three slovenly vampires glared at the Cullens, with equal parts jealously and general malice. It was plainly obvious from the way that they flexed their fingers and jaws in anticipation that they would have dearly loved to rip the Cullens limb from limb.

The only thing preventing them from doing so, and the only thing holding the Cullens in place, was the third group on the field.

Smack-dab in the middle of the two parties, stood five extremely odd figures.

The most normal person in the middle group was a Caucasian man with an average build, dressed in a policeman's uniform. His mustache hid the grim smile creeping up on his lips, and he bore several sets of handcuffs in his hand. His pistol rested in his holster, and nobody present doubted he would use it if he had to.

Next to him, a slim young woman of Native American descent glared impartially at both parties on both sides of the field. She was dressed in a simple white tank top and jeans and she bore no visible weapons. From the way she was openly smirking, one got the impression that she didn't need them.

However, the most concerning members of the small band were three small, cartoonish figures who were paying no attention to the two clans of vampires in the slightest.

"Are you sure you don't need me to call up Murphy?" Oswald asked, while fiddling with his remote control.

Mickey thought about it for a moment, while straightening out his tux. "Better have it ready. I'm pretty confident that this'll work, but a robot dragon makes a good Plan B."

"All the instruments are in place, Mickey. We can start at any time!" Minnie said, while pulling out a baton.

"Thanks, Minnie! Leah, Charlie, you know what to do, right?"

Charlie nodded, while Leah gave Mickey the thumbs-up.

James the vampire looked at the motley collection of humans and unidentifiable creatures. "What the hell are they doing?" he snarled. Didn't they know that they were in between two packs of _vampires_? They should be frightened out of their wits!

"I don't know," his second in command Laurent replied, "but whatever it is, it's driving the Cullens nuts. Carlisle looks like he could pounce at any second."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the clearing, Carlisle was internally panicking. They had to get Minnie out of there. Didn't they realize that James could track them across several continents? They needed to get a head start when they still had a chance!

Behind him, his remaining family members watched the scene anxiously. They dared not act without his word. They wouldn't know what to do.

Of course, Mickey knew all of this. Telepathy had its uses, even if it was irritatingly speshul vampire-telepathy. "Okay, I think the others are ready! Places, everyone!"

Quick as a wink, he pulled out his Sorcerer's Hat from his subspace pocket, and put it on his head. Suddenly, three things happened at the same time.

First, scores of musical instruments of all varieties, from violins to trumpets to snare drums rose up off the ground, enveloped in a soft blue glow. When Minnie began to wave her baton, the instruments began to play of their own accord, launching into a rendition of _The Firebird Suite_ by Igor Stravinsky.

Second, swarms of Wasteland Guardians began to materialize around Mickey's hands, before scattering all over the area, looping and swirling in miniature galaxies of blue and green.

Finally, James's group, taking advantage of the Cullens' open astonishment at this turn of events, surged forwards, eyes gleaming with hunger and rage, fangs bared--

Only for two outsize wolves to hit James and Lauren out of nowhere, driving them away from Charlie and the two mice. Victoria shrieked in shock, and cowered away from the transformed Oswald and Leah. Why didn't her enhanced self-preservation ability see them coming?!

"Good work, you guys!" Mickey shouted. He made a few short gestures, and swarms of Tints started to converge around every single vampire present, himself included.

"Wh-what?! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" Carlisle roared, as he frantically flailed at the Tints that were surrounding him and the Cullens. "MICHAEL, AS YOUR FATHER, I ORDER YOU TO **STOP THIS AT ONCE!** "

Mickey only laughed in response. "Nonsense, Carlisle! This isn't meant to hurt you! It's meant to help you! You made me immortal, so I thought I'd repay you in kind!"

Minnie suddenly stiffened, as she caught something out of the corner of her eye. "Watch it, Mickey! Victoria's trying to run for it!"

Indeed she was. While Leah and Oswald were busy herding James and Laurent away from Mickey and Minnie, Victoria was taking the opportunity to slip closer to the edge of the woods.

Mickey shook his head. "Well, we can't have that, can we? Let's start the second movement!"

Mickey and Minnie stood back-to-back, and raised one arm each in tandem. Then, with a flourish, Minnie brought her baton down to begin the second movement of the Suite, while Mickey called upon a particularly potent magic used by his old enemy, Mizrabel.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the clearing was surrounded by a tremendous ring of fire, its flames reaching higher than any vampire could leap. Charlie jumped in shock. "HOLY CRAP! Mickey, what the hell did you do?!" he shouted over the roar of the flames.

"Don't worry, Charlie; it's just an illusion I cooked up to keep the other vamps pinned down!" Mickey responded cheerfully. He was now half-covered in Tints, but showed no sign of letting up in his performance anytime soon.

"Are you kidding?! I can feel the heat from here!"

"It's a very _good_ illusion! Never do anything by halves, that's what I say!"

The vampires certainly didn't think it was an illusion either. Every time they tried to breach the flames, the heat flared up, and they fell back towards the center of the field, hissing in pain and fear. If any vampire, hunter or Cullen, looked like they were getting too close to Mickey and Minnie, Oswald and Leah intercepted them, and the vampires flinched away from the snarling werewolves.

Mickey could feel the sweat running down his back as he focused on directing the Guardian swarms and playing the instruments according to Minnie's cues. "Are you almost ready, Minnie?" he asked.

Minnie wiped her brow with her free hand, but her baton was steady as ever, and the time didn't slow a beat. "We're just about ready to head into the final movement! Are the Tints in place?"

"Yep!"

"Okay! Here we go!"

The music swelled to a crescendo, and then Mickey and Minnie suddenly waved their hand sharply. All at once, the music stopped, and the ring of fire vanished instantly. Without the harsh light of the flames bathing everything in orange, Charlie could see that there was absolutely no damage done to the surrounding area at all.

Oh, and every vampire in the clearing was now covered in Tints. Rather hard to miss, that.

Mickey took hold of Minnie's hand, and squeezed it gently. "I think it's time to wrap this up, don't you think, Minnie?"

"I would love nothing more, Mickey."

The music started out softly, but as Mickey played on and Minnie conducted, the music started to swell triumphantly. The Tints began to glow more and more brightly, until every vampire in the clearing was shining like a star in the sky. Charlie pulled out a pair of sunglasses to wear, while Minnie, Oswald and Leah simply averted their eyes.

As the piece went into its glorious finale, the light suddenly flared up, then died away. Charlie just stared in undisguised shock.

A miraculous transformation had overcome every single vampire in the clearing. Their skin was no longer reminiscent of sparkling marble, but instead looked like how human skin ought to look: natural, soft and healthy. Their eyes were no longer either brightest gold or deepest red, but were now the usual mixtures of greens, browns, blues and grays that one would expect from normal human eyes. Most noticeably, when the vampires were once supernaturally beautiful, to the point of being alien and terrifying, they were now only as beautiful--or as hideous-- as they were before they were ever turned.

Minnie felt the side of Mickey's cheek, and the two mice shared matching grins when she felt the warmth that he was missing from the beginning of this Yggdrasil-forsaken Loop. "It worked!" she squealed, before pulling him into a kiss. The instruments faltered for a split second, as his concentration was shattered in the best way possible.

Charlie whistled in admiration, before he went over to the Cullens to press charges. _Never do anything by halves, huh?_ he thought to himself.

Oswald, who had shifted back to rabbit form, was cutting a victory jig. "That's my little brother for you! Oh man! Lugging all of those instruments from the school was _totally_ worth it!"

Leah shook her head in disbelief as she shifted back into human form and got dressed again. "Well, I have to say, that was one of the more creative ways of dealing with the Cullens that I've ever seen."

"I think this calls for a celebration!" Mickey announced. "Let's meet up at Charlie's place, then we'll go out for drinks! My treat!"

The other Loopers agreed, with much enthusiasm, and said their goodbyes, before Leah went off to help Charlie keep an eye on the recently humanized Cullens, while Mickey, Minnie and Oswald gathered up the instruments to take them back to the school

James, Laurent and Victoria stood to the side forgotten. After a pause, Victoria asked the question that was on her former coven-mates' minds. "Well, now what?"

Laurent sighed as he massaged his temples. "I don't know about you losers, but I'm going to drink until I forget Forks is anything but an eating utensil."

"Same here," James replied.

"That makes three of us," Victoria sighed. "Let's get out of here, while they're still busy."

"Right."

The three hunters quietly slipped back into the woods, determined to put as much distance between themselves and Washington state as possible. It was way more trouble than it was worth, even before the wizard mice showed up.

* * *

4.10 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Twilight Saga] / [Fifty Shades of Gray - non-Looping setting]

SUNSET OVER FORKS: PART 10 (EPILOGUE)

The Loopers had decided to celebrate the end of the Loop with a barbecue at Charlie's place. While Charlie was serving up some freshly-made hamburgers and hot dogs, Mickey took Leah aside for a moment.

"So, Oswald, Minnie and I were talking," he began.

"What about?" Leah asked.

"Well, we Disney Loopers have a tradition of giving our fellow Loopers a little souvenir at the end of a Fused Loop, and we had some trouble deciding what it should be this time."

"That's okay, Mickey; you didn't have to get me anything," Leah replied.

"Still, it seemed like the neighborly thing to do, and, well, we're all neighbors in a metaphysical sense. So, on behalf of the rest of us, I'd like to give you this."

And Mickey handed Leah a large glass jar that held a bunch of shimmering blue and green motes. Leah gasped. "A jar of Wasteland Guardians?"

Mickey nodded enthusiastically.

"...Are you sure that you want me to keep this?" Leah asked, as she stared at the jar filled with tiny little spirits of creation and destruction.

"Sure I'm sure!" Mickey replied happily, while helping himself to more mustard on his hot dog. In the distance, Minnie, Oswald and Charlie were engaged in a lively discussion about vampire-killing methods.

"I just don't know if I can accept something like this, after all the stuff that you've gone through in my home Loop--"

Mickey waved her off. "Just consider it payment for helping my big brother keep his sanity while he was dealing with the imprinting thing. Besides, once you take the godawful romance out of it, this Loop's actually kinda nice. Those puppies should help you with the "taking out" part."

Leah considered the point for a moment, before smiling and nodding. "I see. Thank you, Mickey."

"Anytime!"

Mickey then looked over at the others. "Hey! I think Charlie's getting ready to take the group photo!"

Charlie was indeed setting up the camera on a tripod, while Minnie and Oswald looked on with interest. It was one of those old Polaroid jobs, the kind that printed out the photograph immediately after the picture was taken. "Okay everyone!" he called out. "If you want to be in the picture, now's the time!"

Leah carefully put the jar away in her subspace pocket, before she joined Mickey in running over to get in front of the camera.

After some jostling, the five Loopers arranged themselves in a decent pose for a group shot. Charlie, who was holding the remote button for the camera, stood next to Leah in the back, while Oswald, Mickey and Minnie stood in a line in the front.

"Okay, everyone; on the count of three, say 'Cheese'," Charlie instructed. "One... two... three!"

"CHEESE!"

POOF!

* * *

After Mickey, Minnie and Oswald bid their goodbyes to Charlie and Leah, they were walking along the side of the road leading to La Push, while waiting for the Loop to end. The sun was setting, so it would be any minute now.

"Well, that was one of the stranger Loops we've done, huh fellas?" Mickey asked.

"Yeah, I with you there, bro," Oswald replied. "Still, I like the wolf thing, now that the imprinting's a non-issue."

"You're keeping the lycanthropy?" Minnie asked quizzically. "I'd have thought you'd ditch it at the first opportunity."

"You kiddin'? Being a wolf is awesome! I can't wait to start messing with that Phantom Blot jerk!"

Oswald looked at Mickey. "How about you, bro? You keeping anything from this Loop?"

Mickey shook his head. "Nothing except memories. Honestly, I'll be satisfied if the next few Loops had some less contrived--"

And then the Loop ended.

* * *

In the central HQ of Grey Enterprises Holdings Inc., Michael "Mouse" Grey Awoke in the middle of looking over some employment application forms. "--romances." he said, before blinking a couple of times. "Man, I hate it when a Loop ends mid-conversation."

He looked around the frankly opulent office he was sitting in, on the top floor of a rather large skyscraper. "Okay," he noted. "I'm the owner of a rather large company, with no particular focus on any one industry that I can make out. It's a step up from 'immortal high-schooler', anyway."

Then the Loop memories came in.

Mickey took a few minutes to process what had just entered his mind, then buried his face in his hands. "Me and my big mouth."

All of a sudden, the tie he was wearing felt a lot less comfortable. And a _heck_ of a lot dirtier. He planned on burning it when he got home.

At least he wasn't a vampire anymore.

* * *

4.1-4.10: The "Sunset Over Forks" arc in its entirety, in which the Disney characters do their best to derail a setting that tries to railroad them.


	5. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Five

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-16. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Five**

5.1 (SeaofFallingStars): [Kingdom Hearts]

Donald and Goofy were wondering where Sora had gone, since they had all fallen asleep in Aladdin's house. Genie had somehow whipped up a deck of cards and they were playing 'Texas Rummy'. How Genie knew the game, they didn't or want to know. They had completed six and a half games when Sora came back, covered in a purplish-black liquid and pot fragments.

"I am never storming a Pot Scorpion nest for Jasmine's dad again."

* * *

5.2 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts]

**Kingdom Hearts in the Big Top**

"Well," was what Sora muttered, "this is new."

He had experienced a circus before, and it involved one that turned Pinocchio into a donkey.

However, he found himself working with an old summon of his named Dumbo, and he's at the point where the clowns came in. Only one problem... it's less about the clowns that freaked him out...

...it was these guys that spawned Nightmares. Literally.

"Now I'm starting to see why I never went to THIS world," was what Sora muttered. "Wonder how Riku's doing..."

(On the other end...)

"Clowns," was what Riku muttered. "It had to be CLOWNS. I'm not even afraid of clowns, and this is terrifying beyond the capacity for rational thought."

On Riku's side of the story, he got involved with crows, clowns, and a building on fire.

"You're going to need something in order to glide," a mouse replied. "That reminds me, where's your friend?"

"Being tailed by some of the more dangerous villains I've met, Timothy. I'm going to need air support if I'm to take out these clowns. Can you two cover me?"

Dumbo nodded as Timothy saluted.

"You can count on us," was what Timothy muttered. "Let's hope you run into your pal before the guys you mentioned show up."

* * *

5.3 (Hvulpes): [Disney]

Mickey looked at his reflection and the physical changes in his appearance and wondered, "What do the others look like?"

As he thought this his loop memories arrived and his red cheeks sparked with electricity, "Who came up with the name Picky Pikachu?"

* * *

5.4 (wildrook): [Goof Troop/Goofy Movie]

**Raving Rabbids In Spoonerville**

Max and PJ were surprised at the scene in front of them... some rabbit-like things had managed to steal everything within Pete's house and now they were in the Goof Home, unopposed as they were packing lots of stuff.

"Uh, is that one of your Dad's experiments?" PJ asked him.

"Not this time, Peej," Max replied. "Because they managed to tie him up."

"Gawrsh," Goofy said. "I didn't expect to be captured...where did they come from?"

"Don't know, Dad," Max said, "but they're armed!"

The battle cry had been heard through Spoonerville as the rabbit-like monsters had brought up their stuff to go to the moon:

**"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"**

Hard to believe that younger versions of future friends of theirs had been Awake that day, but those... are other stories.

* * *

5.5 (Evilhumour): [Kingdom Hearts / [Keys to the Kingdom]

**Keyblades to the Kingdom 1.3**

"That sounds _rough_ Arthur." Riku muttered, sitting down to let his mind contemplate all of this. He had heard of how one of the Spyro's baseline was a constant war and nearly impossible for him and his friends to prevent it. He had read about the lost loop, the one that was lost due to saving the Megaman loops. He had seen the Supernatural loop and the mess that was.

This was not _as_ bad, but up there.

"But, this a semi special loop." Riku gave Arthur a smile. "I am sure that your loop can't cross over and this isn't a fused loop from what I can tell, thus I am sure that your problems won't follow us over."

"But," Arthur started to protest but Riku placed a hand on his shoulder. "What can I do here?"

"In all honesty? Come join me and my friends for an adventure, we have a lot stuff to deal with, some of it difficult but a lot of fun with my friends." Sending out another Ping, Riku smile grew. "And it seems that most of them are Awake, so they can help you too."

"I _guess_..." Arthur looked to the floor.

"That's if you want to, but again, you are replacing my friend Sora for this loop and a great deal of things are centered around him, I wouldn't want you to have to deal with them without backup." Riku frowned, deciding to see if Arthur was truly replacing Sora this time. "And I can teach you how to use this." He summoned his keyblade, watching Arthur's eyes grow in surprise.

He looked down at the Atlas, which had started to write something.

_Lord Arthur, you have nothing to fear from the keyblades; they will not change you into a Denizen._

"Here, hold this." Riku handed the keyblade over to the looper, waiting to see what would happen.

As Arthur took it, something odd happened. For a split second, there were four different Arthurs. Two he could tell were the replacements of Ventus and Vanitas just by appearance alone. The third one was the same boy he was talking to. The last one...

He was tall, twelve feet tall, with perfect gold hair, with perfectly tan skin. He had no pupils, just pure red orbs. He was dressed in perfectly tailored, old fashion clothing, with a quill behind his ear, a key on a chain along with small mirror mixed with fused trident and baton. On his belt there were a pair of tucked in gloves, with a small sword at his hip. Obedience, awe, and absolute terror poured out from this figure, with Riku unable to do anything.

Then he was gone and Arthur was back, holding a strange keyblade that had moving texture and features on it that drew his attention to it. Riku began to see patterns in it, twisting his head-

"RIKU!" Arthur shouted, banishing the keyblade.

"Sorry Arthur, that was a _weird_ keyblade." Riku shook his head, trying to clear his mind.

"I think it had properties of the Front Door," Arthur muttered to himself, summoning the keyblade again before dispelling it again, taking a long deep breath.

Riku stared at Arthur, and realized that this was going to be an interesting loop.

* * *

5.6 (wildrook): [Goof Troop/Goofy Movie]

"Note to self," Max muttered, "NEVER let Dad near the blue pony with explosive compositions again!"

In Spoonerville High, Max was dealing with a small post-Loop Crash Crisis. Mad Scientist Goofy had met Demomare Trixie.

"Bad Loop?" PJ asked him.

"Bad crash," Max replied. "Pray that your Dad never Awakens, because he'd be surprised that mine SUCCEEDED. Next thing I knew, I ended up as Julius."

PJ cringed. "Feel for ya, Max. Other than that, what's the plan to impress Roxanne this time?"

"Actually, I was hoping I'd go slow," he replied. "I mean, really, we're not going to attend a Science Slumber Party."

"You and me both," a female voice said, surprising them.

The fact that Max DIDN'T fall into the locker proved that he was under stress.

"Roxanne?" Max asked her. "But... how'd you find out?"

"You're not the only one who can bribe someone with cheese wiz," the redhead replied.

"Yeah," PJ said, "you two are DEFINITELY made for each other. I was hoping I'd surprise YOU this time, Max."

Well, at least Max wouldn't have to lie this time. "That makes things a bit easier," Max replied. "I was in a hurry, so I forgot mine. Finding out that you beat... wait a minute. You're feeling Loopy?"

"Ever since the incident with the Raving Rabbids," she replied.

"And that was when we were kids," PJ added. "Heck, BOBBY was the first to confront us. It just took a couple loops."

Max had a feeling that something crazy would trigger it. "Story of my life," he muttered. "Well, you've met Dad before. This time, he's got the Franken-Goof Gene active."

"Mad Scientist?" Roxanne asked him.

"Laboratory underneath both our old and new houses."

"Any actual monsters?"

"Just the one that looks like Big Pete." That sometimes follows him around. "If you see a look-alike, he's nicer than Peej's Dad."

"Guess that's a thing to watch out for. That reminds me, the Principal's on the Warpath."

Max and PJ were surprised.

"I didn't even start the stunt this time," he muttered.

"Not the reason," Bobby said, walking down there. "And no, you're not in trouble. He's trying to quell a riot."

Max then face-palmed. "Who's the leader? King of the Pharaohs? The guy who used to be Chief of Security? I made a lot of enemies when I was a kid, so it could be anyone."

"You might want to see this for yourself."

As they walked out to the front door, they had noticed the most cliche problem... as they saw a lot of Powerline CDs in a pile that looked like they were going to be burned.

"Okay," Max muttered, "now I'm DEFINITELY going to have to explain to Dad what happened today. Guy may be mad, but he's at least logical." Then he had an idea. "You guys have any change I can borrow?"

(Minutes later...)

"That's too cliche for words," Goofy said, bringing a modified version of his old truck.

"Yeah, feels like something out of the sixties," PJ replied.

"You weren't kidding about the Mad Scientist thing," Roxanne muttered.

"Again," Max said, "he's at least willing to help us out. His other career is Captain of the Royal Guard and he created his own Vibranium Shield. But we managed to get Powerline's number from baseline."

"I'm still a little surprised that you knew him AFTER the lie."

"We'll talk about this later. Right now, we have Freedom of Speech to save."

* * *

5.7 (Mr. Egret; wildrook; Evilhumour; Gamerex27; Crisis; VS21; Anon e Mouse Jr.) [Disney] / [Bar Loop - [The Nightmare Before Christmas] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [Marvel] / [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [ Lion King) / [Hercules] / [The Sword in the Stone] / [The Little Mermaid] / [Lilo & Stitch] / [Big Hero 6] / [Gargoyles] / [The Emperor's New Groove] / [Mulan] / [Goof Troop/Goofy Movie] / [Aladdin] / [Snow White] / [Hunchback of Notre Dame] / [Tangled] - Happy Hour at the House of Mouse

* * *

**CONTENT WARNING - contains discussion of bizarre romantic relationships.**

Mickey looked out across the tavern floor as he polished a particularly dirty glass. There weren't a whole lot of people in tonight. But then, there was usually a bigger crowd when the House of Mouse was an actual nightclub rather than a simple bar. As it was, he thought that there were plenty of customers, so he was not concerned.

He heard the door creak open, and looked up to see Jack Skellington and an adult Sora walk into the bar, wearing matching thousand-yard stares. "Hey, fellas. Come on and pull up a stool; you look like you've got something awful on your minds."

"How right you are, Mr. Mouse," Jack replied wearily, as the two Loopers bellied up to the bar. "One glass of La Venganza de Escorpión, if you please."

"Oh jeez. It's that bad?" Mickey asked disbelievingly.

"Yep," Sora replied. "I'll have what he's having."

Mickey pulled out a waiver and pen and handed them to Sora, then pulled out the bottle from underneath the bar. When it hit the bar top, several patrons felt very cold all of a sudden, and the lights flickered noticeably. In the back, Judge Claude Frollo crossed himself, and quickly left the bar.

Mickey poured two steaming glasses of the stuff, checked to see if the waiver had been signed, then pushed the glasses towards the two Loopers. "So, what happened?"

Jack took his glass, and swirled the contents pensively. "Do you remember how Sora, Donald and Goofy helped me save Christmas by rescuing Santa Claus from Oogie Boogie?"

"Yeah; what of it?"

"Well, in our last Loop, when we turned up to save the day, we found out that we were in a variant Loop."

Mickey could all but see the oncoming trainwreck from where he was standing. "Go on..."

Sora shuddered, and grabbed his glass. "As it turned out, Santa didn't need rescuing. He was having a romantic tryst, and we walked in on him kissing...oh I can't bear it."

Mickey gulped. "With who? Who was he kissing?" he asked, feeling like an Investigator in Call of Cthulhu about to open a tomb.

Jack looked Mickey dead in the eye, and the mouse could read the sheer horror written all over the skeleton's face like a book. "Demyx," he whispered.

Jack and Sora both knocked back their glasses in one go. Jack, being a member of the undead, merely got a bit soused. Sora, however, was flesh and blood, and so he slumped over the bar unconscious then and there.

Mickey considered the situation, adjusted Sora's position so he would be more comfortable, and then poured Jack another glass, and a third one for himself. Demyx and Santa Claus was _not_ an image that he wanted to remember. Ever.

* * *

Sora, within the bar of the House of Mouse, had quite the hangover.

"Considering what happened to me and Jack that one loop," he said, "I'm going to need something to look at and laugh. Anyone go through a variant involving a weird pairing? That you had to go through something strong in order to fry your brains out like we have or just de-railed it?"

"Ultron with IG-88," Tony muttered, catching Sora's attention. "We had to get the Death Star destroyed before it could be rebuilt because it was their honeymoon suite."

"What happened to Stan's Place?" Sora asked him.

"Caught in the crossfire. Most of the Marvel Loopers use this as a backup in case that happens."

Captain Jack Sparrow raised his bottle of rum, swigged it around and then looked at everyone in the room. "I was doing the deed with the _other_ Captain Jack, Captain Morgan, Captain Hook, Barbosa, and that old biddy Maleficent while having that curse." He took a deep drink of his rum, shuddering. "I just drank myself to death _somehow_."

"Jack Harkness was Looping?" Oswald asked Captain Sparrow.

"That's the first thing you ask?" he asked the Lucky Rabbit.

"Sadly no, my good friend," Jack sighed sadly. "If he were, he'd known that _I_ like have the whip hit a bit higher."

* * *

Riku muttered something under his breath, not bothering to take his head off the bar table before speaking.

"Uh, could'ja say that again?" Donald rasped. "I didn't hear you."

Riku slowly raised his head, with the kind of look that would put Eeyore to shame. "Simba. Pride Lands. Both lions."

Simba winced from across the room. "Oh. Good thing I wasn't Awake for _that..._ "

"I guess it _could_ have been worse," Riku said, taking a sip of his drink. "At least neither of us got pregnant, which happens way too often in these kinds of AAAARRRGH!" Cutting off mid-sentence, Riku clutched his head at the side-splitting migraine that hit him out of nowhere.

"I did _tell_ you to start with something more mild," Kairi said sadly. "Maybe you should go back to the butterbeer for now. Leave that Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster alone."

As Riku nodded groggily, Hercules hesitantly raised his hand, then quickly put it back down.

"What's wrong, Herc?" Sora asked. "Whatever happened to you can't be _that_ bad. Otherwise, you'd be in a therapy Loop instead of here."

"It's not-" the hero started, then paused again. "It _is_ kind of disturbing, but it's nothing compared to what my dad-both local and Admin-did. It's just... _weird._ If you _really_ want me to, I'll give you an abridged version."

In the aftermath of the story, a _very_ drunk Sora mentioned that he was _very_ lucky to have missed out on most of Herc's story. Riku only remembered bits and pieces of it.

"...Yeah, with Cloud... no, that happened _before_ I Awoke, I would never do that... Yes, I said _sunshine beam_... turned into a hydra after Sephiroth did that... grew teeth and started trying to eat everyone else... yes, Cloud really called him _Sephy-kins_...Yes, I said they _assimilated_ people...yeah, just like the Borg, but grosser...I got possessed by Ansem... then Hades came in while... yes, _really_ , with Cerberus... and after that, I turned into a woman, for some reason... Sephiroth was somehow Leon's true love... had to use... vacuumed like a black hole... then, it started _glowing_... and then war broke out, we all died, and the Loop ended, _thank the gods_."

Simba, in lion form, then groaned.

"Not the craziest as Riku's encounter with me and Nala," he replied, and was thankful that it didn't happen, "but... I got shipped with Ariel when Scar met Ursula that one Fused Loop. It took the intervention of a plane crash from Baloo involving a carnival, Mowgli, fire-ants, and Pumbaa in the place of Flounder."

"Merlions are a thing in Singapore," Merlin replied.

"Don't remind me. You know how hard I tried to explain to Nala and Triton that my Uncle was involved? Or the fact that her sisters were part-fish, part-cat?"

Ariel blushed and hid her face. "At least you didn't have someone badger you for grandkids constantly."

Simba's jaw fell to the floor.

"I only Awoke before the Loop ended, but now that's happened, I can go merlioness now."

"No wonder I saw you with cat ears when we first met," Eric replied. "At least... before you went part catgirl that one time."

Ariel blushed again, her face matching her hair. "Mickey, your strongest drink please."

* * *

The blue 'dog' tapped its chin before it said "Juu Backta."

Everyone in the room winced, and took a drink with the young girl giving her pet a big hug.

"What did he say?" Hiro asked the others.

"You don't want to know," Wendy the cyclops alien replied.

* * *

"Though I no longer love her," Goliath said, "I once saw Demona engaged in courtship with... Chernabog."

Oswald winced. "Yikes. How did that end up?"

"Not as you would think," the leader of the Manhattan Clan of gargoyles replied. "She entered into a Faustian pact with him, then immediately betrayed him the moment she had received the power she was promised. I and my clan were forced to use the most fearsome of our out-of-Loop abilities in order to defeat her. And even then, New York had been completely leveled. And when Chernabog returned for revenge, their fight leveled the entire _state_ of New York."

"On the bright side," Brooklyn added, "we didn't have to worry about the Quarrymen that Loop, since all the people who normally joined them were too busy focusing on fighting Chernabog's army of demons."

"The sad part," Xanatos said, "there were some things that fell apart in the initial plan I had, so I felt it was safer to work WITH Goliath and his clan the moment I Woke up."

Xanatos may have been morally ambiguous, but he wasn't stupid. A deal with Disney's version of Satan led to disaster, so better Goliath than Chernabog.

* * *

Minnie and Daisy quietly conferred over two cups of champagne, before Minnie raised her hand. "I have one," she piped up. "Remember that Loop where Mickey and I married for political reasons before we Woke Up?"

Mickey thought about it for a second, before his eyes widened. "Oh goodness. That loop?"

"Yep. As it turned out, the Unawake me liked girls. Specifically Daisy."

Daisy sipped her champagne. "Yeah, I thought it was weird that we Woke Up in the same bed, but we were able to make it work until the others Woke Up."

She smiled wistfully. "Heh. I still remember when Donald walked in on us when we were drying off after we tried out those hot springs..."

Minnie covered her eyes with her hand, despite her smile. "Oh gosh, I remember that! Poor guy looked as embarrassed as I felt. He got all red in the face, and he wouldn't look at either of us. Remember, Daisy?"

Daisy laughed out loud. "Oh heck yeah I remember! When I beckoned him into the changing room, he was giving off more steam than a sauna! And when you had him sit between us, oh my word..."

As the two girls descended into giggles, Mickey sighed to himself, pulled out a checklist, and put a checkmark next to "champagne". After some consideration, he added another check.

"You were Franklin D. Roosevelt, weren't you?" Oswald asked him.

"Yup," Mickey replied.

* * *

Kuzco looked at the crowd and said six words. "Yzma and a faulty gender potion." He then buried his llama head into the table and cried.

"Why does it keep _happening_ to me?!"

* * *

Mulan tapped her chin for a moment, trying to think of something to share that wouldn't harm anyone _too_ much.

"There was one where Po replaced Mushu..."

"And absolutely nothing was different," Shang added.

* * *

Max looked at the crowd, with his father taking a drink. "Fatherly love to the extreme."

The spit-take was enough to bowl over Hades, Donald, Herc, and a pillar.

The worst part is that the next one involves Oswald's pain being at the heart of 420 mouths asking the same thing:

"Daddy, what's a hooker?"

Oswald's eyes bugged out. "Where did you guys hear that word?" he asked them.

"From one of the Petes," one of the kids asked him.

* * *

Mickey just patted Oswald on the shoulder as they were in the middle of the game.

"Not exactly relevant," Sora muttered, "but that's just awkward."

"That's not the worst part," Oswald replied. "Ever have a stadium full of kids shouting that?"

"This is why I'm GLAD Max is the Anchor of his branch," Goofy said, sympathizing with Oswald outside of the area. "Otherwise... well, there was the time the ex-girlfriend met my current one."

"And this is why mine is worse," Max muttered. "Because 'The Missus and the Ex' is EVERY man's worst nightmare."

"Hey Mickey! We need a whole lot of brain bleach over here!" Genie called out to Mickey as he brought Aladdin and Jasmine into the bar.

Aladdin looked completely out of it as Mickey got the brain bleach and Genie and Jasmine worked to get the brain bleach down Aladdin's throat and once they got several gallons worth of brain bleach down Aladdin's throat, he finally said, "Jafar kept a harem of captured male thieves in one of the dungeons..."

Hades blinked. "Explains so much," he said. "I take it the brain bleach was because..."

"There were thirty-nine," Genie replied. "And his Dad was nowhere to be found. Saluk was the Beta."

Hercules had to LIGHTLY pat Aladdin in the back due to his super strength.

"Kid, that's worse than Zeus when he channels his original self," Hades said to Hercules.

"Don't remind me," Hercules replied. "Besides, guy could use a pat on the back... well... a light one..."

* * *

The Seven Princess of Light looked at each other, looked at their princes and sighed.

"One off to the right?" Jasmine asked Snow.

"One off to the right."

* * *

"No, Quasi," Rapunzel muttered, "Frollo and Gothel makes more sense than baseline role-reversal between him and Esmerelda."

"I wasn't going to say that," Quasimodo replied. "It involved Victor, Hugo, and a goat."

"Then I take it back."

* * *

5.8 (bubblesage): [Bar Loop] / [Disney] / [Hercules] / [Sleeping Beauty] / [The Sword in the Stone] / [Cinderella] / [Snow White] / [Lion King] / [Alice in Wonderland] / [Frozen] / [Power Rangers] / [The Little Mermaid] / [The Nightmare Before Christmas] / [Star Wars]

Mickey hummed to himself cleaning a glass. The House of Mouse was styled as a bar in what seemed to be a modern day Toon Town, thankfully without the Dip.

He looked up seeing Hercules motioning to a door with his head. After getting his brother to watch the bar(1) he followed the demi/actual god into a conference room usually reserved for business meetings (Herc's divinity scale sometimes moved depending on the loop).

Inside he wasn't really surprised when several Awake Royals were sitting at a large round table. Prince/King Philip, Princess/Queen Aurora, Arthur 'Wart' Pendragon next to Merlin, Cinderella and Snow White next to a Prince Charming each, Maleficent(2), Simba, Nala and Kiara (Kovu was sadly not Awake at this time), Alice, Elsa, what may have been Princess Shayla in a concealing cloak, Ariel and Triton in more humanoid forms, Jack Skellington with Sally, and Leia.

"Gosh. If I had known so many esteemed guests were coming I would have made the room bigger. What do your Highnesses wish of me?" He asked bowing politely.

Jack, being elected the spoke-skeleton, spoke up. "We wish to know how to refer to you Sir Mouse. Anchor, king of your own kingdom. Some would say Sovereign of our branch of the world tree. We were debating on High King before you entered."

Mickey tilted his head in thought. He figured this may be asked at sometime in the Loops. It was true; even without the thing with Kingdom Hearts he had had sovereignty before, usually through marriage to Minnie but the odd Prince and the Pauper loops popped up every so often.(3) And to paraphrase pre-Looping Oswald he was technically Dad's favorite, though he never really saw it that way personally.

Mickey nodded, hiding his surprise and fear as Maleficent seemed to follow every word.(4) "I can see your reasonings Pumpkin King, but I'm not one of them. In my heart, I'm just Mickey, and Walt(5) willing no matter what the loops throw at me, I hope i remain just Mickey."

(1) Mickey still gets a tiny thrill that Oswald is both Looping and not jealous of him.

(2) Who was slightly surprising but considering what had happened in her baseline, no one wanted her to feel snubbed, if only to avoid the annoyance.

(3) Usually with him as both.

(4) Who was not actually Awake but had befriended someone and knew how to play the Game.

(5) Does anyone else find it heartwarming that Mickey would swear by Walt?

* * *

5.1: Pot Scorpions are very tricky to handle.

5.2: Ah, Pink Elephants On Parade...

5.3: Good question.

5.4: Foreshadowing!

5.5: Conclusion to this arc. See the first chapter for parts 1 and 2.

5.6: Welcome to the Loops, Roxanne. (Note to self: Introduce her to the other Roxanne. The one from Jurassic Park.)

5.7: A lot of interesting conversations happen in bars. (By the way, Frollo isn't Looping. He's just there in the background.)

5.8: Yes. Yes, it is heartwarming. (And Maleficent isn't Looping either.)


	6. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Six

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Six**

6.1 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Sleeping Beauty]

Mickey and Minnie looked on in mild interest as Maleficent made her needlessly flashy entrance into the main hall. "Okay; here's hoping your plan works, Minnie," he whispered.

"If all of those legends about the Fae we studied are true, then I think it'll work," Minnie whispered back.

"And if they aren't?"

"I have a very large ax made of cold iron, and you have a Keyblade."

"Nice plan B."

"Such a lovely turnout for the young princess's christening," Maleficent drawled. "Why, you've invited the royalty, the nobility, the gentry, and... oh!"

She looked at the three Good Fairies, and chuckled darkly. "Even the rabble."

Right on cue, Merryweather tried to go for Maleficent, only to be held back by Flora and Fauna. Maleficent chuckled again. "Yes, it is truly a privilege to have been invited to this celebration among such august company."

This threw everyone in the room for a loop. Everyone except for the royal couple and the two mice. Maleficent smiled widely. "Oh, there's no need to be so shocked. The King merely saw the wisdom of inviting such a personage as myself to to this most joyous occasion. As such, I feel obligated to 'return the favor', so to speak."

She spread her arms wide, and lightning flashed in the background. Mickey rolled his eyes. _Man, what a drama queen,_ he thought to himself.

"Hear me well, lords and ladies of this court!" Maleficent announced. "The young princess will indeed grow up to possess grace, and beauty, and the adoration of the people. However, she shall also possess the most cunning and brilliant mind in all the land. She will be possessed of a keen political sense, and the ambition and drive that she will need to rule her kingdom wisely and well, repel all those who would invade this land, and CRUSH her enemies under her heel! So say I, Maleficent!"

She laughed loudly as she teleported away in a burst of green flame, leaving the Good Fairies and the assembled nobility to wonder exactly what the hell just happened. Mickey and Minnie smiled at each other. "Well," Minnie whispered, "I think that being a political prodigy trumps being cursed to fall asleep after getting pricked by a spindle, wouldn't you say?"

"Yep," Mickey whispered back. "I think we can call this experiment a success."

"I'll check it off the list when we get a spare moment. Let's just enjoy the party for now."

"Good idea."

* * *

6.2 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Bayonetta] / [The Hunchback of Notre Dame - no Loopers present]

As the city lights of the Isla de Sol twinkled below them, and chunks of the wall of Father Balder's office whistled past them, Oswald and Mickey sat on a particularly large chunk of building as it hurtled through space towards the ground. "Mickey?" Oswald asked.

"Yeah, Oswald?"

"How do we get into these situations?"

"Cause we're too nosy for our own good, and like meddling in the plans of villains."

"Oh yeah. Still, I was not expecting Frollo to be Father Balder this time around."

The two Disney Loopers winced as they heard a particularly loud explosion further up. "Sounds like Bayonetta's starting her counterattack. Should we do the thing?"

"Probably, yeah."

Oswald snapped his fingers, and the Sixth Key manifested in his outstretched hand. He grinned. "Darn lucky that today's Saturday, huh bro?"

Mickey checked his watch. "As of five minutes ago, yes. Okay, you know what to do, right?"

"Oh yeah," Oswald responded, while sketching a hole in the air. "See you on the other side."

"Likewise. SHAZAM!"

* * *

Bayonetta neatly flipped out of the way of another of Father Frollo's salvos of energy balls. "My, my, we just can't hit anything today, can we?" she taunted.

"Silence, witch!" Frollo snarled, as he conjured up an immense glowing blade. "In the name of my Lord, I shall cast thee into the Pit alongside your sisters!"

Bayonetta smirked and drew Pillow Talk in response, the green glow of the blade contrasting with the golden light of Frollo's sword. "Really now? I'd like to see you try!"

The Lumen Sage and the Umbra Witch rushed at each other, and engaged in lightning-fast swordplay. Bayonetta had the years of experience given by Looping and the advantage of speed, but Frollo had the strength of a fanatic and simply refused to go down, no matter how many times he was cut, so they were evenly matched. _Hmmm, not bad for an old judge,_ Bayonetta thought to herself, as she parried Frollo's overhead strike and locked blades with him. _I might have to use one of_ those _abilities to get an edge..._

Suddenly a red and gold blur erupted through the chunk of concrete Bayonetta was standing on, breaking the stalemate and knocking both combatants back. "AGH!" Frollo yelled in surprise and pain, as Bayonetta jumped to another piece of concrete.

Frollo was sent hurtling through space, as his sword was shattered by the red and gold blur, which was continuing on into space. Bayonetta spared a quick glance upwards. _Ah, this must be Mickey's little surprise,_ she realized. She smiled. _This fight is getting more and more interesting._

Frollo regained his balance, and was shaking in anger. "Your vile arts will not save you, **witch!** "

Bayonetta laughed cheerfully, which only angered Frollo even further. "Oh, that had nothing to do with me, judge. I do suspect that my friends are quite unhappy with you throwing them out of the window. Can't imagine why..."

Frollo snarled in fury, before re-summoning his sword. "You will burn for this blasphemy! BUUUUUUUUUURN!"

He snapped his fingers imperiously. "SMITE HER!"

For the next few seconds, nothing happened.

Frollo snapped his fingers again. "I said, SMITE HER!"

Once again, nothing happened. Frollo snapped his fingers rapidly, then snarled in outrage. "Why. Isn't. This. WORKING?!"

"That would be my fault, I'm afraid," an all-too-familiar voice said.

Frollo whipped his head around, and hissed, "Impossible."

Oswald grinned cheekily at Frollo from within the confines of an old-fashioned elevator, which seemed to be descending smoothly like a elevator normally would, instead of tumbling around and around in free fall. He was tossing a strangely complicated piece of computer technology that was probably worth more than several countries' GDP in one hand, and holding a peacock-feather quill in the other. "I'd say that this nifty little doodad is a rather important piece of that particle beam you have in orbit, huh Frollo? Good to know!"

He laughed heartily and shut the doors as Frollo launched a ball of celestial fire at the elevator. The elevator popped out of existence before the fireball could connect, which did nothing to ease Frollo's temper. "Vile demon..." he growled.

Bayonetta took advantage of Oswald's brief appearance and brought back Frollo's attention to herself with a slash across the face. "You're not good at this, are you, Frollo? Never take your eyes off of the opponent during a duel. Poor form, you know."

Frollo, at this point, had been reduced to sounds of animalistic rage. While his swings were much stronger than they were before, they were also wilder and more sloppy. Twice, he cleaved through a piece of concrete that wasn't even close to where Bayonetta was standing. "Such a temper," she chided.

"ARGH!"

Suddenly, dozens of buildings wrenched themselves free from their foundations, and floated up next to Frollo. He bared his teeth in a crazed grin and pointed at Bayonetta. "DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"

And that was when the satellite crashed into Frollo at Mach 2.

Bayonetta shielded her eyes from the resulting explosion, and the buildings fell (more or less) harmlessly back to earth. The Umbra Witch looked up to see Mickey floating back down to her level. "Nice throw."

"Thanks. You alright?"

"Never felt better. I'll admit, the multiple building thing did catch me off guard, but nothing I couldn't handle. Still, it was a nice thought."

"Anytime. Now, why don't we wrap this up?"

"I'd like nothing more."

The Umbra Witch and Earth's Mightiest Mouse smirked at each other, before turning their attention to the wounded Lumen Sage. Mickey hummed along with the background music as the fight resumed in earnest. _I gotta admit; this song is pretty catchy..._

* * *

6.3 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [The Stepford Wives - non-Looping setting]

Mickey, Donald, Goofy and Oswald hid in the alleyway, and watched the perfect women walk by. They didn't react at all to the heat, despite being a sweltering August day. The four Disney loopers, on the other hand, were sweating buckets, as they planned their next move.

"Okay," Mickey began. "The facts are these: We're in Stepford, Connecticut. All the guys except us are members of some sort of men's club, and all of the women are replaced by a bunch of androids."

"These are no ordinary robots, either," Oswald added. "It's nearly impossible to tell them apart from the people they're impersonating. Well, unless you know where to look."

"Minnie's conducting her own investigations, and she brought along Daisy and Ortensia," Mickey continued. "Now, ten to one the men's club is behind this, but we'll need some concrete evidence to prove it in court."

"So what's the plan?" Donald asked.

"Easy. We petition to join the club ourselves, then make some noise about wanting our wives to be replaced. If my hunch is correct then we can spring an ambush after dark, when they come to snatch our real wives for replacement."

Goofy scratched his head. "Wait a minute. I'm not married this time around, so what do I do?"

"You can dig for evidence that the wives are being replaced by robots. Try looking around the area for signs of a holding area for the replaced wives, or a graveyard with a bunch of unmarked graves."

"Got it!"

"Okay, looks like we have a plan," Mickey said, clapping his hands to emphasize his point. "Now let's get out of this alley. It stinks like Horace's dirty laundry."

* * *

Later that evening, Minnie, Ortensia and Daisy holed up in Ortensia's house, and pored over the town records they had dug up. "Look at this," Daisy said, as she held up a particular newspaper clipping. "That's Eva Patterson, one of my co-workers at McDuck Enterprises. She moved here over six months ago. Last I saw her, she wouldn't take any guff from anybody, least of all her husband. Today, when we passed her in the supermarket, she was following his every order without a peep. That's not like her!"

Ortensia nodded, and pulled out another newspaper clipping. "Yeah, something similar happened to me. I ran into Gracie Netterly canoodling with her husband in public, but I happen to know for a fact that she wouldn't be caught dead doing that when we were working together on that mountaineering gig back in Burbank. And guess what: she also moved here six months ago! What d'you think, Mins? Coincidence?"

"I don't think so, Ortensia," Minnie replied. "Look at all of this. Every single woman on the marriage registrar here was famous for their feminist activism and led successful professional careers in their respective fields before they moved here, but when we actually met them, they were acting like housewives right outta the '50s. No, this is no coincidence. There's something big going on here, girls-wait, what was that?"

Suddenly, the door slammed open, and a group of men in uniform filed into the room, moving in a professional way to cover the room that showed lots of practice. Daisy and Ortensia shrieked in surprise, and started to back away. Minnie stood her ground, and began to mentally go through her subspace pocket, for a suitable weapon.

"You're coming with us, ladies," the lead grunt barked. "By order of the Stepford Husbands' Society."

"On what grounds?" Minnie challenged. "We've done nothing to break the law, and I highly doubt that you lot are law enforcement anyway."

"I don't give a donkey's patoot if you lot broke the law or not. The Husband's Society wants you three to undergo the Smiling, so you're going! Now get a move on!"

 _This doesn't look good,_ Minnie thought, as she slowly started to back away from the leering goons and their guns. She needed to get Daisy and Ortensia out of here. But how to do that without blowing her cover?

"Oswald, Donald, now!"

Minnie sighed, partly out of relief and partly out of exasperation. Of course. Wait for one of the guys to blow _his_ cover first.

Suddenly, Mickey, Donald and Oswald burst out of hiding, from behind the surprisingly voluminous curtains, and rugby-tackled the goons. Daisy and Ortensia used the distraction to slip over to the kitchen and grab a couple of frying pans. Then, to Minnie's surprise, they proceeded to join in the ensuing fracas. _I've underestimated them,_ she thought to herself, as she pulled out the Voice Stealer she had made during that one Mega Man Loop.

She then proceeded to set the microphone setting to "Godzilla", before clearing her throat. She inhaled deeply, and...

_**"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK!"** _

The cloud of dust that had formed in the middle of the room was blasted away by the resulting shockwave, revealing the abruptly-stopped scuffle. Mickey had the lead henchman in a headlock, while the henchman was trying to throw him off. Another henchman was paused in mid-yell, while grasping his foot. Ortensia was caught in mid-swing, aiming at the other foot. Oswald and Daisy had punched the third henchman at the same time, and his face was squashed in between their fists.

Donald, somehow, had gotten _himself_ in a rather intricate figure-four leg-lock.

Everyone present turned to look at Minnie, who daintily put the Voice Stealer away. "Now that I have your attention..." she said sweetly.

* * *

Chairman Wimperis examined the three women lying on the table before him. "Hmm..." he mused. "These are the wives of the three newest members, correct?"

"Er, yes, that's right," one of the suspiciously short goons (who was obviously Mickey in disguise) replied. "Mrs. Minerva Mouse, Mrs. Daisy Duck and Mrs. Ortensia Cat. That's them, sir."

"Yes, quite. Now, wheel them down to the laboratory. I'll need their brain imprints to complete the androids. Step lively! The sedative won't last forever!"

"Right, sir."

The goon motioned to the other two goons (also suspiciously short, and also just as obviously Donald and Oswald), and the three of them pushed the table out of the room, and down one of the hallways of the mansion. They passed through many twists and turns, steadily going downwards, until they finally entered a cavernous underground lair. There were discarded android parts littered all over one side of the room, and electrical equipment of all types, from the most innocuous voltmeter, to a gigantic Van de Graff generator dominating the far side of the room. In the center of the room, there were three tables with straps, obviously designed to hold down unwilling subjects. Unusual bowl-shaped devices with blinking lights and dials rested at one end of the tables.

The three guards wheeled the table into this mess, and then shut the door behind them. They then took off their uniforms, and sighed in relief.

"That had _no_ business working, Mickey," Oswald admonished, as he went to check up on Ortensia.

"Hey, I thought you did a good job with the mind whammy," Mickey replied defensively. "Anyway, we should be thankful that it _did_ work. Look at all this!"

"Yeah," Donald replied, as he gently shook Daisy awake. "All this tech stuff looks real suspicious. We have to get some pictures of all this, and maybe a few android parts as evidence..."

Once all three of the girls were revived, the six investigators pulled out cameras of varying sophistication and proceeded to photograph everything within the lab. They paid special attention to the android parts and the tables with straps. They even posed by some of the more incriminating evidence, for laughs.

Suddenly, a noise from behind the Van de Graff generator made everyone spin around, and pull out various bludgeoning instruments (either from subspace pockets or from Hammerspace). They tensed up, as a secret door opened up in the main body of the generator and a dark figure started to step out.

They then relaxed when that figure proceeded to trip on an exposed wire, and sprawl inelegantly on the floor. They recognized a Goofy pratfall when they saw one.

"Goofy, good to see you! Ya find anything?" Minnie asked.

"Sure did! I found out where all of those women were being taken after they were replaced! Follow me!"

* * *

The party followed Goofy into the passageway, and for a few minutes could barely see the ends of their noses (or bills, as the case may be). Eventually, they entered a large, circular room that was lined with huge glass tubes. In each of the tubes, a person floated in mysterious green liquid.

Ortensia and Daisy gasped. "These people... this is everybody that's been replaced!" Ortensia exclaimed.

"Are they dead?" Daisy asked worriedly, as she looked at the tube containing Eva Patterson. "They don't look like they're breathing..."

Mickey looked at the heads-up displays attached to each tube. "Well, if these displays are accurate, they're alive. Unconscious, but alive. Fan out everyone, and let's see if there's a control panel around here."

Eventually, they found a control panel tucked away in a hidden alcove, next to another door leading to the surface. After much hurried discussion and passing the buck, it fell to Oswald and Minnie, as the most tech-savvy Loopers, to free the imprisoned women. It took them seven grueling minutes to work out the fiendishly complicated control panel, and safely drain the tubes of the mysterious green fluid, which turned out to be an anesthetizing gel. Minnie sighed in relief, and Oswald cut a little victory jig when the women started to stir, and the others hurried to release them from the tubes.

"Now what?" Goofy asked, as he kept an eye on the doors, his shield at the ready.

"Now..." Mickey thought for a minute, then smiled. "Now, we pay the Chairman one last visit, before turning evidence."

* * *

Chairman Wimperis didn't bother turning around when he heard footsteps behind him as he took his ease in the smoking room. "Well? Did the brain-scan work?"

"Better than expected, sir. The subjects were extraordinarily responsive to the treatment. However, there were a few, um, complications with the activation of the androids."

"Really, now? What _sort_ of complications?"

"I think you should take a look for yourself, sir."

Sensing something wrong, Wimperis turned around, then froze. His expression of irritation slowly gave way to a look of shock and horror, and he found himself unable to speak.

Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Oswald, Ortensia, and Goofy were standing there, looking very pleased with themselves. Behind him, every single woman he'd operated on glared daggers at him, their hair and clothes still dripping with gel, and with android parts in their hands.

"I think that some of your previous associates want a word with you," Mickey quipped.

"Eek."

* * *

6.4 (Jcogginsa): [Frozen] / [Pokémon]

" _The cold never bothered me anyway._ "

With that, Elsa turned and slammed the door, ready to begin her new life in solitude.

"That was a beautiful song," said a smooth masculine voice.

Elsa's head snapped to the side, and she saw a strange, floating cat creature.

"You need to leave. It's dangerous around me." Elsa warned the... odd creature.

"I'm in no danger. You would not hurt me."

"That's not up to me. My powers... I can't control them." Elsa insisted.

The creature looked around, and spread his arms. "This beauty says differently."

"That's... it's..." Elsa struggled, but she couldn't find the words to rebuke him. "Who are you anyway?"

"My name is Mewtwo. I am a creature known as a Pokémon. I saw your palace being created, and wanted to see its creator. Your power is wonderful Elsa."

"It's dangerous. I nearly killed my own sister!"

"Beauty often comes with danger. But I can tell from looking at you. You are a kind, compassionate person Elsa. When you _use_ your power, you do not harm others. You create beauty. You create life."

"I've never created life before."

Mewtwo waved his hand, and the surroundings changed. Elsa was standing on a transparent blue platform, looking down on a snowing forest. She could see something, a snowman, walking through the snow.

"Olaf..." she whispered to herself.

"Yes, I'm to understand he likes warm hugs." Mewtwo stated warmly. "He was the first thing you created after you began using your powers. A living snowman."

"I didn't even notice." Elsa said, as she continued to watch Olaf, enraptured. Soon, the kind Snowman ran into Anna and Kristoff.

"Wait, what is Anna doing out in the wilderness? She should be back in Arendelle."

"Your sister is looking for you, Elsa. She wants you to come back."

"I can't. It's safer for Arendelle if I'm alone. It's safer for her if she stays away."

"I'm afraid that's not true, Elsa."

The view changed once again, now showing Arendelle, blanketed in snow. Frozen.

"When you fled, Elsa, you left a winter in your wake. And only you can undo it. "

"I can't! I can't control my powers!" Elsa said in anguish.

"Yes, you can Elsa. Remember back, when you and Anna played together. You could control your powers fine then. It is only when you began to fear them that you lost control. Fear is your enemy. Happiness and love are your allies. Think of Anna. What do you feel for her."

"I love her." Elsa said. There was no hesitation in her voice.

"That is the key, Elsa. Love is the key."

A realization came over Elsa. And for the first time in forever, she smiled a true, happy smile.

* * *

Elsa moved the icy wand away from her head, and returned the memory to the Pensieve.

"That was a beautiful memory, Mewtwo."

* * *

6.5 (Hvulpes): [Frozen] / [Adventure Time - no Loopers shown active]

"Elsa, Elsa! I think I found out where your powers come from," said the non-looping Anna as the looping Elsa was enjoying the day, even as she wonder why the loop was extended beyond baseline.

Surprised at the news, she asked, "Really? Where Anna?"

"Apparently our twelve times Great Grandfather. I found it in the book, King Simon of Arendelle, of the Petrikov Kings line."

Elsa knew that name and a slight look of horror crossed her eyes, which Anna didn't see as she continued.

Showing a picture of a man with a blue robe, blue skin and a long pointed nose, wild and long white hair and beard, and a tall golden crown with a large red ruby with two smaller rubies on each side. Anna finished, "King Simon was nicknamed... The Ice King."

* * *

6.6 (Hvulpes): [Frozen]

"The Clones never bother me anyway.

Right, Elsas and Annas?" asked the unawake Snow Queen to the number of copies of herself and her sister. Some as young as eight or so.

* * *

One Loop Later...

"So apparently you were able to make sentient live ice and snow clones which looked like real people. Figure if you made people from snow, you couldn't hurt them," Anna explained.

Elsa just stared and blinked... and also wondered if she could do that too.

* * *

6.7 (bubblesage; wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Mortal Kombat]

Sora blinked looking at the pots in front of the Palace gates. It was obvious which one held the enemy considering one of them was painted yellow and black. Sora promptly turned around and walked out. "Nope. Not going through that headache. I refuse. I already have three Ultima weapons, this isn't worth it."

That's when Sora felt a kunai with a rope wrapped around his person.

" **GET OVER HERE!** " the one in the pot yelled.

* * *

6.7 alternate (bubblesage; Evilhumour): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Mortal Kombat] / [The Legend of Zelda]

Sora blinked looking at the pots in front of the Palace gates. It was obvious which one held the enemy considering one of them was painted yellow and black. Sora promptly turned around and walked out. "Nope. Not going through that headache. I refuse. I already have three Ultima weapons, this isn't worth it."

All of a sudden, Link had shoved him to the side and started to flat out defeat all of the pot enemies.

Sora looked at the massacre and then at Link. "You _seriously_ need to get some help dude."

There was a screech as a pot monster tried to run away, before being dragged back into the melee.

"Seriously, you are scaring me."

* * *

6.8 (Mr. Egret): [Disney]

Mickey threw the office door open wide, and walked into the shadowy office. The large chair behind the ornate desk had its back turned to him, and the only light available came from the windows of the skyscrapers shining through the blind-covered windows, and the sickly blue glow of the computer monitor on the desk. There was a fancy-looking lamp on the other side of the desk, but it was switched off. On either side of him, file cabinets overflowed with papers and photos, and a single potted plant sat in the corner. Presumably to add a touch of color, but Mickey couldn't tell in the dark.

Mickey decided to cut to the chase. "Well, 'Boss Lady', I got your message," he said, pulling out a grubby letter from the pocket of his trenchcoat. "Now, start talking. What do you know about the Anderville mob?"

Smoky laughter wafted from the figure in the chair. "Oh, I know plenty, Mr. Mouse," a sultry female voice replied, with just a hint of artificial tuning. "I know who's in charge, what they're planning, and how they're going to do it. They may think that smaller operations like ours aren't worth anything except as tools, but we have ears."

"Well, unless they've been up against a keyhole, I'm not interested. Can we get to the point?"

"Tsk. Somebody's prickly tonight. Alright, here's the deal. You remember that assistant D.A. you busted last month?"

"Yeah, I remember him. Man had ties to some of the biggest smugglers in this town. What of him?"

"Well, it turned out that those ties were a lot more binding than he thought. Some of Caruso's goons jumped him while he was going to get some coffee, and put the squeeze on him. He spilled the beans about your involvement in the case, and Caruso was _not happy._ "

"I'll bet. Some two-bit private eye from a nowhere town like Mouseton blows into his little kingdom, and takes out one of his friends in high places--that's gotta sting."

"Yeah, and you won't like what he's going to use for some ointment."

"What?"

The figure sighed deeply, as if she was carrying some burden that would put Atlas to shame. "He did some digging, and found out who your friends are. He's put out a hit."

Mickey put his hands on the Boss Lady's desk, and his voice would've given a penguin the shakes. "On who?"

"Your girlfriend. Minnie."

There was a pause.

"I see," Mickey said, his voice just a hint too light to be natural. "That's odd."

"What is?"

"From what I've heard of Caruso, he seems to be in his prime, and living high on life. So why would he want to commit suicide now?"

"I'm sorry?" the Boss Lady asked, her voice wavering just a little.

"I mean, it's the only possible explanation for a brilliant criminal mastermind who knows who I _am_ and _what_ I can do, going and doing something so _monumentally stupid._ "

The figure in the chair was quiet for a while, as the sheer venom of Mickey's words hung on the air like a cloying mist. "It's not all doom and gloom, Mr. Mouse," she finally replied.

"Oh yeah? What's the silver lining for this cloud?"

"Caruso put out that hit when he had some bad intel. He still thinks that Minnie's in Mouseton, while we have it on good authority that she's on a nice long vacation."

"And how would you know something like that? If you've been spying on her--"

The figure laughed again, and Mickey definitely heard a change. It sounded lighter, more natural, and maddeningly familiar, like a song you've heard a thousand times before but can never name. "Nothing of the sort. We just happen to know her better than anyone."

"But that's impossible! Minnie doesn't know anyone from Anderville..."

But as he said those words, Mickey finally put a face to that laugh, and his brain came to a wholly unexpected conclusion. He felt the corners of his mouth pulling into a grin and his heart started doing the rumba. "Oh, no way," he laughed disbelievingly. "No _way._ "

In one fluid movement, the figure spun the chair around to face him and flicked on the lamp, shining a soft incandescent light over the whole room. There, sitting in the high-backed chair, bold as brass and twice as beautiful, was a face that Mickey thought he had left behind in Mouseton, and showed up in his dreams every night since.

Minnie Mouse smiled, and put down her Voice Stealer to wipe some tears from her eyes. "Hi, Mickey."

" _Minnie!_ "

The two mice all but tackled each other, and for a few minutes, only the sounds of kissing and cooing could be heard from the dark office. At length, Mickey and Minnie had calmed down enough to just sit together in the chair, cuddling.

"So..." Mickey began. "You're the head of a gang now?"

"Sort of. When I came looking for you, I ran into some guys that knew what you were up to, who were having some trouble with some of Caruso's lieutenants making it hard for them to do business. So, we made a deal: I help them take out the lieutenants, they point me to you. Then, all I had to do was bust out the ol' divine magic a bit, and put the fear of Yggdrasil into Caruso's men. I probably made an impression on my informants, too, cause they agreed to stick with me after I helped them out."

"Huh," Mickey replied. "Something similar happened to me when I first came here. While I was asking around for Sonny Mitchell, I found a diner where the cook and clientele all knew him. We became friends after I found out about that little fact, and they've been helping me with cases ever since."

"A diner? Is the food good?"

"Inasmuch as a greasy spoon's food _can_ be, yeah. Wanna go get a bite to eat?"

"Sounds good to me. Most of my associates are gone, anyways."

The two mice left the office hand in hand, leaving it unoccupied, save for the plant in the corner, the files full of secrets, and the twinkling of the city lights.

* * *

6.9 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Aladdin]

Sora couldn't help but chuckle at the state Aladdin was in right now. Probably because Sora was older, for once.

"Laugh it up," the miniature thief said. "This tends to happen every now and again... other times, it sounds like Simba's narrating my every move."

"Sorry," Sora replied. "It's just weird seeing you like this... I never thought I'd be the older one in one of these scenarios."

* * *

6.10 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Mythos Hackers]

Ortensia hummed cheerfully to herself as she pulled a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven, and set them out to cool. "Ah, they smell perfect! I'll have to thank Princess Peach for this recipe later..."

Her ears perked up as she heard the the door slam. "Oh, hi Oswald! Come on in; I've just finished with some cookies!"

Oswald padded into the kitchen and gave Ortensia a quick peck on the cheek. "Hey, Tens. They smell good!"

As Oswald poured himself a glass of milk, Ortensia picked up his robes, and folded them neatly. "So, how did it go?"

"Well, I found the place where the Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath were being summoned, and we worked out a way to talk without my brains leaking out of my ears, so it went about as well as any other time I chatted with our kids' boyfriends and girlfriends."

Ortensia sighed. "Did you set the place on fire again?"

"That was an accident and you know it. But no, they seemed on the level, surprisingly enough. They were all perfect gentlemen. Or gentleladies. Or gentlecreatures. I can never work out what gender Eldritch Horrors are..."

He laughed to himself as he remembered the meeting. "Some of the smaller ones actually looked nervous about talking with their dates' father. I guess some things really are universal."

* * *

6.11 (wildrook): [DuckTales]

Scrooge McDuck was downright annoyed.

Not because of the fact that Launchpad was flying. He was used to bracing himself for the crash that happened within every vehicle he let McQuack fly.

The reason he was annoyed was that he had experienced this event before. Donald had informed him of the Loops repeating certain events, but to involve the immortal Merlock and the Lamp that contained Genie, not to mention that his nephews and Webbigail hadn't experienced this got him over the edge.

"You didn't run into anything, did you?" Scrooge asked Launchpad.

"Not yet, Mr. McD," Launchpad replied. "I'm just about to land, so remain seated in the upright position!"

"TURN THE PLANE RIGHT-SIDE-UP BEFORE YOU LAND, MCQUACK!"

Much later... he was going to deal with an upside-down plane and destroyed ruins.

"Mental note," Scrooge muttered, "get Launchpad flying lessons next Loop." After finding a way to get the Treasure of Collie Baba... again... take out Merlock, and free Genie.

What's next, Magica DeSpell trying to revive Count Duckula... oh wait, that happened already. How he was able to breathe on the moon was something he questioned the first time he did that.

* * *

6.1: It's always better to be on Maleficent's good side.

6.2: Not being familiar with _Bayonetta_ , I can't really comment.

6.3: Stepford is a disturbing place that needs derailing every chance you get.

6.4: Ah, Mewtwo and Elsa... a wonderful friendship.

6.5: That explains a lot.

6.6: Interesting interpretation of her powers.

6.7: A different take on "Pot Scorpion".

6.7 alternate: A second response to "Pot Scorpions".

6.8: Inspired by an actual comic series.

6.9: Inspired by _The Thief and the Cobbler_.

6.10: He's not kidding about the "some things really are universal" bit.

6.11: This is Launchpad, Scrooge. He's _never_ going to be able to fly without crashing... and he takes _pride_ in that.


	7. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Seven

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Seven**

7.1 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Persona]

Oswald glared at the smirking duplicate of himself, as the standoff continued. He didn't know how he got into the TV, or why he was wandering through a much foggier version of Wasteland, but this... _thing_ was really starting to get on his nerves.

"Aww, what's the matter? Getting frustrated, are we?" the duplicate asked mockingly. Oswald growled, and the duplicate laughed. Everything about this guy made Oswald want to punch him in the face.

Neither Oswald nor his duplicate were rabbits, of course. It seemed that he was replacing some loser named Mitsuo Kubo, and the species marker had actually kicked in, for once. He didn't Wake Up until he was in the TV World, but his Loop memories told him all he needed to know about the guy, and he felt the need for a nice long shower after this Loop. Perhaps with Thinner shampoo, to get the memories out.

The duplicate sneered, and began to pace around Oswald, who spun around to keep his face to him. "But then, I guess this isn't the _first_ time you got frustrated, is it?" he snapped. "No, that would be alllll the way back in nineteen twenty-eight, when that rat bastard of a younger brother stole your spotlight!"

"That's not how it went down, damn you!" Oswald roared.

The duplicate didn't even notice, and went on with his speech. "You were a star once! You were big! But then the public got bored of you, and your own father dumped you into that hell hole you call Wasteland! You were bitter, and rightly so! You couldn't deal with being out of the limelight, with being ignored! Oh sure, you may play nice with that usurper nowadays, now that he's finally made up for trashing your home, but you still remember his other crime. Believe me, I know."

At this point, Oswald lost his temper. "Oh yeah? How do you know, you impostor?!" He rushed forward, grabbed his duplicate by the shirt front, and shouted in his face. "Tell me! **Tell me, damn you!** "

The duplicate chuckled, then started laughing maniacally. "Alright! The truth is quite simple, really: _I am you... and **you** are **me**._"

Oswald faintly heard the door opening behind him, and voices yelling at him to get back, to not say it, but he was too eaten up with rage to care. "Liar! YOU ARE NOT ME!"

The duplicate paused when he heard that, and Oswald grinned savagely. _That's right, you jerk. Take that, and choke on it._

Oswald's cocky grin slowly faded away as the duplicate started to... _laugh?_

"Wonderful..." it drawled.

Suddenly shadows gathered around the duplicate, and blasted Oswald into a nearby pillar. He briefly heard someone (a female?) scream his name, before he blacked out.

* * *

Yu and the rest of the Investigation Team looked on in horror, as the Shadow of Oswald Kubo took on a much more monstrous form, after throwing the real Oswald into a pillar. Gone was the tall, thin exchange student with surprisingly large feet and searching yellow eyes, dressed in a tuxedo and tails. In its place was an enormous clockwork rabbit, with a cartoonish design, painted in bright gaudy colors that clashed terribly with the exposed metallic parts. It was pitted with rust, and its exposed gears clanked in an endlessly repeating pattern, in time with the turning of the key in the middle of its back.

Two gargantuan arms, one blocky and cheerfully painted, and one angular and obviously metallic, stuck out from its sides, and its globular head was balanced on a tightly wound spring. Oil, or possibly ink, trickled in steady rivulets from the rabbit's eyes, and two membranous wings seemingly made of the stuff exploded from the back, on either side of the worn silver key.

The transformed Shadow flared its wings, and pointed at the Investigation Team, as it laughed menacingly. "I am a Shadow, the true self," it intoned. "I'm going to make everything just like it was in the good old days, and I'm not letting a bunch of two-bit punks get in my way!"

"Oh my god!" Rise gasped, as she scanned Shadow Oswald with her Persona. "It's even stronger than Shadow Mitsuo was! Get ready, everyone!"

The Investigation Team brandished their various weapons, and Shadow Oswald roared in outrage. Battle was joined.

* * *

7.2 (Jcogginsa): [Frozen] / [Rise of the Guardians]

Elsa looked out the huge window, her heart a tumultuous storm. She wanted desperately to open her door and play with her sister. But she wanted to keep her safe even more, and that meant staying _away_.

She jerked back as the Windowsill iced over. She couldn't even touch something without freezing it. She'd never be able to touch Anna. Her thoughts were interrupted when a voice suddenly spoke.

"That's pretty neat kid."

Elsa whipped around, and saw a boy's face right outside her window, with white hair much like her own.

"W-who are you?" Elsa asked. The Boy chuckled and came into the room before answering.

"The name's Jack Frost. And you are?"

"Elsa." she answered, before taking a step back "You should leave. It's not safe around me."

Jack chuckled and began sliding around the room, the floor becoming ice beneath his feat "Won't really be a problem."

"You have powers, like me." Elsa whispered in amazement.

Jack only smirked.

"And you can control them?" Elsa asked, a tinge of hope in her voice that could bring tears to the eye.

"Eh, I can fling a mean snowball." Jack said with a smile.

"Can you teach me? _Please?_ " Elsa practically begged.

"Sure thing." Jack said casually. Then he added "Just one thing though."

"What is it?" Elsa asked semi-frantically, ice appearing at her feet.

"This room is a bit small. We'll need to go somewhere a bit... bigger."

Elsa gulped. Leaving would put others in danger. "I-I'd need to convince my parents."

"Don't worry, I can help you with that. Just between you and me, i'm kinda hard to spot. You can't see me unless you believe."

Elsa nodded, and steeled herself. "Okay."

* * *

"Okay, so I had forgotten that the parents of a Ice creating 8 year old were probably a bit more open minded than most. I only got attacked with _one_ sword before I managed to explain things."

* * *

Jack, Elsa, and King Agdar had journeyed out into the wilderness for the practice. Agdar was only there to ensure Elsa's safety, and make sure she returned home.

"Okay," Jack began, his arms tucked behind his back " the way I figure it, the best way to know how to not use your powers is to know how to use them. The more you know about them, the better off you are. Soooooo..."

Jack's hand suddenly whipped from behind and flung a snowball into Elsa's face "Snowball fight!"

Surprised, a certain... giddiness overtook Elsa, and she formed a snowball in her hand to return fire.

The battle was joined, and it was truly a spectacle. Jack flitting around on the wind throwing snowballs every so often, being pursued by Elsa using increasing elaborate constructs of ice, from slides to pillars.

"You're pretty good." Jack called "But you still haven't hit me with a-"

A Snowball struck the back of his head, thrown not by Elsa but by her father.

And yet again the battle was joined, this time with the King taking part. It might have seemed lopsided, two cryomancers and a regular human in a snowball fight, but the king held his own.

Finally, amid a storm of giggles and smiles, Elsa waved her arms in a wide twirl, flinging magic snowballs in every direction.

"Okay, you finally got me." Jack said with a smile, mirrored on Elsa's own face.

Until she heard a groan. Turning, she saw her father lying on the ground, clutching at his chest. Her eyes widened and her glee shattered as she rushed over to him, tears already falling "Papa! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Jack landed next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "Listen Elsa, you can fix this, you can thaw his heart. Love will thaw, and i know you love your father. Remember all the times your father read you to sleep. Remember when he held you in his arms. Remember his love."

Elsa closed her eyes, and remembered. And then her tears dried, when her father's arms wrapped her into a hug.

* * *

"And that's how I helped Elsa get her groove back. After that, they unlocked the castle and Elsa could play with Anna again. And yes, they built many snowmen."

"A very good story mate," Bunnymund said. "But it doesn't explain how she's still here 150 years later."

He turned to Elsa and said politely "No offense."

"None taken." Elsa said with a wave of her hand. "That's another story entirely."

* * *

7.3 (Evilhumour): [Frozen] / [Doctor Who]

Elsa had to admit, _this_ was one of the weirdest variants ever.

"DO YOU WANT TO BUILD A SNOW-MAN?" The Dalek asked in a sing song voice.

"NEGATIVE, SHE WISHES TO BUILD A SNOWFORT!" The cyberman shouted at the Dalek, who was now arguing with more strange aliens about what snow features to build.

She sighed, knowing this would be a _long_ Loop.

* * *

7.4 (Evilhumour; Xomniac): [Frozen] / [Codename: Kids Next Door] / [Megas XLR]

**The Awakening of Nigel Uno**

Anna Awoke to a strange scene. It seemed this time Elsa was being replaced by some bald boy, and she didn't recognize the Looper. Using her Loop memories, she started the Loop the way she usually did.

"Nigel, do you want to build a snowman?"

Her brother blinked, reached for his tinted glasses and stared at her.

"As soon as you explain what is going, where my friends are, where my _treehouse_ is and who _you_ are."

Anna smiled as she liked to give the Welcome Speech. Reaching into her subspace, she pulled the latest book that she got from the ponies.

"Well, you see, there is this tree..."

* * *

A few Loops later...

Father stood tall above those snot dripping kids from his nephew's treehouse.

"It seems that your precious Numbuh One isn't here to save you this time and once I am done with you _all_ , you will be perfect little kids like my own!" He shouted, his flames growing larger the captured operatives Numbuh Two to Five. "Bring in Daddy's Delightitfier kids!" He bellowed to the collective group known as the Delightful Children From Down the Lane just as something blue and grey smashed into the side of his mansion, ripping it apart from what appeared to be a giant robot with a car on top.

"I don't think so." Stepping down the metal arm was his brother's son, shaking his head and grinning. "I think it's time for you to chill out old man." The brat said, smirking as he summoned a blast of snow directly at him, knocking him into the wreckage of his home. "Come on guys, let's get out of here. My friend Coop here has promised to show off his ride and I think it will be good to add it to the base's defenses."

Later (again)...

Numbuh 5 shook her head in disbelief with Numbuh 1 smirking at her and the scene below.

"I _told_ you that Coop was one of us Numbuh 5." He watched Numbuh 4 shout with anger as Coop had defeated him again on their fighting game, which they settled on doing after they had tied on their belching contest had knocked down several houses.

"Numbuh 5 saw it but she doesn't quite believe it." She shook her head back and forth, watching Numbuh 2 and 3 eye Megas again. Coop had promised to show off his bot once he learned that Numbuh 3 had one herself but Numbuh 4 had challenged him to prove he was worthy of entering sector V.

"There _are_ adults who are still kids at heart and they are _wonderful_ allies." Numbuh 1 answered, grin growing as he watched Coop grab another bottle of soda and chugging it down with gusto and unleashing another powerful belch.

Numbuh 5 nodded her head, watching Coop look like a mirror image of Numbuh 4, tongue sticking out as they mashed the buttons with ridiculous speed. She then blinked, turning her head to her friend and leader. "Say, where did you get that freezing power?"

* * *

7.5 (Mr. Egret; wildrook): [Disney] / [Goof Troop/Goofy Movie]

Mickey ran through the mean streets of Toontown, with hell at his heels. No matter how he tried to shake them, whether by dodging into side streets, vaulting over walls, or grinding along railings, they were never far. He could hear the shrieking, and the sound chilled him to the core.

"EEEEEEEEEEEE MICKEY YOU'RE SO CUUUUUUUUUUUTE!"

"I WANNA HUG HIM AND CUDDLE HIM AND NEVER LET HIM GO!"

"NO WAY! HE'S MY HUSBANDO! MICKEEEEEEEEEY! MARRY MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Mickey took a sharp left, and his eyes lit up as he saw the spotlights of the House of Mouse. "There!"

He took off in a dead sprint, and the fangirls swarmed after him like so many locusts. Mickey was fast, and he knew it, but the mob had been chasing him ever since he Woke Up, and he was running on fumes. Slowly, inch by inch, they started to gain ground on him.

Mickey's chest burned with the exertion he was placing on his lungs, and he could feel his legs slowly growing weaker and weaker, but he knew that if he let the fangirls catch up, unspeakable things would happen to his person. _I can't give in now! But I'm so tired... I don't know if I can go on..._ The doors of the House of Mouse swung open, and a plunger tied to some fishing line sailed through the air, before attaching itself to Mickey's head. Before Mickey knew what was happening, he was pulled right into the House of Mouse, and the doors were slammed shut in the mob's faces.

The fangirl horde slowly came to a halt, before milling about confusedly. "Umm... what are we doing here?" one girl asked.

"I don't know. All I remember is seeing Mickey passing by the convention area, and now we're here..."

The mob eventually broke up, as the girls dispersed in different directions, still utterly confused as to what came over them.

* * *

Mickey pulled the plunger off of his head. "Thanks for the assist, Minnie."

"Anytime. Now, why were you being chased by all those girls?"

Mickey sat down at one of the tables to catch his breath. "I don't know. I was just walking down the street after I Woke Up, when I noticed some of those girls following me. I tried to shake them, and ran into some anime convention. Every single female attendee started chasing me, and I've been dodging them ever since!"

Minnie put the fishing rod away, and walked over to Mickey. "So, this happened out of the blue?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah."

Minnie thought to herself for a few seconds, then pulled her holy symbol out of her subspace pocket. "Here, let me try something."

She muttered a quick prayer to Yggdrasil, then held the holy symbol out in front of her like a divining rod. Incongruously, it started beeping like a metal detector, with the beeps increasing in intensity as she ran it over Mickey. After a few seconds, she put the holy symbol away, with a pursed look on her face.

"Well? What is it, Mins?" Mickey asked worriedly.

Minnie delicately clasped her hands together. "You've been cursed, Mickey."

"What?!"

"Yep. High-level enchantment, designed to make any female not already romantically inclined towards you to fall madly in love (or lust) with you on sight. From the looks of it, it could be either the Negi Springfield Curse or the Red-String Hex. Either way, I can't break it on my own."

Mickey gulped. He had heard of both curses, and neither of them were pleasant. "Walt on high... How are we going to do the show tonight? I can't act as MC if half the audience is going to mob me the second I walk on stage!"

Minnie thought to herself for a minute. "If I remember correctly, both of those curses can be broken if the victim gets married to his or her significant other in full view of the women under the curse. We can head over to the town hall, get a secretary or something to look at you, then sign a marriage certificate. That should do it."

Mickey looked uneasily at the door. "We're going to need some way to delay Pete before the show starts; Scrooge isn't Awake, so we'll have to stick to the contract for a few more weeks."

Minnie smiled. "Oh, I'll think of something."

* * *

Pete looked at the House of Mouse in disbelief. "What the devil?"

The entire nightclub had been sealed inside an absolutely massive mound of Jell-O. Lime-flavored Jell-O. Several of the guests were talking happily among themselves as they alternately bounced off of it, ate it, and swam through it like so many porpoises.

Looking for a way in, Pete examined every inch of the gargantuan confection, poking and prodding it in search of a weak point that he could tunnel through. "If that little pipsqueak and his girlfriend are behind this... Huh?"

There was an envelope addressed to him lying on the ground in front of the section of Jell-O blocking the front door. He picked it up and opened it to find a note. "What's this, now?"

He ripped it out, and began to read.

_Dear Pete,_

_Sorry about the mess, but we needed to visit City Hall to get a curse lifted, and we didn't want to have our guests be bored in the meantime. Rest assured, your contracts with the staff are still safely within the safe in your office. You might have some trouble getting them back until the Jell-O is cleared away, though. Don't worry, we'll clean it right up when we come back to do the show. Say hello to PJ for us!_

_Sincerely,_

_Mickey and Minnie Mouse_

Pete crumpled the note in his fist. "They'll pay for this! No one, and I mean _no one_ , makes a fool of me and gets away with it!"

A large blob of Jell-O fell on his head, causing him to curse up a storm while trying to wipe it off his nice white suit.

"SORRY, BOSS!" Goofy yelled from his perch on top of the Jell-O. "Gawrsh, and I thought he liked Jell-O!"

"Maybe he just doesn't like lime?" Max suggested, while practicing his backstroke.

"Maybe. He does strike me as more of a blue raspberry man."

* * *

Later...

"So THAT'S where those accursed Spectacles have gone," Scrooge yelled.

* * *

7.6 (Jcogginsa): [Avatar: Legend of Korra] / [Beauty and the Beast - no Loopers present]

Mako groaned in frustration.

"Hey, lighten up bro. Could be worse." his brother, Bolin, soothed.

"I should hit you for that pun. And why am I not the candelabra? I'm a firebender!" he asked. Being a clock was annoying.

"You're too stuffy. I'm a romantic." Bolin answered.

Mako sighed again. "Why haven't they undone the curse yet?" he asked, looking out at Asami and a very different Korra dancing to an admittedly nice song.

"I don't think they've checked their loop memories yet. They've been staring into each other's eyes since they woke up."

* * *

7.7 (Jcogginsa): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [LEGO Movie] / [Looney Tunes]

**JACK SPARROW SWAGGERS IN!**

Jack held his head and groused "Oy, keep it down mate. I'm still hungover."

Of course, Jack was always hungover whenever he woke up, in both senses of the phrase.

"And that's Captain Jack Sparrow to you!"

**EMMET FOLLOWS THE INSTRUCTIONS!**

"Oh man, this is gonna be so much fun!" said Emmet, who was inexplicably the same size as Jack.

**FOGHORN LEGHORN COCKS UP!**

"I say, now, I say now, that sounds mighty inappropriate!" The chicken fired back.

**I WAS TALKING ABOUT YOUR FIST!**

"Suuuuuure you were, mate" Jack slurred "And I've just got a sugar rush."

* * *

7.8 (Mr. Egret): [DuckTales] / [Shadowrun]

Scrooge McDuck sat by himself at his private table in the Gluttony section of the club called Dante's Inferno, and spat in the face of the club's tradition of improbable levels of self-indulgence by having a simple dinner of steak, potatoes and peas. Every so often, he would impatiently check his watch. "Blast that confounded dragon! Where is he?"

Right before Scrooge was going to pull out his cell phone and make a very strongly-worded call, a particularly tall, dark and handsome human dressed in a disgustingly elegant tuxedo sat down. Several of the patrons noticed the stranger among their midst sitting with the CEO of McDuck Enterprises, and started whispering animatedly among themselves.

Scrooge snorted. "Took you time, Dunklezahn."

"Sorry for the delay, Scrooge," Dunklezahn replied smoothly. "I had to convince the Secret Service that I didn't need an obvious armed guard for this meeting. If you look closely at the other diners around us, you could probably see a few that you recognize."

He was right; Scrooge counted at least five different agents all gathered around his table. Absolutely disgraceful. In his day, if the agents were at all decent, you wouldn't know they were there until you're being pinned to the floor after being a big enough fool to try to assassinate the President. Not that they would be any help against a sufficiently motivated member of the McDuck clan, but then, not much was.

Bother. He was woolgathering again.

"So, Dunklezahn," Scrooge murmured, "since you're still quite alive, I wager you've found a way around the whole blood magic fiasco?"

"Indeed I did. As it turns out, arranging for a corporate takeover of Aztecnology while they're still at the AA level does the trick. Well, that or sending in a few of the more adventurous Loopers to shut them down."

A young elf waitress suddenly appeared out of nowhere next to the table. "Welcome to Gluttony, Mr. LaCroix. Shall I bring you a menu, or would you prefer your usual meal?"

"Just my usual, if you please," Dunklezahn replied.

"Certainly, sir."

The elf curtsied, and vanished right in front of Scrooge's eyes. He didn't even blink. "Mage waitresses?"

"They're all the rage these days. Most of the larger clubs couldn't even function without them. And speaking of mages, how's your nephew?"

Scrooge thoughtfully sipped his water. "Donald's taking to the Loop well. He's officially employed with McDuck Enterprises, but we didn't bother with any of that SIN hooey."

Dunklezahn raised an elegant eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yep. With all these Shadowrunners mucking around and trying to infiltrate my HQ for one reason or another, it pays to have some deniable assets on hand, in case things escalate too quickly for normal security to handle. And before you say _anything_ , it was all Donald's idea."

Dunkezahn smiled widely as that. "Heh. Y'know, if I didn't know better, I'd say that you Disney Loopers are a lot more ruthless than you looked."

Before Scrooge could come up with an appropriate reply, a troll wearing a balaclava and sporting some mean-looking cyber-arms and cameras for eyes smashed his way into the room, firing off a gun that half as long as he was tall, and nearly as wide around as his leg. "THIS IS A ROBBERY!" he roared over the resulting commotion. "GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR AND PUT YOUR HANDS OVER YOUR HEAD!"

Most of the patrons in the restaurant complied, prostrating themselves on the ground before the gun-toting menace, and covering their heads with their hands. Several of them were crying.

While the troll covered the exits with his appallingly powerful gun, two other figures, a human female dressed primarily in leathers and straps and an elf male in combat fatigues slipped into the room and began relieving the patrons of their valuables. Incredibly, none of the robbers noticed either Scrooge or Dunklezahn in the slightest. Scrooge looked at Dunklezahn accusingly. "What did you do, you barmy basilisk?"

Dunklezahn's grin practically radiated smugness. "Why Scrooge, whatever makes you think I did something?"

Scrooge snorted. "Oh, don't give me that. We're the only two patrons still sitting at our tables, and those goons look at least somewhat competent. So why aren't they looking at us?"

Dunklezahn raised his hands in defeat, while chuckling. "Alright, alright; lay off the cross-examination already. I set up an aversion field around our table when the troll burst into the room. Right now, all three of those robbers are receiving very subtle but very persistent subconscious orders to ignore us and leave this table alone." He shot the human robber a look and shook his head reproachfully. "Imbeciles didn't even bother to bring a mage with them."

Scrooge got up from his seat, and grabbed his cane. "If we were to purposefully get ourselves involved, would the field break?"

"Most definitely," Dunklezahn replied cheerfully, as he got up as well. His eyes had changed to a noticeable golden color, and his pupils had narrowed to slits.

"Right then. I'll handle the troll; you have your people clear out the other two."

"Feeling confident today, are we? Are you going to blow up his gun by bouncing on it with that cane of yours?"

It was Scrooge's turn to grin. "Hardly. Tell me, have you met Harry Dresden?"

"I ran into him at a party hosted by a bunch of vampires, when I was Replacing some joker named Ferrovax. The man really knows his pop culture, which surprised me. Why?"

"Well, soon after I had begun Looping, I met the lad when I Replaced a gangster named Johnny Marcone, and he was kind enough to show me the basics of magic in his world. Let's just say I picked up a few pointers."

Scrooge pointed his cane at the offending troll, and concentrated. He could feel the magic welling up within his soul, and flowing into the cane, causing several previously unseen runes to flare into life. He pointed the cane at the troll, and muttered, _"Frigore."_ There was a flash of blue light, a sudden blast of warm air, and suddenly the troll was encased in a block of ice. The human and the elf whipped their heads around at Scrooge, who smiled grimly. "Yes, that was me. Now, you have a few options. One-"

"WASTE HIM!"

Scrooge dove behind the table, knocking it over and using it as cover, while bullets whizzed through the air where his head was only seconds before. The elf robber reloaded his pistol, and started to move towards the table. "You're fucking dead, old man..."

Suddenly, one of Dunklezahn's agents posing as a customer grabbed the robber's ankle, and broke it. The robber screamed in pain, and fell to the ground, where two more agents promptly jumped on him and wrestled away his gun.

The human, seeing that the robbery was going south fast, grabbed as much ill-gotten gains as she could carry and made a break for the door, cursing all the way. She had one hand on the doorknob, when there was a "zot", and she collapsed like a house of cards in a stiff breeze.

Dunklezahn massaged his temples while he looked to see if Scrooge was okay. He was a dragon, and a Great Western Dragon at that, but using magic while disguised as a human always gave him a headache. Especially offensive magic, like stunbolts. It was much like focusing a firehose's spray through a funnel. "Well, that was rather unexpected, eh Scrooge?"

Scrooge got back up to his feet, and briskly checked himself for wounds. "Yes, especially since security at this club was _supposed_ to be top-notch. You can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be filing a complaint when I get back home."

"Understandable. Still, nothing like a bit of pre-dinner exercise, to get the appetite up!"

"Oh, go blow it out your ear, you loony lizard."

* * *

7.9 (wildrook): [Big Hero 6]

Hiro and Baymax were looking at the Nanobots that they created... then at the remains of the portal in the island.

"Scans detect you feeling hesitation," Baymax replied.

"I know," Hiro replied. "But we've been through this enough times to prevent Tadashi from dying, and I'll admit, I didn't think I'd need you for this early on. But... maybe I can use a different brand of programming for the Nanobots in order to go through defense and rescue."

"It did work to protect Callaghan. You could use them to protect Tadashi and enter the portal?"

"He never gave up on creating you, remember?" He then looked at the trash cans containing them. "Mass production aside, I think we can get through this early... and Baymax... thanks."

"All in my work to be the best Health-Care Companion," Baymax replied. "Flying is one of the few upgrades I believe would work well in this situation."

"And we don't have the debris to worry about this time." He then equipped the neuro-transmitter and put on his helmet as the Nanobots reacted. "Let's go surprise Callaghan."

* * *

7.10 (wildrook): [Five Nights at Freddy's] / [Disney]

Mike Schmidt growled.

"Of all the Loops," he muttered, "it HAD to involve working at Disneyland."

And the sad part was the Disney-Themed Underwear was the LEAST of Mike's worries. Instead, it was Five Nights at Treasure Island... meaning that the Disney Animatronics involved took the properties of the mascots HE worked with.

That's when Mike got the phone call.

"Uh, hello?" the recording asked him. "Didn't you get the memo? Treasure Island's closed down."

That's when it stopped.

"Mike, this is Mickey," the voice said. "Don't panic. We're Awake. Someone in the Administration has a sick sense of humor."

That... was Mike's relief. 'Well, this Loop isn't so bad,' he thought.

"Oh, and bring your own pair of underwear next time. That stuff's not exactly safe to wear."

'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--' Mike thought.

* * *

7.11 (Hvulpes): [Frozen]

Anna made sure she and Kristoff were the only ones looping, as her sister had to be unawake for the prank to work, as well as play to baseline no matter how disgusting it was to romance and be romanced by Hans knowing who he was. It was the moment of the argument with her sister about her 'fiance', where her sister's control slipped and she froze the water in the fountain. Everyone was stunned, and were doubly stunned when Anna said, "What's the big deal? Anyone can freeze a fountain, right?"

Everyone, including an unawake Elsa didn't know what to do as Anna continued, "The really tricky stuff is making a living snowman in summer like this."

Using the same ice powers as Elsa, since Anna and Elsa had been switched in many loops which allowed the current redhead to keep the power, she recreated Olaf including a little snow cloud to keep him cool. Olaf started to move as he said, "I'm Olaf and I love warm hugs."

As the Duke of Weasels and the Prince of Backstabbing reacted, her sister was shocked as she spoke, "Anna? How? Aren't you afraid of...."

"Of hurting someone or breaking stuff? Once I experimented with it, learned it was linked to my emotions, it's easy to control. Fear freezes, love thaws."

A look with a hint of betrayal she didn't like on her blond older sister appeared as the queen asked, "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Why do you think I kept asking if you wanted to make a snowman? Especially in summer? Even Arendelle doesn't freeze in summer. Where did you think we would get the snow for the men? I wanted to show you, to share it with you, but you just stayed in your room. Away from me." Anna let the sadness of the event come out, as she looked at her sister as she realized what had happened.

As everyone was stopped by the strangeness, Elsa took a moment and a breathe, smiled as she asked, "Anna, do you want to build a snowman?"

* * *

7.1: There should technically be an aftermath to this, but it was never written.

7.2: Ice-forged friends.

7.3: I feel for you, Elsa.

7.4: If any adult belongs in the KND, it's Coop Cooplowski of _Megas XLR_.

7.5: Making a fool out of Pete is like making a duck out of a duck. (No offense intended to Donald's family.)

7.6: Asami and Korra are one of my favorite couples. Always sweet to see them like this.

7.7: From a prompt by Conceptualist.

7.8: The Loops make for some interesting friendships. And Scrooge has been in _The Dresden Files_.

7.9: Never give up, guys.

7.10: This fan game exists. Be afraid.

7.11: D'aww...


	8. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eight (Part One of Three) - Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eight (Part One of Three)**

8.1 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 1**

Phineas Awoke next to Ferb, as usual. Waking up on a path in the middle of the woods wasn't usual, but as Loops went, it wasn't a bad start. It was a well-trod path through trees that were older than any around Danville and maybe even older than most of the trees in the US. Well, except maybe for sequoias. And redwoods. Oh, and bristlecone pines. And then there were some oaks and maples that some towns had preserved that... yeah, okay, maybe he should limit it to "older than the Danville trees." But they were pretty old, with trunks so big they'd need their usual group of friends plus the Fireside Girls and Candace and her friends to circle them. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the canopy, which was richly golden and amber, with occasional patches of red. So wherever they were, it was fall. That was useful to know.

A quick look at Ferb and then down at himself gave him an idea of their setting; both of them were dressed in pants, full-sleeved shirts, and waistcoats with thick woolen capes draped over their shoulders. It was a bit like what Hobbits wore, but the sturdy boots he was wearing told him that wasn't who they were. His outfit was in shades of grey and green, while Ferb's was in grey and blue; not their usual color scheme, but he could live with it. Ferb seemed pleased with his outfit, especially the number of pockets on his waistcoat, which seemed to contain all sorts of things that might or might not be useful.

A quick Ping told him that at least one other Looper was around; he hoped it was the Anchor and that they were pretty close. He wanted to know where he was. Which was the cue for the Loop memories to kick in, and he stopped in his tracks. Not only had he never been to this Loop, he'd never even heard of it. He and Ferb were brothers, of course, only this time it was by birth. Twins, in fact. Their father was local gentry, a good man and a respected one, and their mother was...

"Huh. Okay, witches are a thing here and they're good guys. Well, most of them are. Cool; I love doing Loops with magic. No Candace, though. Too bad, 'cause she'd have loved the clothes around here."

Ferb nodded. Their memories were of outfits that were faintly steampunkish with occasional meanders into classic fantasy styles, which were flattering on someone tall and thin like their sister. Phineas made a mental note to pick up some nice things for the others while they were there. But in the meantime, the memories were giving them some worrying information. As a Witch, even a fairly minor one, their mother knew about things the average person didn't, and she'd made sure her twin sons knew about them too. A lot of it was really just being better educated than most, but there was one thing in there that worried him.

"Hey, Ferb, what do you make of this Tradition thing?"

"Sounds like trouble to me."

"Yeah. We'll have to really careful around anything that looks like a trope. Can you think of any traditions about twins we should be extra-careful about?"

"Not off the top of my head, but if I think of any, I'll let you know."

This time it was Phineas who nodded, and they started walking again. The two reached into their Pockets and pulled out their phones, figuring that they might as well do it before they got separated. In a world like this, preparing for a situation might mean avoiding it, which was another reason to have them. Technically, the devices weren't really phones; the power supply was the next thing to permanent, they were indestructible, they worked anywhere, and no phone had ever had as many apps as these, but it was easiest to call them phones, so they did. The phones went into pockets, with the hope that they wouldn't be needed except for taking notes.

As they walked, Phineas thought about their home-for-the-Loop. It was a pretty nice place, although a lot quieter than Danville. Their hometown was the type of place guidebooks back home would describe as "unspoiled" and "bucolic", maybe even "quaint." Of course, by this land's standards, the place was pretty up-to-date for being so far from the capital, but for a kid from the 21st century, it was a living history setting. The town of Doylycart reminded him a bit of a town in Vermont they'd gone to with their parents for an antiques-buying trip, he couldn't remember the name at the moment but he had a vague idea it had something to do with a rock concert. What his Loop memories of the country Rederring told him sounded like the more romanticized descriptions of England: quiet country villages and towns with a few cities for industry and stuff like that. The Tradition mostly divided the nobility into three types: the conscientious landlords, who may or may not spend much time on their country estates but made sure they were properly maintained; the absentee landlords, who were never seen and were further divided into those who had honest Stewards and those who didn't; and the thoroughly dissolute, again divided into redeemable and not. The gentry also felt the hand of the Tradition, running either towards the bluff-and-hearty types or the quiet-but-kindly-intellectuals like Sir Lawrence. On the whole, there were worse places to Loop.

His phone rang, distracting him from his thoughts. Shooting a look at Ferb, he answered it on speaker setting.

" _Hey, Phineas, what'cha doin'?_ "

"Isabella? You're here too? Where are you? And if you're the third Looper, then who's the Anchor?"

" _Well, I'm in a beautiful meadow about... five miles from you, according to the map on this. I don't know about the Anchor. Maybe this is a really new Loop and they don't know about Pings yet, or they didn't answer because they want to check us out first, or we've got a Stealth Anchor. Is Ferb with you?_ "

"Yeah, we Awoke right next to each other. Apparently we're twins here, and we're out studying the local geology today."

" _Beats what I got stuck with. I'm an orphan making my own way in the world with nothing but my wits. I was thrown out of my father's home by my Wicked Stepmother after he died. Kinda cliché, but I guess it does happen._ "

Phineas exchanged an alarmed glance with Ferb. That sounded like a situation just begging for the Tradition to mess with it if it wasn't already. And it probably was.

"Isabella, we'll be there as fast as we can. Keep an eye out for... I don't know. Anything. This place has some seriously weird stuff going on, and we'll explain when we get there. And, um, you might want to pick a good hiding spot, just in case. You probably won't need it, but..." He trailed off, not wanting to scare her too much.

" _Okay, got one. See you in about an hour?_ "

"Yeah, unless the path gets rough or really hilly or something."

They hung up, and Phineas started walking a lot faster. Not running, because he knew that wouldn't help, but a pace that covered a maximum amount of ground without using all his energy. Ferb kept up with him easily.

"Plucky orphan girl alone in the woods," Ferb said quietly. "I should have asked if there were stepsisters as well; that might have narrowed it down. Well, at least we know it isn't Snow White; Isabella's too tan for that."

"Back home she is," Phineas replied. "But back home she spends a lot of time outdoors in the sun, and sunblock can only do so much. If her stepmother kept her inside a lot, she might fit that. But if the stepmother had wanted to kill her, she'd probably have tried already."

Ferb didn't respond to that, but Phineas knew they were thinking the same thing: what if she had, and the murderer just hadn't found Isabella yet? Phineas thought about using one of the vehicles from his Pocket, but decided against it; he didn't have any proof that anything was going to happen, and most of the things that would get them to Isabella faster would be really hard to explain if they met someone. He picked up the pace a little, and Ferb matched him.

* * *

Isabella wasn't as worried as Phineas, because unlike him, nobody had ever told her unAwake self about the Tradition. Her father had been a wealthy merchant and had always spent more time on his work than with his family. He'd remarried within months of her mother dying, not because he was in love, but because he knew that it was necessary for a man of his stature to have a wife. He'd married the first suitable woman he'd found, and never even noticed what an annoying shrew she was to anyone who couldn't benefit her. Isabella had been over-dressed by her mother in this Loop, she knew, but her stepmother had put her in the plainest clothes she could get away with and had put a stop to pretty much anything that Isabella enjoyed. She'd also been made to help the servants with various jobs, which is probably the only reason she'd survived on her own long enough to Awaken. Isabella had learned basic cooking skills and had been on good enough terms with the servants that when her stepmother turned her out, they'd smuggled out a bundle of her belongings as well as a pack for travelling. That had been over a month ago, and Isabella was glad that she hadn't Awakened later. It was cold at night, but there was still food to be found in the woods; much later in the year and things would be very different.

She looked down at herself and sighed; Phineas wouldn't be seeing her at her best. She was clean at least, and her hair was tidily combed and braided, but her clothes hadn't been attractive when they were new. Actually, the battering they'd taken had improved them: the hideous olive green bodice and skirt had faded into a nice moss color, and the beige linen chemise was several shades paler too. Constant wear had softened what had been very stiff fabric, and she had to admit that while she was heartily sick of her outfit and had been even before she Awoke, it had become pretty comfortable.

"A maiden!" Isabella whirled at the rapturous gasp behind her, then clasped her hands in glee at the sight of the delicate silvery creature moving gracefully through the wildflowers. Seeing a unicorn wasn't quite the shock it would have been before the Loops, but she still loved them, and this one seemed eager to meet her. "Oh, maiden, art thou alone in this cruel world?"

"Ummmm... Yeah, pretty much." Okay, so the unicorn was a little pretentious.

"I will protect thee! None shall dare stand against my fury should they dare threaten thee! But can I lay my head on your lap first?"

"Sure, why not?" She'd read of unicorns doing that, but none of the ones she'd met so far had been the type. She tried to imagine Twilight Sparkle or Rarity doing that and had to stifle a fit of giggles; she was pretty sure this unicorn wouldn't appreciate the joke. They sat for a while, just enjoying the pleasant autumn afternoon. After about ten minutes of that, Isabella got out her comb and started working on the unicorn's mane. It was the same comb she used on her own hair, but somehow it didn't seem wrong to use it on a unicorn. The unicorn certainly wasn't objecting. In fact, it sighed happily and advised her to keep any loose hairs and braid them into a necklace. She liked the idea to begin with, because the hairs were soft and silky, gleaming with a healthy light, but then he told her why and she immediately decided that not only would she do so, it was going into her Pocket along with as many others as she could make. If she interpreted his babble right, as long as the hair was freely given the necklaces would be unbreakable and would ward off both illness and curses as well as preventing anything really evil from getting too close. That would be useful if the magic remained after the Loop. If not, then they'd still probably be pretty and she'd give them to Loopers who would appreciate them.

She'd made three necklaces and stashed them in her Pocket, explaining to Eilyr (which is what the unicorn's name turned out to be when he finally got around to telling her) that it was a small magic she'd learned to keep things safe, when a shadow passed over them. They looked up to see a dragon soaring above and wheeling around to take a better look at them. Isabella tensed; she'd faced dragons in other Loops with varying degrees of success, and her Loop memories told her that there were dragons here that didn't just kill whatever they saw and might even be friendly, but there was no way of knowing which type this one was.

"Eilyr, are the dragons around here good or bad?"

"We have both. Oh, maiden, I swore to protect you, but I can do naught against the likes of this! We must hide!"

And with the alacrity that might be expected from a holder of the "Better Part of Valor" Patch, Isabella dove behind a tree that was almost as wide as her real parents' garage. Eilyr followed, trembling. She'd quickly learned that Eilyr was, in all honesty, as clever as an inflatable dartboard, but she gave him points for not running. Together, they watched the dragon land. It was a handsome beast, with deep red scales that looked almost translucent and amber eyes. It was also large enough that it could pick her up in one hand or claw or whatever. However, it didn't look like it meant to threaten anyone; those amber eyes looked surprisingly cheerful and curious.

"Er, hello? Miss? This is frightfully awkward, but would you mind terribly if I abducted you? Only there's this Tradition, you see, and my last maiden got rescued a few weeks ago by a knight—rather charming fellow, really, and he and Charlotta will be ever so happy together, but the Tradition around here says I have to have a maiden locked in my tower even though it's deucedly inconvenient for all involved."

"What." Isabella had to admit this was a first. She'd met all sorts of dragons during the Loops, but she'd never met one that sounded like an upper-class Victorian Englishman trying to explain a lapse in propriety to an equally Victorian Aunt. She looked at Eilyr, who gave the unicorn equivalent of a shrug.

"It's not true everywhere, but in Rederring, if a dragon's lair has anywhere to hold a maiden, he's expected to hold one. And this one sounds like one of the decent ones."

Isabella poked her head around the tree cautiously. The dragon visibly perked up when he saw her, reminding her of the way Phineas looked when Ferb handed him a new blueprint.

"I should have introduced myself, shouldn't I? Shocking lapse in manners, please do forgive me," the dragon said. "My name's Almandin, and my lair's in the ruins of Castle Bunthorne. Well, I say ruins, but they're in quite good shape really, only abandoned for a few years before I moved in. Last owner was a poet, poor chap, and moved to the capital when the girl he fancied took up with a less gloomy fellow. Closed up the whole place, and wrote this long gloomy piece about letting it crumble to dust along with his blighted dreams or some such rot, and that was enough to satisfy the Tradition and me. I really wanted a place with a decent library, you see, because part of my hoard is books. Great-Grandsire was a Bookwyrm, you know, and blood will tell. Unfortunately, castles will have towers, and that means I need a maiden. I promise I'm not one of those tiresome chaps who insists on fighting your would-be rescuers to the death; I'm more of a Challenge type myself. Sir Benedict ended up playing a seven-hour chess game with me to free Charlotta; haven't had a game like that in ages."

Isabella smiled and came out from behind the tree, Eilyr beside her. Almandin seemed nice, and her Loop memories indicated that dragons didn't bother pretending to be something they weren't. If he hadn't tried to attack her yet, he probably wasn't going to. And since the unicorn had relaxed, Isabella would too.

Until she heard the hunting horn. She wasn't sure how, but she knew that was for her. Almandin and Eilyr tensed too, looking toward the sound. There was a pressure like a building storm, and she knew she had seconds in which to act.

"Almandin, abduct away. Eilyr, my friends Phineas and Ferb are heading this way, and I don't want them in danger. Could you head down the path to the west and warn them?"

"Men?" Eilyr sounded horrified, but Isabella shook her head.

"Boys. My age, both of them. Please, Eilyr."

"For you, maiden, I will. Guard her well, Dragon, or you will face my wrath." The unicorn reared up, wheeled around, and raced off to the west, luckily missing Isabella and Almandin both rolling their eyes.

"Dramatic types, those unicorns. Well, shall we be off before that Huntsman reaches us? Odd; I think the Tradition's gotten crossed." Without warning, his claws grasped her very carefully and he leapt into the air. Isabella shrieked, not expecting him to move that quickly. "Sorry! Thought it best to be out of his range before he got here."

"It's all right, just... a little warning next time?"

"Right-o."

Isabella crossed her arms over the top of Almandin's talons and rested her chin on them, enjoying the view. At least the Loop wasn't going to be boring.

* * *

At the sound of a distant shriek, Phineas and Ferb broke into a run. A unicorn galloped towards them, shouting something, but they ignored it and kept running. They reached the meadow in time to see the dragon flying away, and Phineas somehow managed to find even more speed, leaving Ferb behind.

"Isabella! **_Isabella!!!_** "

It was no use; they were flying farther and farther away, and there was nothing he could do about it. He sank to the ground, just staring after them, not even noticing when Ferb came up behind him and stopped, or when Ferb put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. It didn't matter that even if the worst occurred, he'd see her again next home Loop; he'd failed her.

"Isabella..."

* * *

8.2 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms] / [Frozen]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 2**

"Phineas, I think-"

"Really, I think you need to listen-"

"—that maybe it's time-"

"—to me before you do-"

"—to start derailing things-"

"—anything rash. Are you-"

"—and quickly."

"—even listening to me?"

The dueling voices took a few seconds to sink in, but eventually Phineas looked around to see Ferb and a unicorn giving each other irritated looks. Just what the unicorn had been saying took a few seconds more to sink in, and when it did, Phineas' eyes narrowed dangerously.

"My friend just got taken by a dragon and you're worried that _I'll_ do something rash?"

"Yes, well, about that—there's something you ought to know-"

Phineas was about to start yelling when a large pack of dogs burst from the woods and surrounded them. Or possibly a pack of large dogs. Both versions would be accurate. However one chose to phrase it, the dogs were not attacking, but they made it clear that it was an option if any of the three tried anything. Boys and unicorn alike froze, eyeing each other.

"Think they're after Isabella?" Phineas asked. The unicorn snorted.

"If you would just _listen_ , I've been trying to—oh, not another one!"

A tall, grim-faced man joined the dogs, glaring at all of them.

"Where is she?"

Phineas glared back, knowing his wasn't anywhere near as effective. The unicorn snorted again, pawing the ground and lowering his head in a way that reminded everyone that he had a very deadly weapon at his disposal. The huntsman raised an eyebrow at that, frowning even more heavily. Ferb had his bow in his hand, not drawn but Phineas knew that could change before the huntsman had time to realize what had happened.

"I'm afraid there are no 'shes' around here," Ferb said, sounding calm. The huntsman shook his head.

"Maybe not now, lad, but my dogs tracked her here, so she was here, and recently. I'm not sure why you seem to be protecting the little harl-" The man broke off as Phineas lunged at him, only to be brought down by a few of the dogs. Ferb and the unicorn lunged forward but stopped when they saw that all but one backed off immediately and the last was keeping Phineas still by sitting on him. Phineas knew he had stuff in his Pocket that could deal with the situation, but decided to wait. He'd already blown it twice already; he wasn't eager to see if the third time really would be the charm. Besides, the man had trained his dogs to subdue someone without hurting them, so that might be a good sign. "Right, lad, you just settle down. Something's not right here. The tale I was told about Isabella Wellington-Wells wasn't that of a wench that would have a unicorn ready to defend her, nor two lads too young for her games. So she's more twisted than the lady said, or I've been lied to. Can't say as I like either notion. But I have to know which it is, which means I need you lot to talk."

"I will never betray a maiden to a foul cur such as yourself!" Phineas facepalmed and he just knew Ferb was rolling his eyes; this unicorn was really annoying.

"So she's definitely a maiden, then. Go on."

"Of course she's a maiden, and far too sweet and innocent to be given into the hands of a baseborn churl! You shall never find her now, however, for she is safe in the clutches of the dragon Almandin in Castle Bunthorne, and the likes of you will never pass his Challenges!"

"Safe in the clutches of a dragon?" The huntsman shook his head. "This is a new notion of safe to my mind."

"And you kinda just told him exactly where to find her," Phineas pointed out. "Stop helping, will you? This is a Huntsman sent by a Wicked Stepmother; we really don't want him to find her."

"Actually, we do," Ferb said. Phineas stared at his brother, who continued. "Traditionally, the Huntsman doesn't kill her and returns to the Stepmother with a deer's heart to 'prove' that he killed the girl."

"Here now, nobody said anything about killing," the huntsman objected. "The girl's guardian said the girl was a scheming minx who ran off before she could be locked away for her sins, and I was to retrieve her. Alive. I was told what to do if she was dead when I found her, but my orders were to return her alive and unharmed."

"And did those instructions happen to involve a heart in a box?"

"Aye. They did. The weather's turning colder, lad, but it's still too warm to transport a corpse that far. A heart's preserved more easily than a whole body, and that way her heart can be buried with her parents. Nothing shocking about it; that's just how it's done when it can't be done the usual way."

He was right, Phineas had to admit. It looked like the huntsman was just an innocent bystander, and would probably be the one to take the blame if the stepmother's plot panned out. Granted, the man could be lying, but so far the worst thing he'd done was badmouth Isabella, and he couldn't even be blamed for that if all he had to go on was the stepmother's story. At the moment, Phineas really had just one complaint against the guy.

"Uh, do you think you could call your dog off now? He's kinda heavy. I promise not to go after you again as long as you don't insult Isabella."

"Fair enough. Up, Despard! Good dog. Here, lad, let me give you a hand up. Name's Dickon, and you've likely guessed I'm a huntsman."

"I'm Phineas Oakapple, and this is my brother Ferb. Our father, Sir Lawrence, is the local squire. And the unicorn is... hey, we never got your name, did we?"

"Nay, for you were too busy panicking and ignoring my sound advice. I am Eilyr, protector of the maiden Isabella. Be warned that any who would threaten her must face my wrath!"

"Like the dragon?" Phineas asked, still worried. To his surprise, Eilyr shook his head.

"Almandin is one of the Dragons of the Light, and only keeps maidens because the Tradition obligates him to do so. He was most polite when he asked the maiden if he could abduct her, and when she heard the hunting horn, she agreed and sent me to find you. I was hesitant, for male unicorns usually do not associate with male humans, but the maiden asked so sweetly I could not refuse."

"And I'm Iolanthe, the Holly Fairy, and I'm glad you're already discussing this sensibly. When I sensed that tangle, I was sure I'd arrive to find an unholy mess."

They turned to find a woman standing by Ferb, looking at him curiously. She was tall and willowy, with thick glossy waves of rich brown hair crowned with a circlet of, yep, that was holly, which Phineas didn't think could be too comfortable. She had eyes as green as the leaves in her crown, a perfect snowy complexion, and a beautiful face. Not the most beautiful he'd ever seen, but probably in the top twenty at least. Her gown was holly-leaf green (of course) trimmed with berry-red beads, and skewed towards the fantasy end of the local fashion scale, which made sense if she really was a Fairy. And judging by the reactions of Eilyr and Dickon, she probably was. Dickon was down on one knee, hat in hand and head bowed. Eilyr stood at attention, looking proud. Phineas exchanged a look with Ferb before removing his own hat and bowing, but not kneeling. Ferb took his hat off, but Phineas could tell he was too unnerved at having a strange fairy pop up right next to him and start staring at him to do much else.

"Uh, tangle, milady?" Dickon asked cautiously.

"Too many Paths intersecting at once and something new trying to start its own Path. Oh, but you won't know about that yet. Do get up, and let's continue talking like sensible people. In fact, Tradition dictates that I make you as comfortable as I can under the circumstances. Here, let me take just a moment." She waved her star-tipped wand and chanted something in a sweet mezzo-soprano; a pavilion appeared in a shimmer of light. There were enough seats for all and a table filled with food. "Don't worry about the food; I'm a Fairy Godmother and it would not do for me to play those sorts of pranks. Or allow others to play them, for that matter."

She chivvied them into the pavilion in a surprisingly motherly fashion. Once they were all seated, or at least comfortable since Eilyr didn't sit, she gave a brief explanation of the Tradition to Dickon, who was the only one there who didn't already know about it. He'd frowned at it, clearly not liking the idea of being pushed around by some mysterious force that wanted life to imitate stories whether or not it was a good idea. Phineas couldn't blame him for that; he didn't like it either, especially since the Tradition just wanted a Traditional ending, and not necessarily a happy one. Dickon's story was exactly what they'd already guessed: he'd been hired by Isabella's Wicked Stepmother to bring Isabella, or at least her heart, back home for reasons Phineas wasn't sure he wanted to know about. The woman had told him all sorts of nasty lies, which explained his attitude. Dickon was an honest sort and expected honest dealings; he knew there were dishonest people out there but he hadn't been prepared for the kind of manipulation Mrs. Wellington-Wells the Second had used. She'd portrayed herself as a grieving widow dealing with a wanton stepdaughter, and Dickon wasn't good at dealing with crying women. Iolanthe looked both exasperated and sympathetic at that, but agreed that he'd done the best he could. Then she turned to Eilyr, who gave a florid but accurate description of his side of the events, and again Iolanthe assured him he'd done the right thing. Finally it was Phineas and Ferb's turn, and he'd just thought of what to say that would explain how they knew Isabella without bringing up the Loops.

"Well, we've known Isabella for years, although we haven't seen her for a while," he said. It was even true; his last Loop had been in Agrabah and nobody else from Danville had been there. Ferb's had been in Danville, but Isabella had been replaced by Susan Ivanova from that space station Loop. "She got a message to us that we should meet her in this meadow as soon as could all get there, so we were almost here when we heard her scream. I guess she must have been startled by the way the dragon was carrying her; she's not easy to scare."

"Oh, good; living with even a friendly Dragon takes iron nerves, especially around dinnertime. Now, I have some questions for you two. I've been keeping an eye on you; twins can run into some highly unpleasant Traditional Paths. I had been expecting one of you to go to the bad, but that's a little less likely now; Isabella's father died because Sir Marmaduke's heir decided to get clever and arrange his villagers' lives to suit his ideals. I really should have seen that coming; those rigidly self-righteous types are always easy to topple off their pedestals. Well, he got what he deserved, but poor Johnny paid for it."

"Mind if I ask? Isabella might want to know," Phineas said.

"The brat bought a very strong love potion and served it to everybody so that they'd get married without regard to rank, age, or common sense. Then he browbeat his betrothed into taking it too, and had a temper tantrum when the potion worked but it made her fall for a different man. Denounced her in front of the whole village, then demanded that Johnny break the potion's spell. An ordinary potion would have been difficult enough, but this was Johnny's pride and joy, and very complex: it only worked on unmarried people old enough to wed. But Johnny was always rather strict in his business practices, more of a merchant than a Sorcerer, really, which meant he insisted that the customer must be satisfied and so he sacrificed his life to break the spell. The brat had revealed his true character to the whole village, so he was disgraced, his father disowned him, and his betrothed broke their engagement and left the village to stay with her aunt at the Royal court. She's already showing signs of becoming the Sadder But Wiser Girl, which Traditionally leads to finding a man who deserves her but has to work to show her he can be trusted. There are a few Paths I don't mind encouraging, and that's one of them. Now how on earth did Ferb end up with green hair? I can't think of a single Tradition that's linked to!"

Well, that explained why Iolanthe had been staring. He should have thought of that, but he was just so used to it that it didn't occur to him that it was odd until someone pointed it out.

"Well, that's just Ferb," Phineas said. The Fairy opened her mouth, closed it, then shrugged.

"Right," she said. "At any rate, since we've had a Fallen Heir in this kingdom so recently, it's not likely either of you will go that way. The Tradition likes to repeat itself, rather by definition, but not that quickly. So, having established that, we really must sort out Isabella's tangle. A Snowskin, a Dragon's Maiden, and then there's all those Paths revolving around orphan girls and orphans alone in the woods... The poor child won't know if she's coming or going if we can't narrow the field a bit. I rather like her as a Dragon's Maiden, under these circumstances. Almandin might talk her ears off, but he'd never allow her to come to harm, and since he's the Challenger type, she can live with him for years in safety and comfort. That Tradition says he has to keep her in his lair, but it doesn't say she can't have visitors. Although once you two are old enough to be thought of as suitors, I'm afraid Almandin will be forced to keep you away, but that won't be for years. Give her a few days in the tower, and most of those other Paths will fade away. Unfortunately, the Snowskin path won't."

"Pity she doesn't have her usual tan," Ferb sighed. Iolanthe looked at him, smiling.

"You know, that might work. Most Snowskins are worried about tanning, because Ladies Don't, but if Isabella isn't the type to care—well, maybe that will break the path. It's worth a try, at least. We'll know by how the Stepmother reacts after she gets the deer's heart. I'm afraid that part's necessary, Dickon, but I'd advise taking to the woods as soon as you can get away without arousing suspicion. In some versions of this, the Stepmother kills the Huntsman for betraying her and I'm sure we'd all rather that didn't happen, you most of all."

"Aye, that's true. I'll tell the old besom the girl died from injuries got in that storm I passed through the other day, and I know where to get a deer where none will know to question me. Happen I know of a family that could make use of the rest of the carcass too. If it works, I'll come back and tell. If not, you'll have to fight her anyway and I'll consider that my vengeance. If you don't have any more use for me just now, it's best I be on my way. And however it turns out, I'm glad to have been of service to a Godmother. Lads, watch out for each other and try to stay out of danger. You're a little young to be Heroes."

"Yes. Yes, we are," Phineas said. "But if Isabella needs us, we'll be there."

"Reckon you will, lad, reckon you will."

Dickon smiled at them and stood up. With a bow to the Godmother and a nod of his head to the boys, he left, pack trailing behind him. The one that had sat on Phineas earlier dashed back to give him a quick lick on the cheek before disappearing into the woods. Iolanthe nodded, looking as though she'd thought of something useful.

"Now, Eilyr, do you know how to get to Castle Bunthorne?"

"Yes, Godmother! Give the word and I shall fly to the maiden's side and console her in her loneliness!"

"Yes, do that." She actually giggled as the unicorn bolted at the end of her words. But then her face grew very serious as she looked at them, and Phineas had a sinking feeling that she was about to make life awkward. "Now, lads, perhaps you'd like to explain why the magic around you has changed so drastically from this morning, and how you and Isabella are able to perform magic that not even a true Fairy Godmother can identify?"

"Oh, snap," Phineas winced, and Ferb heaved a sigh.

* * *

Back in Danville, Candace looked out the back door to see Anna and Elsa playing with the Fireside Girls. The sisters had replaced Phineas and Ferb for this Loop and were happy to have girls of their own apparent age around, although they were a little disappointed about missing Isabella, who had been replaced by Galadriel of all people. It promised to be as quiet a Loop as Danville would allow (in other words not very, but a little less hectic than usual), so why did she have the distinct feeling that she'd just missed out on a bust?

* * *

8.3 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 3**

"Uh, _true_ Fairy Godmother?" Phineas asked, stalling for time.

"I'm one of the few Fae still actively Godmothering. Your mother must have told you that most Godmothers these days are mortals, or at most half-Fae; I'm a full Fae, but I love my work too much to give it up." Iolanthe gave him a look that said she wasn't going to fall for any tricks, even if she did answer questions. Phineas sighed, but then a thought occurred to him.

"Hey, are you this Loop's Anchor? Have you noticed time repeating itself? Like it's Looping back around to a certain day and you start over from then?"

"No, I can't say that I have," Iolanthe mused, "not as such, anyway. I am aware that something odd has been happening; as a Fae, I do have certain senses even magical mortals lack. Please don't ask me to explain them at the moment, as it can be done but takes quite a while and I'm not sure we can spare the time. I assume you have been experiencing these Loops?"

"Well, yeah, but not here. See, there's this whole Multiverse thing going on—lots of different universes, each with their own reality, and almost all of them are Looping. And sometimes Loopers from one universe find themselves Looping into a different one, and that's what happened to us. There's a lot more to it, but it's kinda like your senses—it takes a while and we don't have the time. Maybe once Isabella's out of trouble, if the Loop doesn't end when that's done. I don't know this Loop, so I don't know how long it lasts."

"Fair enough. And I would guess that your strange magic is explained by that as well."

"The subspace pockets aren't... actually, they kind of are, aren't they?"

"Sufficiently advanced technology," Ferb said. Iolanthe spocked an eyebrow at him, and he continued, "There's a saying on our world that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic to those unfamiliar with it."

"That makes sense. Well, at the moment I don't think we need to worry about these Loops of yours, but we do need to worry about your friend. I'd rather not have a Snowskin in Rederring, thank you, especially since the closest dwarfs are rather nasty types, as bad as that lot Lily had to deal with last year. I'm sure you wouldn't want Isabella to fall into the hands of rogue dwarfs, and if we can't stop the Snowskin Path, that could easily happen. Oh, wait, there is one question I'd like answered: how do you know so much about our Loop, and why do I remember meeting your mother?"

"When we Loop into another world, we Loop in as though we belonged there and the Loop creates a history for us," Ferb explained. "Once we Awaken—that's the point when we remember that we're Looping—we get the memories of our lives here."

"Very useful," Iolanthe nodded. "And quite a sensible way of arranging matters. Now, because of this tangle, you've drawn the attention of the Tradition, so I'd prefer to keep an eye on you while I work on Isabella's problems. I try not to be any more high-handed than I can help, but I must insist you return with me to my castle for a while. I'll send your mother a note explaining matters, or at least telling her that I'm trying to keep the Tradition from muddling things too badly."

"All right," Phineas said, feeling a lot more cheerful. He knew from his Loop memories that a Fairy Godmother could be trusted, and he really wanted to see a genuine Fae castle. It was also good to know that Isabella was relatively safe; he couldn't imagine too many things that could get to her with a dragon and a unicorn guarding her, and if they did, Isabella would probably have something from her Pocket ready to use on them. Even a Fireside Girl couldn't avoid occasional Distressed Damselhood, but that didn't mean they had to stay that way, and Isabella wouldn't.

* * *

The flight to Castle Bunthorne wasn't very long, and Isabella enjoyed every second. The view was lovely, all rolling hills leading up to mountains a little bigger than the Appalachians but not quite as pointy as the Rockies. There were woods and meadows, brooks and ponds, and even the odd waterfall. The weather was clear, and while she was a little chilly from the wind whipping past her, it wasn't as bad as it might have been because she was mostly protected by the dragon's claws. She even saw a few villages, although Almandin was careful not to fly too close to them for obvious reasons. And finally she saw the castle, which came as a bit of a surprise. For one thing, even taking Almandin's size into account, she hadn't expected the place to be very big; after all, the last owner had been a poet, and they weren't known for having a lot of money. She'd also expected it to look as English as the rest of the buildings she'd seen. Instead, the place was huge and decidedly French-looking. In fact, she was pretty sure she'd seen pictures of an identical castle in her home Loop. But Almandin was landing in the courtyard and a handful of very short people were coming out to greet him.

"I say, you'll never believe my luck," Almandin called to them. "Found a willing maiden first try, and she's young enough that she won't have any suitors for a while. Everyone, this is Isabella; Isabella, this is everyone. Brownies, actually, which isn't very Traditional of me, but I saved Col's life, so here he is and he brought some others when we moved here because it's a ruddy huge old pile and even a Brownie has his limits. You'll look after her, won't you, chaps?"

"Of course we will, and you know it," the oldest-looking of the Brownies said gruffly. Oldest-looking was a relative term; all of them looked close to the same age, which was a hard-working middle-age, but Col's hair was a bit greyer than the others and his face was a bit craggier. "And do you call that an introduction, you great lizard?"

"I'm a dragon; I'm not supposed to be good at that sort of thing. Besides, if I had done the thing, you'd still complain, so why not let you have my share of the fuss to begin with? Miss Isabella, I've got some cataloguing to do and I can't fit above the ground floor anyway, so why don't you let this lot show you around and let you choose a tower room to not pine away in? I'm afraid it does have to be a tower room; Dragon's Maidens have to live in towers or the Tradition gets frightfully tiresome. Best to let it have its way in the things that don't matter and save your energy for when it does." And without another word, Almandin slipped inside, leaving her with the Brownies. Her Loop memories weren't much help, as her father hadn't dealt much with the Fae and her education had mostly been that of a wealthy merchant's daughter; in other words, mostly useless.

"Um, hello," she said after a few awkward seconds. "So, what exactly does a Dragon's Maiden do? I probably should have asked before I agreed to it, but the unicorn told me I could trust him and someone seemed to be hunting me, so..."

"So you did the best you could," Col said. "Unicorns don't have much sense about most things, but if they tell you a creature can be trusted, that's safe enough to believe. And from the looks of you, the Tradition's trying to push you down the Snowskin's Path. Good thing there's only the six of us here including that fool dragon, or you'd be eating a poisoned apple by nightfall."

"But I'm too..." Isabella trailed off, looking at her hand. Her Loop memories told her she'd been careful to keep out of the sun to avoid unladylike tanning, which meant that at the moment she was black as night, white as snow, and red as blood. Well, she'd soon fix that. But first things first. "What Tradition? Almandin mentioned it a few times, and it seems to be pretty important. Is it the law or something?"

The Brownies chuckled and grumbled slightly, depending on their attitudes. Col just shook his head.

"That will take some explaining which we'll be happy to do _after_ you're settled in. Come along, lass, there's a lot of rooms to be looked at."

There were, too. Almandin had said the place had a tower, but it actually had several and each one had multiple rooms. The Brownies were determined that unless one suited her perfectly, she would see all of them. It meant a lot of walking and climbing, but she took advantage of the time to get to know them. Col was fairly easy to read; he was the Gruff Old Codger With a Heart of Gold. Then there was Daw, slightly shorter than the other two male Brownies and bearing a faint resemblance to Sam Gamgee, who was even more quiet than Ferb and with the same air of competence. The last of the men was Noll, whose twinkling brown eyes always gave the impression that he was about to share a good joke; from what they said, Isabella deduced that he mostly helped indoors with tasks a dragon's claws couldn't handle. Zorah was a bustling, motherly type who seemed determined to put some meat on Isabella's bones; and Martha reminded her of a cross between Rarity and Fluttershy, a little reserved but not unfriendly and clucking over Isabella's clothes. All of them seemed likeable enough, and she got the feeling that being this Dragon's Maiden was going to be a lot of fun. She hoped that it didn't mean she wouldn't be able to see Phineas for the duration—and Ferb, of course, she really would miss him, just... not as much as she would Phineas.

The tour probably would have taken until supper, but in the third tower, Isabella walked into a room and couldn't resist a loud squee. The room was decorated in Practical Princess: pretty without being fussy, just enough lace, silk, and velvet to look rich without going so far that people would be afraid to touch anything. The colors were a little more adult than she usually favored, but the warm russet, gold, and brown reminded her of her Fireside Girls uniform. The bed was big enough to fit her whole troop, even including Candace, and it was beautifully carved with a vine pattern winding around the posts holding up the brocade canopy; the head and footboards showed forest scenes. The windows faced south and east, just the way she liked it; she'd be able to watch the sunrise from her window. She checked the doors on the west wall and found a dressing room/closet behind one and a true bathroom behind the other; there was even a Victorian-looking flush toilet, the type with a chain to pull that would probably make enough noise to wake everyone in the castle. Then again, maybe not, considering how thick the walls were; Isabella was willing to bet there were secret passages in them.

"Could I have this room, please? It's perfect!"

"Then it's yours while you're here," Zorah said. "Of course, you can look at the other rooms later, and if you want to, you can move. Doesn't hurt us to change things around every now and then; keeps us from getting lazy. Can you see anything here you'd like to change? Anything missing?"

Isabella took another look around, this time thinking of a long-term stay, but eventually just shook her head. Zorah nodded.

"Well, that's good, then. Col, you go tell Almandin she chose the Autumn Room. Daw, Noll, back to your usual chores. Martha and I'll tell her everything she needs to know as soon as we get her measured for a proper wardrobe. I can tell you've taken as good care of your clothes as you could, lass, but you need better to look the part of a Dragon's Maiden. Do you prefer tight sleeves, fairy-wing, or something in-between?"

Like most men hearing women beginning to talk clothes, the other three left quickly. Isabella, Zorah, and Martha spent quite a while discussing, sketching, and measuring; partway through Martha left and came back with an armload of fabric that turned out to be gowns left behind by previous Maidens. Most of them were far too big, being made for older girls, but at least one of those Maidens had been short, because a few only needed some hemming to fit. The only thing wrong with them was that they were white, which all agreed was not very practical; still, they would do until Martha could make something new. Isabella offered to help, but the Brownies looked shocked at the idea, so she backed off. Instead, she let Zorah haul her away for a good hot bath. At one point she'd have been uncomfortable letting somebody help her bathe, but between Looping experience and Loop memories, she'd gotten to the point where she didn't mind anymore. In fact, she had to admit that she liked having someone help her wash her hair; it reminded her of that one hairdresser back home who always did such a good job and never acted like she knew what the customers wanted better than the customers did. Isabella had just started toweling off when Martha poked her head in.

"Excuse me for interrupting, but Godmother Iolanthe is here and wants to talk to Isabella," she said quietly. Zorah straightened up from dealing with the bath and turned around.

"Godmother Iolanthe? Here? Dear, dear, this must be serious. Still, we'll have to take a few minutes; Isabella can hardly go down like this."

What followed was a dizzying flurry of activity, and when Isabella had time to think again, she found herself in a huge library with Almandin and a beautiful woman in a deep green gown. Isabella glanced down at her own gown and grimaced; it was made of some rich material that she couldn't identify, but it was rather plain. Still, she wasn't going to let being underdressed throw her off. The woman watched her walk in, clearly assessing her.

"Yes, I was afraid of that. My dear, I've been speaking with a great many people about your situation, which I'm afraid is graver than we realized at first. I am Iolanthe, Fairy Godmother for this and the neighbouring two kingdoms, and I must say that in all my years of Godmothering, I have never run into such a tangle."

"Uh, sorry?"

"Oh, it's not your fault, dear, it's that wretched Tradition combined with the Loops that Phineas and Ferb told me about. Before you ask, I'm not the Anchor, but I suspect I know a good candidate for it. But that will have to wait. You see, normally the Tradition wouldn't have pushed someone as young as you into either the Snowskin or the Dragon's Maiden Path, but because of the Loops of yours, you are technically much older than your physical age. The Tradition doesn't quite know what to make of that, so it's falling back on the most obvious Paths it can find. Oh, but have they explained the Tradition yet? I realize you haven't had much time."

"No, but it sounds like it makes things pretty awkward around here," Isabella said. Iolanthe smiled wryly in return.

"My dear, you have a gift for understatement. Please do sit down and I'll explain."

And she did. Isabella's jaw dropped as she realized that they'd landed in a world ruled by a mysterious force that insisted on trying to turn everything into stories and forcing people to go along with them no matter how miserable it made them. She'd understood the Snowskin references, as the name was pretty close to the story she knew already, but she'd though they were just referring to the fact that her story seemed pretty similar. It hadn't occurred to her that she might have been forced to live it out and she shuddered at the idea of some random not-Phineas prince waking her with a kiss and being forced to fall in love with him. It didn't seem very fair to the prince, either; if he knew about the Tradition, he'd always wonder if she'd have loved him for himself without being magicked into it. And there weren't too many ways to get around that particular Path either, unless she consented to having her magic drained, which she wasn't sure she liked the sound of.

"So what you're saying is, your best hope right now is for me to get a tan?"

"Sounds daft, doesn't it?" Almandin said cheerfully. "But sometimes the Tradition can be undone by the simplest things, so if you're willing, why not give it a go? The worst that can happen is that it doesn't work. Oh, and you might get a sunburn. Or heatstroke. Or-"

" _Thank you_ , Almandin." Iolanthe said, rolling her eyes. "Isabella, we have a few days before Dickon returns to your Stepmother, and I do think it's worth trying. All you have to do is spend a good part of the day outside in the fresh air. And in the meantime, we'll all be working to see what we can do if it doesn't work, and I am including you in that. Almandin, didn't you tell me that there was a Poet's Nook in the garden when you got here? Is it still here? Because if it is, Isabella can use that as her studying space."

"No, last winter's big ice storm rather put paid to it, sad to say. There's a gazebo, but it's rather shady. Oh, I know! The pavilion in the ornamental pond! Charlotta used to bring her harp out there in decent weather and play for hours. Of course, she'd stay in the shady part, but it has sunny bits too. And there's fish in there, so we might get a Wise Carp to help. Just—if any frogs start talking, do be a good girl and ignore them, won't you? Especially if it says it's a prince. Last thing we need's another Path to muck us up."

Isabella giggled, but didn't argue. It sounded like the next few days were going to be busy. Good; she liked being busy, especially when it was with something useful, and she couldn't think of anything more useful than learning something to not get killed stupidly. Or married even more stupidly. She wasn't sure which she most wanted to avoid.

* * *

8.4 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 4**

One of the good things about the Loops to Phineas' mind was the fact that there was always something new to discover. It kept him from going nuts when he couldn't be tinkering or helping his friends; doing both at the same time was favorite, of course, but not always possible. It was particularly bad, though, when he knew a friend needed help and he couldn't do anything, but having almost free reign to explore a genuine Fairy Castle housing a genuine Fairy Godmother made a pretty good distraction. Even if Iolanthe had been the modern pink-and-fluffy type of Fairy it would at least have been something to do, but she was an old school Fae, powerful, dangerous, and a lot of fun when she wasn't busy trying to prevent disaster.

Iolanthe had accepted their more detailed explanation of the Loops with the air of someone who heard stranger things on a regular basis. She'd asked sensible questions, too, and Phineas suspected she had some ideas about who the Anchor might be. He didn't mind that she wasn't saying anything; she probably wanted to make sure before getting their hopes up. He did mind that she wasn't letting them see Isabella, but since the Tradition was apparently showing a lot of interest in all three Loopers, he could understand why she wanted to focus on one issue at a time. Well, two, since from what she said Isabella had two different Paths duking it out to control her life. She hadn't said how the Tradition was going after him and Ferb, but it was pretty obvious she hoped having them in her castle would make it shut up for a while.

On the whole, he and Ferb liked Iolanthe, but they agreed that it was a little annoying that she kept acting like they really were the 12-year-olds they were in this Loop. They'd told her they'd been Looping for centuries and she had believed them, but that meant she treated them like exceptionally intelligent 12-year-olds: mature enough to get an explanation, but still kept out of the important stuff. They were being patient for now, but they had their limits. If Isabella needed them, they would go, no matter what the Fairy Godmother said. Luckily, they had an ally in Phyllis, Iolanthe's daughter-in-law, who admitted that she had learned the hard way that judging people by their apparent age could end badly.

At the moment, they couldn't complain about being left out of things, because Iolanthe was working some fairly complex Fae magic. Since this genuinely was an instance of a time they couldn't help, they took Phyllis up on her offer of a tour of the castle. And if they just happened to notice where the library was, well, a bit of reading never hurt anybody, right? Phyllis agreed that it was very important for them to keep up with their studies, somehow managing to keep a straight face as she said it.

The castle really was interesting and they did enjoy poking around, but the second the tour was over they dashed for the library. Iolanthe's husband, a grey-haired mortal man named Daniel, was just leaving as they approached.

"Good morning, lads, you seem rather energetic today. I wonder if I could presume on your good nature as well as your youth and ask you to put away the books I left on the table? At my age it's easier to get things down than to put them back up."

"Of course, sir," Phineas said, not even having to think about it.

"Good lads, good lads. Thank you, and I'll see you at lunch. Or perhaps supper."

Daniel wandered off down the hall, humming cheerfully. Phineas had the feeling he'd been got at somehow, and with a glance at Ferb, opened the library doors. A huge pile of books covered the table, and Phineas' heart sank; he'd promised he'd put them away, but they'd be lucky to even start looking for their own books by the end of the day. He sighed and reached for the top book, glancing at the title.

" _Twins and Tradition: Double Trouble_? Hey, this might be—wait a minute. _Workings of Time in Traditional Paths_? _Random Maunderings That Might Be Of Use To Somebody_? _Snowskin Variations_? _Dragons and Maidens_? Ferb, did he just do half our work for us?"

"I think the judge just ruled in our favor."

"There's even bookmarks in a lot of these. We'll still have to read them ourselves, but we can pay special attention to those parts. And stacks of paper and pens... Well, Ferb, I know what we're going to do today." Phineas sat down and started reading; Ferb joined him, chuckling.

* * *

Elena Klovis was worried. The Tradition hadn't acted up for over a month in any of her kingdoms, except in mostly minor ways that didn't need a Godmother's help. Half of the incidents she only learned of after the fact, when someone reported to her. One of the more depressing variants of the Sadder But Wiser Girl had been averted by Elena's own former Wicked Stepmother of all people, who had recognized the would-be seducer and ripped into him very publicly. She'd been ready to turn her vicious tongue on the girl as well, but the girl had a temper of her own and had ignored her in favor of breaking her mug over the man's head. Madame Fleur's letter had been very colorful, and Elena still found herself giggling over it. A Ladderlocks had been averted by the husband breaking his leg slipping on wet leaves while on his way to steal the greens; she'd practically felt the Tradition throwing up its metaphorical hands in disgust over that one. But that had been the biggest problem all month, and that worried her. The Tradition had to be saving itself for something truly unpleasant; there could be no other explanation. Not unless it had something to do with her other difficulty, but she couldn't think how mitigating the damage caused by events she knew would happen could throw off the Tradition that much.

She sighed, looking out at her garden. Alex was there, working hard, but it wasn't her Alex. This was the arrogant, obnoxious Prince Alexander who had thoroughly earned getting turned into a donkey. Again. This was the fifth time she'd had to do it, and while the process of undoing his earlier training became easier each time and always resulted in the man she'd been surprised to fall in love with, she still missed her Alex. Being with these Alexes almost felt like being unfaithful, but how could it be when it was still him? Or was she justifying it to herself? There was nothing in the Tradition to answer that question, and asking the Mirror Servants and the Fae had given her confirmation that she hadn't gone mad and imagined time repeating but hadn't been able to tell her any more than that.

"Godmother? Godmother Iolanthe wishes to call on you at your earliest convenience," Randolph, her Mirror Servant said, startling her.

"Iolanthe? Heavens, why would she be calling on me? Tell her she's welcome at any time," Elena said, and rose to make herself a bit tidier. No sooner had she done so when there was a small commotion from the direction of the pond in the bottom meadow; Elena remembered that she had a predilection for that sort of thing. She ran downstairs to be ready to greet her, warning the Brownies as she did.

Iolanthe was gliding gracefully toward her, not seeming to notice the gaping donkey she passed. The Fae greeted her cordially, if a little distractedly, which wasn't a good sign, but she paused before entering the house, eyes gleaming.

"I see you have a new donkey," she said. "What a fine beast; why, a king needn't be ashamed to own such a creature!"

"He certainly is a royal ass," Elena agreed, trying not to laugh. Alex made a noise the likes of which only an indignant donkey could produce and the two Godmothers hurried into the house before they ruined the effect by giggling like schoolgirls. Iolanthe had always struck her as remarkably human for one of the Fae; she'd certainly never met another Fae Fairy Godmother with a sense of humor like that, anyway. "Iolanthe, I'm always glad to see you, but what on earth is wrong?"

"Oh, where to start!" The other woman flopped onto a chair in a manner that should have been ungraceful. "My dear, I'm going to ask you something that may strike you as completely mad, but I do have my reasons. Has time been repeating for you?"

"You, too?" Elena blurted, staring. But Iolanthe shook her head.

"Not I, indeed. But I have been aware that something is strange in the world that isn't related to the Tradition, and I have now met three people who know why. In fact, they are experiencing it themselves. They are quite experienced at it, and I found myself in the unusual position of being the student rather than the teacher in this matter. I will leave it to them to explain what is happening to you, but one aspect of what they described made me think of you, and I was right. Now, I recognize the signs of trying to redeem a Failed Quester, but can you leave him for a while? These three have gotten involved in one of the worst tangles I've ever seen, and that's saying something. I've got a Snowskin who's also a Dragon's Maiden, twin brothers who are both childhood friends of the girl, the girl is over head and ears in love with one of the brothers, and all three are quite astonishingly clever. I've got the girl doing research and the boys have my castle and grounds to explore, but that will only distract them for so long. You see, I haven't told you the most awkward part: they're only twelve!"

Elena shook her head, trying to make sense of it.

"If they're twelve, then how can they be experienced with this?"

"Time Loops, my dear; who knows how many times they've been this age?"

"...Iolanthe, refresh my memory. Who was it who nearly broke up her son's engagement by giving him what she thought of as a motherly kiss in public even though she knew her son's fiancée didn't know he was half-Fae?"

"Well, that was me, but—oh. Oh! Oh, dear." It wasn't often that a mortal got to see a Fae looking sheepish; Elena bit back a grin. "Well. That would account for a great many things."

"Such as?"

"Daniel and Strephon have been trying to convince me to let them help, Phyllis has been giving me the look you give someone you love dearly even though they're being exceptionally dim, and the Brownies have been being very obviously patient. I of all people really should have known better than to judge someone by their apparent age. At least we've caught my blunder fairly early, and I can start making things right directly I return home. Can you come, my dear? I really do think it would be best to deal with this quickly."

Elena thought for a few minutes. At this point, Hob had most of the dealings with Alexander; she thought it best to keep her distance until he was closer to her Alex. He wasn't as nasty as usual, but if events otherwise followed their usual course, it would be a few more weeks before that happened. And he'd had his day as a human yesterday, so she could stay away for a few days without risking his mind turning beast-like due to the spell on him. The Brownies were certainly capable of running matters at home without her, and if she was needed back her, Randolph could contact Iolanthe's Mirror Servant.

"I think I'd better change into more Godmotherly clothes, but yes, I can come for a few days," she said. "Do I need to be the Rose Fairy, or will just looking like a proper Godmother do?"

"Oh, just the Godmother, I think. We've got quite a bit of work ahead of us, and all those silly frills will just get in the way. I do wish I could have put a stop to that before the Tradition got hold of it, but what can you do?"

Elena nodded sympathetically, then went to change. An elegant but sturdy gown in shades of rose-pink, her favorite wand, and a few changes of clothing carefully packed in a bag and she was ready to go. She spoke to the Brownies and Randolph, then joined Iolanthe out in the garden and headed for the path.

"I am glad you thought of me when you learned of these Time Loops," she told Iolanthe as they walked. "I've been wanting someone to talk to about this, but nobody else seemed to notice. I almost thought I was going mad."

"Time... Loops?" a hoarse voice asked from behind them. Elena froze. "Do you mean, time repeating itself? Living your life over again from a certain day?"

Everyone turned slowly to look at the donkey, who had a look of desperate hope in his eyes. Elena felt a slow trickle of hope of her own beginning to rise.

"Alex?"

"Elena? _My_ Elena?"

She dropped the spell on him without another moment's hesitation, and he stood before her in the peasant's clothing he'd accepted with ill grace. She'd thought that odd, as he'd always insisted on wearing that ridiculous uniform of his the other times; it had been a clue, and she'd been too blind to see it. He took a step forward, and Elena flung herself at him, nearly knocking him over, and kissed him breathless. His response eliminated any lingering doubts that it really was her Alex, and she felt a brief temptation to ask Iolanthe to call for her tomorrow. Instead, she let the kiss wind itself down naturally, and the two stepped back.

"We are a pair of idiots, aren't we?" she said. "How long has this been going on for you?"

"Since about a month before we met in the woods. I hated to ride at you that way, but you didn't seem to know me so I thought it was just me, and I thought I'd better act like I had back then. Well, maybe not quite as bad."

"So this is your first time repeating, then," Iolanthe said. "Right, then, you'd better come along, because you're part of this too. A fairly important part, if that kiss was anything to judge by. Hob, do close your mouth, you look like a landed fish."

The stunned Brownie shut his mouth with an audible snap, then took a closer look at Alex. His eyes narrowed as he saw the changed demeanor, the soft smile as Alex looked at Elena, and the magic that was begin to gather around the man—magic that Elena also saw. Finally he nodded with a satisfied grunt.

"Don't pretend to understand what just happened," he grumbled, "but if it's made a decent man out of him, I'll not be the one to complain."

"Speaking of decent, I should probably bathe before going anywhere," Alex said. "I smell like an overworked mule. Which reminds me—a royal ass? That was terrible!"

"You're only annoyed that I beat you to it."

"That is entirely beside the point."

Elena laughed, glad that she had her Alex back. The Loops, if that was what they were called, had been so very lonely. Now she had someone to talk to, and that someone was Alex; she'd never have dared expect that, and tears of joy streamed down her cheeks as she kissed him again.

* * *

8.5 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 5**

Well, if she couldn't have Phineas and Ferb around, at least she had a great place to stay while she missed him. Them. Isabella nibbled on a delicately rose-flavored lace cookie, took a sip of tea, and turned the page of her book. She'd set up a loose schedule for her days, and while it was only the second day on it, it seemed to be working: five to ten minutes in direct sun, then at least half an hour in the shade, no more than three hours at a time reading, get up and walk around every so often to keep from getting stiff. She kept the same morning routine in every Loop to make sure she and her skills stayed in shape, and adding that to it wasn't a hassle.

She also made sure to spend an hour each day exploring the castle, figuring it would be a good idea to know the layout. Iolanthe had hinted that while Dragon's Maidens could be abducted as young as fourteen (and she thought that Isabella had been accepted because the Tradition was confused by her Looping status), but they were almost never rescued before their sixteenth birthday, and more usually near their eighteenth. That gave Isabella about four years to wait, and she suspected she'd need it if she wanted to really know Castle Bunthorne. Medieval castles were designed to be essentially walled villages, and this one was no exception; the place could probably house her entire neighborhood back home with room to spare.

More importantly, though, she was also exploring the Tradition. She still didn't like it, but when she thought about how other universes were run, it really wasn't so bad in comparison. At least the Tradition liked to give people a fighting chance, and for those who knew myths and folklore pretty well it was practically a cheat guide. Isabella wasn't an expert, but she suspected she was a bit ahead of Phineas and Ferb in this world, simply because girls got told fairy tales more than boys.

"Excuse me, miss, but you're wanted back at the library," Daw said, appearing next to her without a sound. "The Godmother has returned and wishes to speak to you."

"Thanks, Daw," she replied. Closing her book, she snagged one last cookie for the walk. She'd have carried the tray, but the Brownies had made it very clear that for the moment she was to be treated as a pampered princess, in the hopes that it would further confuse the Tradition. It was nice for a change, but she didn't plan on getting used to it. She did insist on carrying her book by herself, though; that crossed the line from pampered to lazy as far as she was concerned.

It was a bit of a hike back, and mostly uphill, but she didn't mind. The weather was still clear and just cool enough that the long dress she wore was comfortable. Still, she didn't dawdle, because she wanted to argue the case for having Phineas and Ferb with her and goofing around wouldn't help. She made it to the library in a reasonable amount of time and entered after a quick knock to let them know she was there. Almandin was there as usual, but there were also a handful of others. The Knight In Shining Armor was hard to miss; tall and handsome, with longish brown hair and a beaky nose that didn't distract from his good looks. He looked a bit like a more buff version of Danny from Love Händel, which made her stifle a giggle. Next to him was a very pretty woman in her early-to-mid-twenties, blonde and blue-eyed and dressed in a rose-pink gown that Isabella envied a little. An older, grey-haired man stood next to Iolanthe, and next to him was a man who had to be their son, with dark brown hair and Iolanthe's green eyes. He had his arm around a strawberry blonde girl who couldn't be more than twenty but was visibly pregnant; Isabella was a bit surprised by that, but reminded herself that a) this was a world where girls were frequently married by the time she'd have expected to graduate high school and b) she knew for a fact that at least four people in this room didn't look their age and the girl might well be over a hundred. They looked up as she entered, exchanged glances, then drew apart to reveal—

"Phineas! Ferb!"

She glomped Phineas, almost knocking him off his feet, then did the same to Ferb. They'd talked on their phones over the last couple days, but it wasn't the same. If they were in a Loop together, then they wanted to be together. It was that simple. Besides, they always did their best work together; any one of them was pretty good by themselves, and Phineas and Ferb working together were amazing, but the three of them working as a team were unstoppable.

"My dears, I'm afraid I owe you all an apology," Iolanthe said. "I should not have treated you as children, especially once I knew your stories. Rest assured, I have been taken to task for it and am thoroughly contrite. Now, as you may have surmised, I wish to talk to you all together, and not just you, but everyone who may end up being of substantial help, with one necessary exception. You won't have met my family, Isabella, so please allow me to present my husband Daniel, my son Strephon, and my daughter-in-law Phyllis. Nor will you have met Godmother Elena and her fiancé Prince Alexander. That is another thing for which I must apologize, but this is directed mainly at Phineas and Ferb. Lads, we did not tell you everything last night, because we thought it best to wait until we had you all together. Elena and Alexander are both Looping, and we have reason to believe that Elena is the Anchor for this Loop."

"Oh, we figured that out last night," Phineas said cheerfully. Iolanthe's eyebrows almost jumped off her head, and Isabella had to work hard to keep a straight face. Most of the others didn't even try, and Phyllis even giggled.

"I do need to stop underestimating you two," the Fae sighed. "Really, I'm not usually so inept, I give my word."

"You did warn us they were clever," Elena grinned. "How did you figure it out, Phineas?"

"Well, it was kinda obvious you weren't telling us something, and you kept almost talking about it, then saying 'tomorrow', and then Iolanthe said we'd be coming to see Isabella tomorrow, and it just made sense. You wanted to do this when we were all together so we didn't have to explain stuff more times than needed, right?"

"That's it precisely," Iolanthe said, visibly relieved. "Now, my dears, if you could all sit down, I'm afraid we have a situation that is more difficult than I had hoped for. But before we get into that, I would like for you to explain the Loops to Elena and Alex."

Explaining the Loops was relatively easy, even though they didn't usually get the chance to give the "Welcome to the Multiverse" speech. Elena and Alex both learned how to Ping fairly quickly, and Elena had the basic idea for creating a subspace pocket within the hour. She was also pleased at getting a copy of Twilight's book; she stated outright that it would be the first item in her Pocket when she got it open. All of the locals were fascinated by the stories of the different Loops, understanding the logic behind the various types of Loop and impressed that some were determined to make their Loops Sanctuaries for beleaguered Loopers.

"I'd love it if we could offer something similar, but I don't think it will be possible," Elena said. "Somehow I don't think the Tradition will allow that. In fact, I'm wondering how the Tradition will react to the Loops; it might not make a difference, but I don't want to count on that. The Loops may become part of the Tradition, although I'm not entirely sure how that would work. It's something we'll have to keep an eye on. I think I'd like to discuss it further with some of the more magically-inclined Loopers, like that man Dumbledore you mentioned or the Equestrian Anchor—is her name really Twilight Sparkle?"

"That's how names work there; they tend toward the descriptive," Ferb said.

"Well, she probably found our names odd at first as well," Elena mused. "Oh, and I mean no offense to you; your help is invaluable, it truly is. It's just that this world is highly magical, and from what you say, yours is not."

"Oh, hey, no, that totally makes sense," Phineas said. "We've had some experience with magic, but to figure out something like that, of course you want to talk to people—well, beings, anyway—who really know about it. We're pretty good at what we do, but we aren't experts in everything, and for something that pretty much controls your world, you want real experts. We can give you a good list of who you'll want to talk to, if you'd like. Can't promise you'll meet them any time soon, of course, but the good thing about the Loops is you can afford to wait for stuff like that."

"A list would be a good idea," Alex agreed. "Also, when that's done, I'd like a list of beings to watch out for. The troublemakers."

"That's in the book," Isabella said. "But we can give you notes on the ones we've actually met, and how we handled them. One of the harder ones to handle is only hard because it's just so cute that you feel bad about attacking it, but once you start thinking about what it's done, it's a lot easier. Although Kyuubey may not show up here, since it targets girls around my age. I drop-kicked it, for the record. But getting back to the magic people, if you ever get to meet Gandalf the Grey..."

They spent most of the morning and a good part of the afternoon on Loop mechanics and giving notes and warnings about specific Loops and Loopers beyond the initial two categories. Ferb brought up Leah Clearwater, pointing out that there were werewolves, vampires, and the like who were Looping and might run into trouble due to the Tradition. All of them agreed that the Equestrians needed to be warned about how the Tradition treated unicorns; while the idea of, say, Shining Armor turning into a sappy idiot every time he got near a virgin was amusing, they knew it would quickly get annoying for all involved. They spent a good half-hour to forty-five minutes on the Doctor alone, wondering how each version of him would be affected by the Tradition. Isabella privately thought that the youngest-looking one would cause the Tradition to have a nervous breakdown.

Eventually they got to a point where they realized that they were gossiping more than giving useful information, and they turned to Iolanthe to explain what she had said earlier. The Fae grimaced and reached for her husband's hand.

"Well, I have something else to confess," she sighed. "I'm actually just getting back into the swing of things as a Godmother. You see, Fae and mortals aren't really supposed to have more than brief flings, but I decided I would rather have the pain of losing Daniel than never really having him at all. My Queen did not approve, and I was punished by having to spend twenty-five years at the bottom of a stream looking after Frog Princes. I was able to keep an eye on my son, but I had little other contact with the world. If it wasn't for one of the younger Fae asking what had become of me and two dear friends stirring up the rest of our band to ask for my release, I might still be there. But mortals can change so much in what seems to be a mere eyeblink to a Fae, and I am finding that there are many Traditions now that simply did not exist when I married Daniel. I believed that Sacharissa Wellington-Wells was simply a Wicked Stepmother, but there are signs that she may be far worse than that. I've warned Dickon, of course, but he's determined to do his part. I do hope that I'm wrong, Isabella, but I believe that the Stepmother is also a Necromancer, and that she married your father in order to get access to his magic. She wouldn't have realized that you were also a source of power for her, or she'd never have thrown you out, although that may have been the Tradition forcing her hand. However it fell out, she is now aware of the Traditional power around you—power that has only been increased by adding the Dragon's Maiden Path. In trying to confuse the Tradition, we have, at least temporarily, made matters worse for you."

"Well, it was worth trying, and I did volunteer after Almandin asked me," Isabella said. "We'd pretty much gotten ourselves into the situation before you even knew about it. But will she be able to find me here? She has some of my stuff, but I wasn't Awake when I left and now I am, so that might confuse a tracking spell. It does in some magic systems we've run across."

"Well, dear, we'll hope for the best, but I'd rather not rely on it. If the Tradition still considers you a Snowskin when she tries to find you, then she will probably find you if she's at all competent. And we know she is, because she managed to hide what she was from your father. Thankfully, we have a few days, but we'll need to be ready to act at a moment's notice."

"Elena and I will have to return to her cottage for at least a day," Alex said. "But after that, I'll hopefully be a Champion again, and if I take up residence here it should give you some protection. We just have to be careful of the wording when I swear myself to that, as I'd rather we didn't give the Tradition a chance to make us fall in love."

"That would be wrong on so many levels," Ferb said.

"What he said," Phineas agreed. "And I think Ferb and I should stay too. If she's looking for a Snowskin, she'll be expecting dwarfs, so the more not-dwarfs we have around, the better, right? Besides, we can study the Tradition together and compare notes easier, and then there's stuff we've learned while Looping that we might be able to use..."

"I say, I rather like the idea," Almandin said. "We Dragons don't usually care for each other's company for too long, but I don't mind having you folk around. Bit of a house party, what? And it also makes the numbers wrong for Snowskin's protectors; with just the Champion we'd be at seven, but with these clever lads we'll be nine, and whoever heard of a Snowskin with nine protectors? And when that unicorn gets here, we'll be ten. Rather a motley band, but that may work for us."

"Then it's agreed," Elena said. "We'll each keep searching our respective libraries and making sure we plan for various Traditions. And we have to keep an eye on the amount of Traditional power around Isabella, and do some scrying to see if our efforts are closing any of the Paths. I'd also like to train Isabella; it never hurts to have extra Godmothers about, and she might as well get some use out of all of that power swirling around her. I've done it before, in... in baseline, although they were older. Well, if you don't count your Looping age. Oh, heavens, that still confuses me, and somehow I don't think that will end any time soon."

"It won't," Ferb said.

"It takes a while," Phineas agreed.

"Well, I'm always up for learning something new," Isabella said. "I can use it for my Learning Otherworldly Skills Patch."

"...Is that a thing, or are you just messing with us?" Phineas asked, grinning. Isabella just grinned back and didn't answer.

* * *

Sacharissa Wellington-Wells glared at her Mirror Slave.

"Mirror, mirror, on my wall, who's the fairest one of all? And if you say Godmother Aleksia or any of the Sea King's daughters again, it will go badly for you."

"Well, it is a rather subjective question," the green face sighed. "Fair can be used in so many different ways. Still, if you want to know who the prettiest maid in this kingdom is, there are still three choices: Aline Sangazure, Princess Ida—although she won't count much longer, since she's heading off to that college of hers—and Josephine Corcoran."

"So the wench is dead, then," the Dark Sorceress gloated, fulfilling her Traditional role. "Not the ideal outcome; all that Traditional power wasted, after all. On the other hand, once I devour her heart I shall gain her youth and beauty, and then I shall have years in which to further build my power, and then I shall rule this land and not even the Godmothers can stop me!"

Her laugh was more suited to an anime noblewoman than a fairy-tale villainess, but as far as the Tradition was concerned, it was good enough. An evil laugh was necessary, whichever Tradition it came from. The Mirror Slave rolled his eyes, knowing she couldn't see him at the moment, mentally counted down the days until the Tradition dealt with her as it did with all her type, and wondered just what it was about going Dark that turned so many into melodramatic idiots.

* * *

8.1-8.5: A very interesting start to a very interesting storyline.


	9. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eight (Part Two of Three) - Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eight (Part Two of Three)**

8.6 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 6**

The next week was very active for everyone. The three visiting Loopers continued both studying and exploring the castle, and when Phineas and Ferb located the old forge, they added that to their list of Things To Get Working. Alexander left for a day, returning with a literally visible glow that took a while to fade; he had been confirmed as a Champion in record time. Elena set up a mirror in the front hall to use as transport, and added mirror magic to the lessons. Iolanthe and her family returned to her castle, checking in every night to give or receive news; neither Godmother could stay due to their own duties. Iolanthe was only in charge of three kingdoms, but one was quite large and all were rather busy; Elena was in charge of at least a dozen and one of those was due to have a major incident in the next few weeks that Elena still hadn't figured out how to forestall. Since Alex's brother was involved, they'd be losing him for a few days when it happened; nobody was saying so, but they were assuming that if Sacharissa was going to attack, she'd do it then. It wasn't technically Traditional for villains to strike at the most inconvenient times, but it might as well have been.

Busy at it was, they mostly enjoyed themselves. The one exception was necessary, but left all three visiting Loopers hoping they never had to do it again: drinking Dragon's Blood.

"Blood? You mean like... blood?" Isabella squeaked, horrified. Phineas and Ferb nodded, both looking almost as uncomfortable as she felt. And she'd thought eating a grub would be bad! "Almandin, doesn't that hurt you?"

"Never a fear of it. It's no worse than pricking your finger on a needle; sting a bit for a few seconds, but five minutes later you've completely forgotten it. Honor bright, Miss Isabella, I give blood a few times a year for various Fae and Godmothers, and even for a Wizard I know on occasion. I'd hardly do it if it really hurt. Any road, understanding animal speech is a ruddy useful skill, and if it carries over to other Loops it'll be even moreso. And don't worry about hearing regular animals talk; spend a few minutes listening to chickens talk and you won't feel the least bit guilty about eating one of the daft creatures."

"Variations of 'hey'," Elena nodded. "Unfortunately, it tastes every bit as nasty as it sounds, but it's the quickest way of doing this as well as being one of the few permanent methods. I've done, Alex has done it, Daniel and Phyllis have done it... I promise it won't kill you. And you have to do it in a single dose."

"It won't be as effective?" Phineas asked. Alex shook his head.

"No, it's just that after the first taste you won't want a second no matter how useful it is."

The Danvillians exchanged looks, and then as one chugged the contents of their glasses. Isabella and Phineas gagged, and Ferb turned as green as his hair; glasses of mint water were thrust into their hands and they started a long rinse-and-spit cycle. It explained why Elena had suggested doing this outdoors. Finally, they were given a strong fruit juice blend to finish off the rest of the foul taste. Phineas summed up their feelings perfectly.

"Dude, that's nasty!"

"Well, with any luck you'll never have to do it again," Elena said. "I haven't had to take another dose, but then, I haven't left this Loop yet and it starts after I've already done that, so I really can't say if it will be sustained for you."

"I hope so," Ferb said. "I'd rather not do that again."

"Hey, there aren't any animals around!" Phineas exclaimed. Isabella hadn't thought about it, but most animals tended to avoid the area near a Dragon's lair. For some strange reason, they didn't want to live near a carnivore big enough to eat a sheep in two bites.

"I thought about that," Elena said, opening a crate and lifting out a large calico cat. "If there is any animal that won't panic at the sight of a Dragon, it's a cat."

" _Why should I be afraid of an overgrown lizard?_ " the cat yawned. Phineas' eyes widened, Ferb blinked, and Isabella stifled a squee. The Dragon's Blood had worked. Almandin didn't seem insulted by the cat, and was actually chuckling quietly.

"Cats are good for keeping you humble, aren't they? Although I really ought to point out that this particular lizard has scales larger than you and breathes fire."

" _Big and clumsy, and breathing fire doesn't help if your target's too fast for you to come near it._ "

"Fair enough on the second, but have you ever watched a Dragon fly?"

" _Yes. It was crunchy, but it didn't taste very good._ "

"No, I meant... oh, never mind. Never argue with a cat; it always wins."

" _You're pretty smart for a lizard._ " The cat wandered off, bored, and Almandin gave the draconic equivalent of a shrug.

"So what are all these glowing dust mites?" Phineas asked, waving his hand in front of his eyes. "It was pretty at first, but it gets kinda annoying after a while."

"You're seeing magic, which means a whole new set of lessons for you," Elena said.

"I'm seeing them too; how about you, Ferb?"

"Not me. I guess I'm not suited to this Loop's magic." Ferb didn't seem particularly upset about it, but then, Ferb wasn't really the jealous type. And it wasn't like they hadn't had other Loops where somebody got a perk that the others didn't. "Does that mean I can't help Phineas and Isabella with their lessons, or that I just won't be able to do any of that myself?"

"Oh, you can always help, if you're willing, and some spells can be cast by anybody regardless of magical ability, but the bigger and more complex a spell is, the more dangerous it would be for you. I suspect you have enough common sense to know your limits," Alex answered. Elena and Almandin agreed.

"That ruddy cat could cast some spells if it cared to learn them. Some do, but those tend to be the Wise Beasts, which aren't normal anyway. Wise Beasts are more likely to show up here than regular ones, and I never turn them away if they do. Charming conversationalists, Wise Beasts; never can tell what Tradition they're coming from, and some of their tales are quite exciting."

"More importantly," Elena said, "your support is invaluable, but a little dangerous. The Loyal Brother and the Loyal Twin are offshoots of the same Tradition, and while the brother you're loyal to tends to get a happy ever after, there's a distinct possibility of the Tradition leading you into a noble sacrifice. And if you start feeling anything you know isn't normal, tell someone at once; I'm sure you've found any number of Traditions involving brother against brother in your reading. Phineas, Isabella, you need to watch out as well, because the Tradition can push you into ignoring him as no longer important."

"Ferb, if I ever blow you off when I'm not right in the middle of something, you have my permission to give me a kick in the butt," Phineas said immediately. Ferb nodded, smiling slightly. Isabella sighed.

"I won't go that far," she said, "but definitely say something."

"I will."

"It'll be like that Hogwarts Loop where I was a Squib," Phineas said. "We got through that okay, and we can just try some of the same stuff we did then. And we've got that blacksmith's shop to get set up, too; from what I've read, having a smith who knows about magic is pretty useful."

"Once you've got it up and running, I can teach you how to forge with Dragonfire," Almandin said, surprising them. "That's a much rarer skill than magic, you know; not a lot of smiths willing to even try it and even fewer Dragons who know the technique these days. Call me a romantic, but I do hate seeing the old skills dying out, so I made a point of learning as many as I could. Now that I think of it, I rather fancy the idea of Dragonsmithing; care to give it a go, Ferb?"

"Sounds good; I'm in," Ferb said after a moment's thought. Isabella was relieved at that; she hadn't considered the Tradition earlier, and while normally Ferb wouldn't care about being the only one who didn't have something special, in this Loop it could lead to something ugly. Ferb had been awkward for several Loops after that ray turned him into Darth Ferb and he'd almost killed Phineas; Isabella hated to think how he'd feel if he got mystically brainwashed into doing something awful to either of them. But he had something he could do and enjoy now that would be his, and that should help. Even better was that this was a skill he'd be able to use in other Loops with Dragons.

The only thing that worried her now was the weight she sensed waiting to fall on them. The tanning sessions hadn't affected anything but her skin tone; the Snowskin Path was still a thing. She had a feeling that the Tradition was determined to play that out, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

* * *

Phineas stepped through the mirror from Elena's cottage, clearing the way quickly for the others. They'd gone there because none of the Castle Bunthorne Brownies knew wandmaking, while two of Elena's did. It had been a little like Ollivander's, but not much; the similarity came in handling various types of wood until something felt right, but unlike Ollivander's, they were given raw wood, not finished wands. Also, they would get different types of wands that would be used for different types of work. He and Isabella had shown the Brownies their wands from those Loops, and while Robin had been pleased with the craftsmanship, he'd told them that they simply weren't the right tool for the job in this Loop. So Phineas would soon be receiving four walnut wands ranging from a standard forearm-length to a staff like Gandalf's, while Isabella would be getting six or seven rosewood wands, the smallest of which was no larger than her hand. Having seen Robin's work on Elena's wands, Phineas knew his would go into his Pocket when he wasn't using them.

He didn't envy Isabella the extra wands; a Godmother had more roles to play than a Wizard did, and he was likely to be a Wizard. He could play the friendly helper, the wise mentor, the stern guardian, and the oh-snap-who-did-I-just-mess-with avenger. Isabella had to be convincing as a fairy princess, an old beggar woman, a noble lady, and so many more roles; it wouldn't be easy, but he knew she could do it. After all, this was Isabella, and he couldn't imagine her failing at anything.

Ferb and Alexander were waiting for them as they came through, and both were looking pleased with themselves. That was good; he hadn't liked that it looked like this Loop was trying to leave Ferb out of the fun, but Almandin's suggestion had been perfect. Ferb had spent a few Loops learning to be all sorts of smith, and adding to his collection always made him happy.

"Hey, Ferb, what'cha doin?"

"Isn't that Isabella's line?" Ferb asked with a faint smile.

"Phineas can use it. And you. Don't want to dilute my brand too much." Isabella was looking more relaxed now that they knew they'd have what they needed to work with. She hadn't been joking as much the last few days, so it was good to see her tease Ferb. Ferb must have thought so too, because his smile got a little bigger.

"Alex helped with some of the heavy lifting in the forge and we found a chest full of tools in excellent shape. Not everything we'll need, but more than enough to get started once we finish cleaning it out."

"Sweet!" He'd been hoping Alex would be willing to help with that; he and Ferb were good at a lot of things, but they weren't full-grown and while they were both pretty strong for their sizes, for some things they just needed an adult. Or some of their gear from their Pockets, but even though everyone in the castle knew about them, they didn't want to get into the habit of using other-Loop tech just to make things easier, especially in a Loop whose tech level ranged from Bronze Age to Renaissance. He'd learned that lesson the hard way, and preferred not to think about how that Loop had ended. "How long do you think it'll be before we can get it up and running?"

"Depending on how much time we can spare from our studies, probably within the week. Less, if Alex is clear to help again. Sorcerer or Wizard?"

"Wizard. They're kinda magical engineers, and that just feels more me. I made up my mind on the way through to Elena's cottage."

"Good. Smiths and Wizards work together pretty well in a lot of tales I know, and if it's true in this Loop, that'll give us a leg up on the Tradition."

"As long as they're both on the side of the Light, they usually do," Alex said. "Of course, there are always exceptions, but those are due to clashes of character, not Tradition."

"Then I guess we've got a pretty good foundation now," Phineas said. "If we keep working, then as long as Mrs. Wellington-Wells doesn't pull anything too weird, we should be ready for her when she makes her move."

Nobody pointed out that Dickon's ploy with the deer heart might work, and that the Wicked Stepmother might be appeased. None of them believed it would. Their lessons were really planning sessions, in hopes that they covered every contingency; they had even learned a few spells that might distract her or deflect an attack. But Isabella had admitted that she still felt the Tradition weighing down on her, and both Godmothers had confirmed that they had not been able to disrupt the Snowskin Path. A confrontation was inevitable, and Phineas was not going to let anybody hurt Isabella.

* * *

Sacharissa sneered down at the peasant huntsman kneeling before her and proffering an oaken chest just big enough to contain a heart.

"She was dead when I found her, Madame, and the beasts had already left their marks. I preserved her heart in wine and brought it back as you instructed, that it might be buried with her father. And now, Madame, if you have no further need of me, one of my dogs is off his feed, and I wish to make sure of him."

"Thank you for your service, huntsman. You may go, and my servant will give you your reward as promised." She turned and left without giving him another thought, carrying the chest straight to her secret chamber. Once there, she stripped and put her clothes on a shelf with great care; it wouldn't do for them to get stained with any of the substances she'd be working with.

She did not speak from the moment she entered the room. The spell she had in mind was quite tricky; any extraneous words could have a disastrous effect. She lit a black candle with a taper and carried it to the nearly-complete circle already drawn in black wax; a minute of dripping in the right place and the circle was closed. She began the ritual, calling on the few demons who owed her favors to lend their power to her spell. Such a request would strengthen the spell, but would still leave the demons in her debt; despite what her insolent Mirror Slave thought, she was no fool.

She could feel the power around her, heavy with the weight of Tradition. As soon as she devoured the heart, she would take on the form of her late husband's late brat. She'd already planned for her return; she'd dropped hints here and there that the child was unhinged with grief and convinced poor Sacharissa had connived at her father's death (which had actually been a coincidence, although she'd had plans to get rid of him anyway), and so had run off to the woods to find a Godmother's aid. A Sorceress who she'd paid well would spirit her away, and then return her home publicly, disguised as a Godmother, only to find a house abandoned and ransacked by disloyal servants. Her husband's family would take her in, see the power she had, and train her, giving her all the secrets she'd been working to get hold of. By the time she appeared grown again, she would have enough to charm the current prince into taking her as his wife, and after that, the rest would be easy. The royalty here was smug and complacent, believing that the mere existence of a Godmother in the kingdom was enough to protect them. She would still have to be careful, of course, but the Queen had died years ago, the Princess was heading for a foreign land with foreign diseases, the King was so badly misshapen that none would be surprised if he died suddenly from a burst heart, and all of the Princes were warrior idiots who were likely to die in battle. As long as she didn't try to rush matters, she could be sole ruler of the country by the time she was thirty again. The power she would gain from each death, both political and magical, would make her undefeatable.

She ate the heart, chanted the last words of the ritual, and immediately knew something was wrong. Her body was stretching painfully, and she could feel herself morphing into something that couldn't be a child one the cusp of maidenhood. She screamed, fighting the changes, but she had done the ritual too well and poured too much power into it. Before she passed out, she had one last thought: _the huntsman betrayed her_.

Some time later, she finally woke up. The candles had gone out, leaving her only the light from the fireplace to see by. She knew the ritual had done something to her, but as yet she could not guess what it was. Slowly, she got to her feet, feeling off-balance and just wrong, and re-lit the candles from the fire. She brought them over to the mirror and set them in place before allowing herself to look.

A tall, gracefully slim creature stared back out at her. But creature was the right word; she no longer looked human. Her nose and jaw had become elongated, resembling a deer's muzzle. Light chestnut brown fur covered her body. Her formerly silver-streaked blonde hair was now a few shades darker than her fur. And her legs... she flexed her hands to be sure that they at least were still there. Now she knew why she'd felt so off-balance. She was walking upright on deer's legs, complete with dainty cloven hoofs.

She began to laugh. She laughed as she smashed the mirror. She laughed as she tore the room apart. And she laughed as she sent her remaining magic out to mark the huntsman so that she could find him and make him pay.

* * *

8.7 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 7**

There would be no leaving the castle today. A few days ago a dangerous magical character had attacked the kingdom where Alex's brother lived, so yesterday he, Elena, and Almandin had gone to sort things out. Since this left Isabella with the Traditional seven defenders, they were being extra careful. It wouldn't have been so bad if Eilyr had shown up, but he hadn't; Elena commented cynically that he probably got distracted by a pretty flower. The Brownies were more dangerous than most assumed, and the Danvillians had enough experience to look out for themselves, but there was a difference between confidence and tempting fate. Isabella herself had insisted on staying in company until the non-Traditional numbers were restored, and Phineas was glad she'd done so.

They were standing on one of the parapets, looking out over the valley. They weren't talking, not because of nerves or any ill-will, but because they didn't feel the need. Even before the Loops had started, they had been good enough friends that silence didn't feel threatening. At the moment, they were simply enjoying a late autumn morning. The skies were cloudy, but they were the textured silvery clouds that were actually prettier than a clear sky, and the temperature was cool enough now that they wanted cloaks if they were going to be out for more than a few minutes. They had finished their morning chores and there would be no lessons today, so grabbing a quiet hour was all right; in fact, the Brownies had encouraged it, pointing out that they had been working almost non-stop for a few weeks. So here they were, quietly enjoying the day and each other's company.

A sound of stone scraping over stone was the only warning Phineas had before a hand gripped him by the throat from behind and lifted him. He hung there for a second, scrabbling at the fingers cutting of his air, then he found himself flying toward the crenellations. He bounced off the top of one, gasping as he felt his right shoulder dislocate, and started to tumble over the side; he managed to get a handhold with his still-working left hand, but it wasn't a very good one. He tried to remember whether he was over stone or one of the grassy bits, and grimaced as he realized that at this height, the only difference it would make was how bloody a splat his landing would create.

He could hear Ferb and Isabella shouting and the sound of a spell being fired off; seconds later, Ferb's face appeared between the crenellations.

"Isabella's holding him off; hang on for just a few seconds more!" Ferb began to climb out after him. "Can you give me your other hand?"

"No, my shoulder's messed up."

"Right. Pocket time, th— ** _NO!!!_** "

Phineas' hand slipped, and he fell. He could see Ferb's horrified expression and felt bad about it, but there was nothing in either of their Pockets that could have helped fast enough. The last thing he heard before he hit was Isabella screaming.

* * *

It would be quite some time before Isabella would forgive herself for not looking into the castle's secret passages. The wall had opened behind Phineas and a tall figure had attacked before they could react. The man looked human enough, but there was something wrong about him; his face was slack, his eyes were a bit too focused, and he was stronger than he should have been. Phineas wasn't very big, but no normal human could have just picked up and thrown him like that, especially one-handed. She grabbed her wand from her Pocket and started with the Imperius Curse, just in case. She wasn't surprised when it failed, and she quickly switched to offensive spells. The Hogwarts spells weren't as effective here, probably because they weren't Traditional, but they were enough to hold the man back until Ferb could rescue Phineas. She backed toward them, keeping one eye on the man and another eye on the closest door, thankful that it wasn't too far from where Phineas has gone over.

She had just fired off a shield spell that seemed to hold pretty well when she heard Ferb shout; she turned just in time to see Phineas' hand disappear from view. Screaming, she ran to the nearest gap and saw him land hard in the grass. The grass was still soft, but it was such a long drop; even if he survived, he was probably badly hurt. He needed them, and he needed them _now_. Ferb had scrambled back down, white-faced and trembling; the two grabbed each other's hand and ran for the door, ignoring the man pounding on Isabella's slowly disintegrating shield. They'd deal with him later.

"Zombie?" she gasped as they pelted down the stairs.

"Re-animated corpse, at least. _Damn it!_ " Ferb didn't swear often, and Isabella knew there was something more going on. It would have to wait, though; Phineas needed them. That was the foremost thought in her mind. She didn't even notice they knocked Daw ass-over-teakettle in their rush.

They didn't really take years to reach the courtyard, but it felt that way; a small part of Isabella's mind idly wondered if that was Traditional or just cliché. Phineas lay unmoving, and somehow they found a little more speed. They skidded to a stop on their knees next to him, careful not to touch him until they knew just how bad it was. They were relieved to see he was at least still breathing, but that was the best they could say. His breathing was off, slow and uneven. There was blood on his lips. One leg was bent beneath him at an unnatural angle. Even knowing that the worst that could happen was that they'd have to finish the Loop without him and they'd see him again the next time they were Awake, Isabella felt sick.

A sudden yowling got her attention; she and Ferb leapt to their feet, protecting Phineas. The man had come out of another section of wall, only to have the cat land on his head. She wasn't sure where the cat had come from, but then, it was a cat. The man reached up to grab it, but the cat jumped off before he came close. There were visible scratches on the man's face, but he wasn't bleeding; if they needed any confirmation that the man was past his use-by date, that would do it.

"He's really dead," she said, voice shaking.

"Yes. And he's about to be moreso." Ferb's fists were clenched so tight she was afraid he'd hurt himself and he took a step toward the man. Isabella readied her wand, trying to think of what spells she could use to end this quickly. The man took a small cloth pouch from his pocket and lobbed it toward them, and she blasted it; the explosion sent a cloud of powder in all directions, including over them. The second it reached them, Isabella lost her connection to her magic. From the shocked hiss she heard, it did something to Ferb as well. "I can't get into my Pocket. I'm back to baseline."

She tried to access her Pocket and failed. Whatever that powder was, it blocked anything beyond what a normal human could do. That was bad, but even in baseline they hadn't been helpless. They'd fought aliens, robots, zombie pharmacists... They could handle this. She hoped. She dropped her wand, now just a useless piece of carved wood, and readied herself.

"Okay, we've got to keep him away from Phineas. If we can lower the drawbridge, it shouldn't be too hard to trick him over the side. He's just attacking, not using strategy, so whatever's controlling him hasn't left him big on thinking. He's probably after me anyway, so I'll keep him busy while you get the drawbridge."

"On it." Ferb didn't argue; instead, he ran for the mechanism that controlled the gate, drawbridge, and everything. The man turned to follow him.

"I don't think so," she said. She darted away from Phineas before giving a loud whistle. "I'm over here, you big jerk! Can't catch me!"

He threw another bag of powder, and she rolled away at an angle so it missed completely this time. He didn't seem capable of running, but he also didn't react to the rocks she hit him with and showed no signs of tiring. That could be a problem if Ferb had trouble with the drawbridge; she had a good adrenaline rush going, but that wouldn't last forever. Also, the long skirts she had to wear were really encumbering. Another bag of powder sailed her way, and she dodged again.

A rattling rumbling clanking erupted from Ferb's direction, drawing the man's attention again. She headed for the gate, knowing he'd follow.

"Ferb, stay out of sight! I don't think he'll attack you unless he sees you!"

She hiked up her skirts and sprinted, but that meant turning her back on the man. She was almost through the gate when something hit her between the shoulder blades. She fell, awake but unable to move. Ferb yelled and she got the sensation of something large and silvery passing over her. Seconds later, Ferb was at her side.

"Better late than never," he said, picking her up. "Close your eyes for a few minutes; you really don't want to see what a unicorn's horn does to a corpse animated by Dark magic."

"He speaks truth, Maiden," Eilyr said. "I am truly sorry that I am so late, but at least I was here in time to destroy the foul revenant. But you are hurt!"

"Magic powder of some sort; I think she's paralyzed."

"I can fix that." There was a tickle on her arm as though someone trailed a pin just across the surface of her skin, then a warm, relaxing feeling slowly swept over her. "It is merely another form of poison, and a unicorn's horn is proof against any poison. She will be able to stand in a few moments. But where is the other—oh. Oh, my friends, I am so sorry. That is not in my power to repair."

Ferb set her down gently on the grass, and she opened her eyes. Phineas was still breathing, but she knew he didn't have much longer. This was something she would never get used to, no matter how many Loops they had. She reached out a hand and cupped his cheek.

"Oh, Phineas..."

"Isa...bella...?" Phineas' eyes fluttered open the barest crack; just enough to show that he was conscious. "Are you... okay? Ferb?"

"I'm here," Ferb said. "The Stepmother sent a... henchman, I guess. Eilyr took him out. We're okay. I think the cat went to get the Brownies—if you can just hold on until a Godmother gets here..."

"Sorry... bro..." Phineas smiled. "See you... in Danville. Don't cry... Isabella..."

"Oak, Ash, and Thorn, what happened?" Iolanthe exclaimed from behind them. Before anybody could respond, she was kneeling next to them, wand out. "On second thought, explain later. I've healed worse, but not often and not for a while. May I have your permission to draw on the power surrounding you, all of you?"

"Yes," Ferb, Isabella, and Eilyr chorused without hesitation. Iolanthe put a hand over Phineas' heart and held her wand over his head, then began to chant. They sat and waited, watching for any sign that it was working. Isabella thought his color was getting better and his breathing was evening out, but couldn't be sure it wasn't wishful thinking. As Iolanthe worked, Isabella felt her sense for magic returning, and seeing it gather around Phineas was a comfort; she just wished Ferb could see it as well.

The shadows had visibly shifted before Iolanthe finished, looking a little tired. As soon as she sat back, the Brownies lifted Phineas onto a wide plank and carried him into the castle. Ferb started to get up to follow, but sat down again with a bit of a thump.

"You'll be a bit dizzy for a few minutes, my dears," Iolanthe said. "Taking power, even the small amount of yours that I used, can be tiring for both involved. Not always or even frequently, but I didn't dare take the time for the usual safeguards. I'm just glad I felt something wrong here even before Daw sent that message; I came prepared for imminent disaster, and while I seem to have missed the excitement, I do believe I arrived just in time. Can you tell me as much as you know of what happened?"

Isabella looked at Ferb, who was sitting with his eyes closed, trying to keep himself together. To buy him some time, she began recounting what had just happened. When she had finished, Iolanthe sighed, looking sad.

"Ferb, was the man Dickon?"

"Yes."

Isabella clapped her hands to her mouth, horrified and a little guilty. They'd told her about Dickon, and she'd been looking forward to meeting him. He'd risked his life to help her, even though they'd never met, and she had no doubts at all that her Stepmother had been the one to kill him.

"Oh, Ferb, I'm so-"

"No." Ferb's eyes snapped open, and Isabella gasped; she'd never seen him so angry. "You have _nothing_ to apologize for. You didn't choose to have the Tradition mess with you, and as far as that goes, even the Tradition was only working with what it was given. The real guilty party is Sacharissa. Even before she became your Stepmother, she was an evil woman, and if we'd known about her we'd probably have tried to stop her. But now—she murdered Dickon, she's trying to murder you, and she nearly succeeded in murdering Phineas. _This. Ends._ I swear, Isabella, I will devote every last skill and power I've gained in the Loops to making sure she does not harm you, Phineas, or anybody else we can help. I don't say I'll do anything, but whatever I can do without going Dark myself, I. Will. Do."

There was a feeling rather like the mystic equivalent of throwing lighter fluid on hot coals, and Iolanthe looked pained.

"Well, Ferb, the Tradition heard you. Congratulations; you are now Phineas and Isabella's Sworn Champion. And what effect that will have when you Loop out of here, I doubt anyone could say."

Ferb looked up at the place from which Phineas had Fallen, then toward the castle where the Brownies had taken him, then toward Dickon's body. He nodded sharply.

"Totally worth it."

* * *

Sacharissa snarled as she felt the backlash from her spell controlling the huntsman's corpse hit her. When had the wench learned magic? And who was that green-haired brat who shimmered with an odd power of his own? She didn't have to ask about the unicorn; of course it would protect the girl, especially against an undead man. She hadn't expected what had happened when its horn pierced the man's chest, but it wasn't entirely surprising, either.

She would have to hide now, regain her strength. She had expected to recoup the energy expended on the huntsman by draining the girl, and it looked like that wouldn't be possible for a while now. After such an attack, they would be on their guard. Well, she could wait. Nobody could identify her. Her Mirror Slave had probably died when she'd destroyed its mirror, and the fool who had once owned the castle hadn't survived her method of gaining his memories of the place. Only they had seen her new form, and they could not tell anyone. Yes, she could afford to wait, and use that new form to her advantage; nobody would connect a half-deer half-human forest spirit with Madame Wellington-Wells, and most would assume she had died in the fire that had consumed the house along with all the other inhabitants.

She drew back into the woods, smiling.

* * *

8.8 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 8**

Phineas awoke, finding himself in a nice warm bed in a room that smelled faintly of lavender and woodsmoke. Even without opening his eyes, he knew he wasn't back in Danville; he knew his home bed well enough to know he wasn't in it. Obviously he'd Looped in somewhere else, but at the moment he just didn't feel like getting up to find out where. His Loop memories would kick in soon enough, and in the meantime, the bed was really comfortable. He sunk into a half-doze while he waited.

He would never admit to anybody, not even Ferb or Isabella, that it took him almost ten full minutes to realize that not only was he not getting any new Loop memories, he was in his bed in Castle Bunthorne because he hadn't actually died. When that finally did filter through to his half-asleep brain (that was his story and he was sticking to it), his eyes snapped open and he tried to sit up. It was harder than he expected; not because he hurt, which he wanted an explanation for even if he wasn't complaining, but because he felt like overcooked spaghetti. Eventually he gave up and just looked around his room without trying to overdo it.

The curtains were closed, but the shadows in the room told Phineas that it was night; there were no little pinpricks of light seeping through those curtains. He'd been out for hours. Well, that wasn't surprising. He knew from his studies that magic could heal people almost instantaneously in this Loop, but that it wasn't a total fix. That explained his exhaustion and complete lack of pain, but it didn't explain who did it. None of them had learned spells that advanced yet, and the Brownies didn't have that type of magic. Elena and Alex were hundreds if not thousands of miles away helping Alex's brother, and Iolanthe was dealing with a few minor crises before they became major. Strephon didn't have enough power, even if they'd gotten him here quickly enough to do anything. Daniel and Phyllis had no magic. It made no sense.

A sleepy sigh got his attention and he looked over to see that Ferb was also in his bed, sound asleep. Phineas frowned; his brother looked like he hadn't slept in a couple of days. There were deep shadows under his eyes, he was too pale, and his hair looked like he'd combed it with his fingers if anything. He hadn't looked that bad earlier, and Phineas began to wonder just how long he'd been out. A quick look told him that Isabella wasn't there, which made sense if it was as late as he thought. In a Loop like this, a girl wouldn't be allowed to sit in a boy's room overnight, no matter how badly he was hurt. A look back at Ferb had him debating whether or not to wake him, but Phineas knew he'd have been worried sick and would rather lose sleep than wait a moment longer than necessary. He struggled to raise an arm, noticing that it was getting easier to move, and poked Ferb's shoulder. Ferb's eyes opened immediately.

"You're awake. It's been a day and a half." Ferb, even barely awake, could still read Phineas' mind. "I think Alex must have put me in here; I was in the chair next to the bed."

"Plenty of room, bro; this makes a king bed look like minor nobility. What happened?"

"Sacharissa sent a revenant to attack us. The Godmothers are working on finding out how she knew about the secret passages. Eilyr showed up and took care of it though; purifying magic works well against the undead."

"Makes sense. How am I still alive?"

"When you fell, we ran down to check on you. It seems we almost knocked Daw down the stairs without noticing, and he guessed there was something wrong and sent for Iolanthe."

"Okay. Hope that didn't mess up her other projects."

"She says not. But there's no sign of Sacharissa, so we still have to be careful."

"Yeah, not planning on falling off any parapets again any time soon."

"Good." Ferb looked as grim as he sounded for a second, and Phineas grimaced in apology. It hadn't been fun for him, but it had to have been just as hard on them having to watch it. He put his hand on Ferb's shoulder.

"I'm okay, Ferb." He'd have said more, but a giant yawn prevented him. Ferb's answering yawn was almost as big. "Hey, Ferb, I know what we're going to do tonight."

"Sleep?"

"Sleep."

They settled down close enough that they could reach out and touch each other if they wanted to. Neither consciously thought about it; Phineas wanted to be able to show Ferb that he was still alive in case of nightmares, and Ferb wanted that assurance. But the worry wasn't enough to fight off the exhaustion, and before long both were sleeping soundly.

* * *

"Ferb did what."

Phineas' face had absolutely no expression. Isabella could see Ferb's eyes widen slightly, and he started to edge toward the door. Alex, who had already had a talk with Ferb on the subject, reached out and grabbed Ferb's collar without even looking. Iolanthe and Elena were pretending they hadn't seen, but Isabella knew better. Phineas obviously knew better too.

"Nice try, Ferb." Phineas got out of his chair to face his brother, starting to look annoyed. "You know what the Tradition's like and you just hand it an opportunity to mess with you? What were you thinking?"

"Phineas, the revenant she sent after Isabella was Dickon," Ferb said quietly. Phineas froze, color draining from his face as he realized what that meant. Isabelle felt another pang of guilt at that. It wasn't her fault that Sacharissa was an evil psycho, but she couldn't help but think that Dickon might still be alive if he hadn't tried to help her. "I could have thought things through more, but when I saw how far she was willing to go, I thought maybe we could fight Tradition with Tradition. There are any number of stories about brothers swearing to defend their brothers to the death or something less dramatic, and there are as many with happy endings as there are tragedies. And like we keep saying, if it goes wrong, the worst that happens to me is I end up in that Loop with that tiresome purple dinosaur. I thought it was worth the risk."

"..." Phineas sagged. "I guess, but Iolanthe's right, too—what if this lasts past this Loop? If you've sworn to protect both of us, does that mean we'll all three Loop together for the rest of the Loops? I love you, bro, but you know that would get annoying after a while. And... I don't want you to put yourself at that much risk."

"Well," Isabelle said, hoping her logic would work better on him than it had on herself, "he did specify that he was protecting us from Sacharissa, and he also said he'd do anything that wouldn't turn him Dark."

"Yeah, that should help," Phineas said. "If she isn't a Looper from somewhere else we didn't know about, then she might not even exist after this Loop ends. Or you might have created a nemesis for this Loop only. But the thing about not turning Dark was a good idea, I'll give you that."

"Thanks."

It looked like they'd averted a blow-up, which was good. Phineas didn't get mad very often, and when he did, he usually ended up regretting it, even when he'd been in the right. It was one of the things Isabella lo... really liked about him: he was basically a nice guy. Phineas sat again, Ferb sat next to him, and the summing-up continued. Eilyr, who was out searching the nearby woods for Sacharissa, had been delayed by a unicorn hunter. He'd had just enough sense to know that richly dressed maidens weren't likely to be sitting in the middle of a meadow for no reason, and so had stayed far enough away to remain unaffected by her. However, he hadn't been about to let some other unicorn get caught in that trap, so he'd done some hunting of his own before the hunter had decided that the girl had lied about her credentials and struck her, at which point, Eilyr could safely come to the rescue. It had not gone well for the hunter. Elena and Iolanthe had been very busy over the past few days, between Isabella's situation and Alex's brother's, so there was quite a bit to tell.

"—be starting an Order of Champions on Glass Mountain just as in baseline, because it's still a good idea," Elena said. "And no sooner did we get that settled than we got Iolanthe's rather frantic message. We got on Nightsong—Alex's horse, one of the Sons of the East Wind—and came straight here. Almandin beat us here, naturally, and has been searching the area ever since. I do hope he doesn't eat her if he finds her; I'm told he did that once a long time ago."

"Oh, he did," Iolanthe said calmly. "And while it's not a good idea for a Dragon of the Light to go around eating people, there are exceptions to every rule and some people just need to be devoured by dragons. Almandin is an exceptionally good-natured Dragon, but he does have his limits, and that man was truly appalling. I'll not go into detail, my dears, but compared to him, Sacharissa simply isn't in it."

Even the cat bristled at that idea, and Isabella filed under Things She Never Wanted to Know. Elena cleared her throat.

"Well, now that we've got that settled... Randolph talks to other Mirror Servants as a matter of course, and he told me something interesting. Apparently Sacharissa had her own Mirror Slave. The poor thing was bound to stay in his mirror unless she gave him permission to leave, so he got to see something very interesting. The woman is both a Dark Sorceress and a Necromancer, as we feared. She used the deer heart in a ritual, and because it wasn't what she thought it was, the ritual went wrong. Unfortunately, the way in which it went wrong caused something like an explosion of magic, which, well, it didn't exactly blind her Mirror Slave, but that's the closest description I can find to describe it."

"Like having a firework go off right in front of your face," Alex said.

"Yes, like that. So he wasn't able to see exactly what had happened. But he knows she was changed somehow, and that it may have driven her mad. Before he could see clearly, he heard her start laughing, and the first thing she did after that was smash his mirror. That's a dangerous thing to do to a Mirror Slave or Servant. He was lucky to survive. Still, by smashing his mirror, she released him, and he used his remaining strength to find someone to warn. He'll be a long time recovering, I'm afraid. And there's worse news: Isabella, your father's house burned that night, and it was assumed that Sacharissa died with her servants Your father's servants left after you did, so there weren't many left, but there were still people there and she murdered them all. And Lord Reginald, the poet who owned this castle, was found mysteriously dead in Savoy Park two days ago. Iolanthe went to check when she heard, and there were unmistakable signs of Dark Magic."

"Then she killed him too," Isabella shivered. She reminded herself again that this wasn't her fault, but she knew this Loop was going to be figuring in her nightmares for a while. "And I bet before she did, she somehow got all his memories about this place."

"Like secret passages," Ferb nodded.

"Okay, then, we'll just have to learn them all ourselves," Phineas said. "There might be a map of this place somewhere in the Library, and if there isn't, we'll make one. We know where two entrances are, anyway. Well, I know what we're going to do tomorrow. And probably the rest of the month."

"We'll all help," Noll, startling them as he set down a tray full of tea things. "We know some of them, but we've always suspected there were some we hadn't found."

"Hey, thanks, that'll make things easier. And faster. Uh, would it be bad if I put off my magic studies until we're sure of every last inch of this place?" Phineas looked a bit uncertain, but both Elena and Iolanthe shook their heads.

"My dear, under the circumstances, it is completely understandable," the Fae told him. "I would recommend reviewing for a while every day in order not to lose what you've gained, but that can be done when you need a break. Isabella, I'm afraid we won't be allowing you much privacy until this is done, and you won't be allowed in the passages."

"No, of course not," Isabella sighed. She understood, but... "No sense in basically gift-wrapping myself for her. But I still want to help; I can at least look for clues inside, and I can do that with somebody."

"I was thinking you could draw up the big map from all the little ones we'd be making," Phineas said. "You and Ferb could work on that when it's his turn to be bodyguard."

"And I'll be adding a new set of lessons," Alex said with an expression that did not allow for argument. "I'll be teaching you how to defend yourself."

Phineas and Ferb both looked like they were suddenly wishing they weren't so close to Alex, and when Isabella smiled sweetly, they shifted slightly away from the man. After the attack, she'd insisted on adapting her wardrobe to include a sash just like her Fireside Girls sash. In a flash, it was in her hands and she was using it as a whip to snuff the candles on the table without knocking them over. Then she adjusted her angle to snare one of the smoking candles and haul it in front of her. She looked at Alex again, and her smile grew at his gobsmacked expression. Iolanthe looked a bit surprised, and Elena was trying not to giggle.

"...Well." Alex shook his head sharply. "All right then. But how are you at hand-to-hand? Or archery?"

"I'm good at both," she said, understating matters a little. "If it's just about physical strength, yeah, I know I'm in trouble, but I know how to use what I've got."

"I've seen her fight," Phineas said. "Believe me, you do not want to mess with her. She can turn anything into a weapon, even her own cuteness."

"Why do I have a feeling there's a story behind that?" Alex asked.

"Well, when we've got some time, remind me to tell you about our friend Meap..."

* * *

8.9 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms] / [My Little Pony]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 9**

The mapping went smoothly, with no interruptions. With no sign of Sacharissa anywhere, they began to relax a little and return to their old schedule, with a few additions. Alex insisted on teaching all of them combat skills, or at least on making sure that what they knew would work in this Loop. Elena and Iolanthe would show up with books on Traditions that they thought might pop up. And then there were their own projects which cropped up at random, because even though they were in a mostly medieval setting, they were still Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella and they couldn't resist trying to make life easier and more interesting at the same time. They'd grown out of needing to do it daily, but it was rare for them to go more than a month without congregating in the courtyard (or the great hall if it was raining) and having a good build session. Most of them were just for fun, but a few were quite useful; Alex snagged a copy of the blueprints for their redesigned castle and intended to use them for his Order's chapter house in future Loops.

Their studies, to absolutely nobody's surprise, went well. Isabella found Godmother training to be not that different from what she considered being a proper Fireside Girl, but with magic added to the mix. Phineas treated his Wizard studies the same as any other subject, and he and Ferb frequently went into research frenzies in order to track down the rationale behind some of the rules. Ferb was the one who had the most difficulty, but he had expected that. His skills were a little rusty, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that certain smithing tasks couldn't be done without the proper tools, and either he didn't have them or they were designed for someone considerably larger. The first was an easy fix; he just made a list and gave it to Col. The second... he made a list of those as well and handed it to Col. Given time, he'd grow into them, but he didn't want to wait years to get his skills up to par.

On occasion, Ferb found himself feeling the beginnings of jealousy towards Phineas and Isabella; a little voice whining that they got magic so why didn't he? He always smacked it down as soon as he realized he was thinking it, knowing it was either him being a whiny little brat or the Tradition trying to turn him into the False Brother or some such nonsense. Either way, it was unacceptable. He wasn't going to say he'd never turn on Phineas, because that was just asking for trouble, but it wasn't going to be over something as stupid as that. A different little voice sometimes reminded him that he had actually turned on Phineas once and even tried to kill him, but he answered that by pointing out that being hit with a ray specifically designed to turn people evil was a bit of a mitigating circumstance.

It helped that Phineas and Isabella were also aware of the many ways the Tradition could mess with them and made a point of not letting it. They considered his smithing to be as important as learning magic, and more useful on a day-to-day basis. It was true that every so often one of them would get wrapped up in something and start ignoring the others, but when that happened, the others would give that person a day or two before hauling them out for some forced socialization. Or possibly getting involved in whatever had that one so preoccupied. On one occasion, it had been the Brownies who had hauled all three of them out of the forge because they'd gotten so into creating barding for a unicorn that they'd forgotten to eat all day. That one had been Ferb's fault; he'd wanted Eilyr to have some extra protection.

Eilyr was still around, and probably would be for the whole Loop, since he had also declared himself Isabella's protector. He still became a skitterwit when Isabella was around, but Elena swore he was better than most, and when Isabella wasn't around he turned out to be a good if somewhat pretentious conversationalist. He also had become so accustomed to the boys that he would protect them as well, as they discovered when they got treed by a wild boar while out in the woods. That was the incident that had driven Ferb to designing the barding; Eilyr had not come out of that without injury. They'd enjoyed the roast pork a bit more than usual afterwards.

Four years passed in relative peace and quiet. A Knight came sniffing around once, but left quite graciously after a brief chat; the fact that his hoped-for bride was only 14 and neither a princess nor wealthy might have had something to do with that. A Dark Wizard-wannabe came to challenge Phineas and left a little less graciously after Almandin smiled at him while telling him that Phineas was only there until he could be properly apprenticed to another Wizard, and would he mind waiting a few years, there's a good chap. Ferb noted at the time that a Dragon's smile was remarkably effective, depending on the results you wanted. Nobody came for or challenged Ferb, which was just the way he liked it; there were certain benefits to being a "mere" smith-in-training.

They made occasional visits to Sir Lawrence and Dame Linda, but their parents understood why they spent most of their time away from home. It wasn't quite as good as having them Awake and ready to help, but it was something. Luckily, the Loop had given them a little brother with no signs of magic at all, which meant that they could convince their parents to make him their heir, freeing them up to do what they needed to do.

They mostly enjoyed themselves. Running around a Dragon's Castle and studying all sorts of interesting things was never a bad way to spend a Loop, and they made the most of their chance. The only real shadow was that Sacharissa was never found, and the Tradition was determined to keep Isabella a Snowskin; because of that, Isabella couldn't leave the castle's grounds. It would have been worse if the grounds hadn't covered a few acres, but it was still annoying at times. The Tradition was crowding around her, though, making her an irresistible target, and none of the Danvillians were up to taking on any competent Dark magician yet without using items from their Pockets. That wasn't something they were willing to do until they were a bit more prepared to experiment on how that would work with the Tradition, which they had decided to hold off doing until they were officially Godmother, Wizard, and Dragonsmith.

Isabella's sixteenth birthday was only days away when Ferb noticed she'd become very quiet. Phineas was visiting Godmother Aleksia to help her deal with her latest idiot genius, but Ferb knew that wasn't it. He let her have her space for the first day and through his morning routine, but when she didn't show for lunch, he went looking for her. He found her sitting in one of the formal gardens, a blissed-out Eilyr's head in her lap.

He stopped for a few seconds and looked at her with a critical eye. They'd learned that her age had shielded her from Sacharissa's attempts at using her Mirror Slave to find her those first few times; the Mirror Slave had been given too broad a description, and had deliberately weaseled around the definition of "fairest of them all." He'd pointed his mistress at various icy blondes until she caught on, then chose to use the term "maiden" to describe someone of marriageable age, which Isabella was not. But she was now, by this land's standards. Oh, most girls married older, but it wasn't unheard of for them to wed at fifteen, and nobody would even blink. Different times and cultures and all that. And Ferb knew from his studies that one of the crucial Traditional times was someone's sixteenth birthday. That probably explained Isabella's silence, but he wanted to be sure.

He was just glad that they'd confirmed that wherever Sacharissa was, she hadn't acquired another Mirror Slave. They'd all grown over the years, and Isabella had gone from a pretty child to a beautiful young woman, and Iolanthe had confirmed with her own Mirror Servant that at the moment she was actually the fairest in the land. Isabella had snarked that she was probably the first person in the history of the Multiverse who hoped for an acne attack. She didn't get one, of course; if nothing else, the Tradition wouldn't allow it. She was tall, willowy, graceful, blah blah blah. Raven hair rippling down her back, ivory skin that never seemed to tan any more, deep blue eyes, and red lips that despite everything managed to smile more often than not. He'd fancied her at one point, before the Loops started, but it had never been anything serious and when he'd realized the depth of her feelings for Phineas he simply stopped considering her as a possible future date. Meeting Vanessa Doofenshmirtz had helped with that, but he'd already made up his mind before then.

The annoying voice he'd come to recognize as the Tradition trying to mess with him piped up as he watched, telling him that with Phineas still oblivious, he might have a chance if he played his cards right. He mentally told the Tradition to shut its gob and headed toward her. Eilyr's eyes snapped open, but closed again when he recognized Ferb.

"Hey, Ferb," Isabella said quietly. "Sorry I've been a little mopey lately. I just want this birthday over with so we can get on with our lives."

"Well, who could blame you? Don't take this wrong, but I'm hoping Sacharissa doesn't decide to wait until you're eighteen."

"I will wait as long as necessary to face the foul Sorceress," Eilyr said. "But it would be better for Isabella to have her dealt with with alacrity."

"Yeah. Oh, I've decided on my Godmother identity finally; I'm going to be the Snapdragon Fairy. I figured if I'm going to stay living with Almandin—which I am even if we do take care of my Stepmother—I should go for something dragonish."

"Makes sense." They'd all grown quite fond of the Dragon, and were working on ways to tweak the Tradition so they could all live with him. "Phineas will be home in time; he promised. Pinkie Promised, even."

Isabella giggled at that, remembering the look on Elena's face when he'd done so and again when he'd explained.

"The best part was when he said The Line, and Pinkie popped her head out of the fireplace to say 'FOREVER'. How does she do that?"

"That is one question I'm not sure I want answered," Ferb said. "I'm not sure even the Admins know how she does what she does. Just think of her as a less creepy Giant Floating Baby Head. No, on second thought, don't."

"Thanks, Ferb," Isabella deadpanned. "I'm blaming you for tonight's nightmares."

"Fair enough."

"Maiden, what is this Pinkie Promise? Is it an unbreakable vow? Is The Line part of the ritual? Would taking this vow aid in protecting you?"

Isabella looked at Ferb. Ferb looked at Isabella.

"You explain," they chorused, pointing at each other.

* * *

Whether it was the Pinkie Promise or not, Phineas was back in the castle the morning of Isabella's birthday. He didn't know how Godmother Aleksia did it; he was a pretty easy-going guy, but that jerk Hans could make a Quaker dope-slap him. He couldn't understand guys like that; what was the point of coming up with a cool new invention if you couldn't work on it with your friends? On the plus side, that Mage-Smith who'd been visiting was pretty cool, and had agreed to come visit them and work with Ferb for a while.

He still felt a little bad that Ferb hadn't been able to do the heavy-duty magic along with them this Loop, but not as often as he used to. After all, Ferb didn't care, so why should he? Besides, smithing was just as cool as Wizarding as far as Phineas was concerned. And it sure beat being in Isabella's position. He hadn't missed that she'd gotten quitter over the past few weeks, and he couldn't blame her. It had to be hard knowing that someone out there wanted to kill you just so they could get your magic, and that they were so determined that they'd kill anyone in their way. That kind of thing didn't happen in Danville, and knowing that there were places where it was a thing was one of the biggest downsides of the Loops.

After he'd poked his head in to say hello to Almandin, he headed toward the rose garden. It was one of Isabella's favorite places, and he hoped to set up her present there. He hoped she'd like it; he'd worked on it with Elena for a month.

"Hey, Phineas, what'cha doin'?"

"Oh, hi, Isabella, I—whoa." Whatever Phineas was going to say was driven completely out his mind as he looked at his friend. She was dressed in a crimson gown that clung gently to her figure, with her usual sash across her, um, well, her.... Phineas knew his face was as red as his hair as he tried not to follow the curve of the sash with his eyes. They weren't often in Loops together when they had a chance to grow up, but Isabella always liked to tease him like this when they were. He made a deliberate effort not to think about any reasons why, because no matter how old they got in other Loops, in baseline they were still less than fifteen. He didn't want to start anything they wouldn't be able to continue back home. "Uh, nice dress."

"Distracting, isn't it?" The change in voice warned him, but not in time. He tried not to breathe as the cloud of powder settles around him, but it didn't help; he felt himself freeze in place as the fake Isabella walked around him. "Typical male; show them a girl in a flattering gown and they stop thinking. So very useful to me, though, so I shouldn't complain. Now, here are your orders..."

He found himself a passenger in his own body, forced to watch as he headed for the herb garden. Isabella was there, not dressed up yet, but still beautiful. The force in control stopped and cleared his throat, giving Isabella a shy smile.

"Hey, Isabella, I got you something." Of course it was an apple. What else could it be? He tried to break free of Sacharissa's control, hoped that Isabella would be warned by the mere presence of the apple, but either Isabella was not paying as much attention as she should be or the Tradition was making her hold the Idiot Ball. She took it with a blush and an answering smile and bit into it. Seconds later, her eyes widened as the apple did its work. The horrified look in her eyes almost gave him the strength to break free, but not quite.

"Phineas? What did she-" and Isabella slumped to the ground. That was Sacharissa's cue, and she dropped her invisibility spell, laughing like the demented harpy she was. The Dark Sorceress scooped up her unconscious victim and disappeared again, leaving Phineas trapped until her spell wore off.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. He had just enough time to see cold blue eyes under a thatch of green hair before Ferb's punch knocked him sprawling. Even if he could have blocked it, he wouldn't have. He'd blown it again.

"Get up." Ferb hadn't sounded that cold when talking to him since the Darth Ferb thing, but this time there was no –inator to blame for it. Just him. "What the hell were you thinking? An apple? Today? What did you think was going to happen? If Isabella dies because you thought you'd be clever, I will never forgive you. I don't care if she'll be fine in her next Loop. Now _get up_ so we can start fixing your mess."

He tried, but the spell still wouldn't let him go. Ferb growled and hauled him up, looking like he was ready to punch him again, but instead just dragged him to the library and tossed him down in front of Almandin.

"Oh, I say, what's all this in aid of?"

"Sacharissa has Isabella, and this idiot is the one who let her do it."

" ** _WHAT?!?_** " Almandin surged to his feet and bent low over Phineas. He saw smoke curling out of the Dragon's nostrils and he knew he was going to die. Almandin took a deep breath, and Phineas wondered how much it was going to hurt.

* * *

8.10 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 10**

Ferb stepped forward, horrified. Okay, he was furious at his brother for doing something so thoughtless, but that didn't mean he wanted to see him get flamed or eaten by a Dragon. He only stopped when he realized that Almandin had done the same and was staring at Phineas, eyes narrowed.

"Hang about; that's not right," Almandin grumbled, leaning down to look closer. Phineas wasn't moving. Or talking. In fact, now that Ferb thought about it, Phineas hadn't done anything on his own since handing Isabella that apple. He wished he'd been close enough and at the right angle to have seen exactly what happened even if he couldn't stop it; all he knew for certain was that the second Isabella, the one in the red dress, had to be Sacharissa. Almandin raised his head again and roared for Col, who came running.

"Sent for the Godmothers already. Lad's got a spell on him, no doubt. Must have walked right into the Stepmother's trap, though how he managed without leaving the castle I'm sure I can't say. We took care of every way in we found, and there's no way she got in through any of them."

"Then she bloody well found a way we didn't know about, didn't she? Start searching all of the passages, even—no, _especially_ the ones we thought were too dangerous to use. Ferb, you go too. I'll deal with Phineas."

Ferb hesitated for a second, then left, hoping Phineas would still be alive later to be yelled at again. He must have left the castle at some point; there was no way Sacharissa could have gotten inside the castle without help and her magic wouldn't have worked on most of the people living there. How could he have been so stupid? And Isabella wouldn't have taken the apple from anyone but Phineas; it would never occur to her that Phineas would put her at risk. Well, not beyond what they faced in Danville, but despite what Candace seemed to think, they did take precautions when building their creations, and Phineas was as careful about that as Ferb. More, actually; Ferb had managed to get hurt a few times, but mostly because he'd been the one to flake on something. Like smacking himself in the head with a wrench, or sitting on a box with a lid that popped even though he'd been the one to build the thing. Phineas might act more scattered, but he usually had more sense than that. Had the Tradition blindsided him?

Ferb continued to think about it as he searched and the more he thought, the more that idea made sense. Even the Godmothers could get caught by the Tradition sometimes, and they were more used to it. It had become more and more obvious that the Tradition wanted Isabella to be a Snowskin; Isabella's sudden inability to maintain a tan over the last year was proof enough of that. And then there was her beauty, which had been growing exponentially. Isabella was pretty enough in baseline, but here she had become absolutely stunning; the fairest of them all, when you got down to it. If the Tradition could do that, how hard would it have been for it to make Phineas screw up so spectacularly? The Tradition, Ferb thought for the nth time, was a cheating bastard.

Something landed on his shoulder with a full load of claws and Ferb yelped. He was about to fight when a familiar voice hissed in his ear.

" _Stupid twolegs! Stupid lizard! Why won't you **listen**?_" It was the cat, and she was not happy. Ferb stopped, bracing himself so that she wouldn't slide off.

"Listen to what?"

" _The only one who saw what happened and tried to get stupid people's attention before Badwitch took Softhands. Lizard won't listen, Fae won't listen, you won't listen! Be better off with dogs!_ "

"I'm listening now. What happened?"

" _Longlegs went to the rose garden to set up a surprise for Softhands. Softhands came up behind him, but it wasn't really her. She smelled wrong, like blood and death. And deer, for some reason. Longlegs wasn't expecting her, and was surprised himself. Then false Softhands threw smelly powder on him and he couldn't move. She started giving orders and I went to get help but **NOBODY LISTENED!!!**_ " The cat's claws dug in as she screeched directly into his ear; he wasn't sure which was more likely to be bleeding afterwards. Then what she said filtered through.

"Wait—she was already in the castle when she got Phineas? How?"

" _How would I know? If she was a cat, that would be answer enough, but you lot do things no sensible cat would try and don't do the things that do make sense. Now are you going to tell Lizard before he eats Longlegs? I like Longlegs; he gives me tasty things._ "

"So do I."

" _Yes, but you're being stupid right now, and I don't like stupid._ "

"...I really wish I could argue that. Right, let's go." Ferb turned and headed back to the library feeling sick. He'd been angry with Phineas for screwing up, but he was beginning to suspect he'd done much worse, and without even having the Tradition for an excuse. He could hardly blame Phineas for being blindsided inside the castle, and not just on the grounds, but within the walls. Even now he had a hard time believing Sacharissa could have gotten in undetected, but the cat didn't lie. Which mean that he had just said some really awful things to Phineas for doing something he hadn't done or couldn't control. Knowing Phineas would forgive him just made it worse; he'd turned on his brother without even considering why Phineas would have acted that way.

He reached the library and entered without knocking, not surprised to find Iolanthe and Elena both standing over Phineas, who was still in the exact same position he'd landed in when Ferb had dropped him. Almandin watched them, still smoking more than usual.

"—still a ruddy idiot to leave the grounds. I told him nobody was to leave the walls today, and I meant it."

"He didn't." Ferb said, but they didn't seem to hear him.

"Believe me, I'll be talking to him about that," Elena said, a dangerous tone in her voice. "Even if the Tradition was getting after him, he should know enough by now to have figured out that's what it was. This is making me seriously wonder if we should allow him to continue training as a Wizard."

"Oh, my dear, it could be worse than that," Iolanthe sighed. "If he's lost us a promising young Godmother, we'll be lucky if my Queen stops at draining his magic. She may be merciful because of his youth, but considering she nearly executed me just for marrying Daniel-"

"No," Ferb gasped, staggering. The cat hissed, digging her claws in again, but still neither Dragon nor Godmothers noticed them.

"—I really wouldn't care to take a chance on that. Almandin, have you had any luck at gathering others to help us?"

"Devil a bit, when have I had time? Brownies are all out searching, Eilyr's half out of his what wits he had—had a job keeping him from skewering the young idiot on the spot, I tell you—and the few Wise Beasts we have are nowhere to be found."

" _They're out searching too, stupid Lizard,_ " the cat grumbled, also going unheard.

"Well, the important thing now is to get Isabella back. Sacharissa won't do anything until midnight, which gives us a few hours, but we have to find her." Elena shook her head.

"Well, there is one way that might work," Iolanthe mused. "He's under her spell, and we might be able to use that to track her. Use him as a compass."

"That's pretty dangerous," Elena said. "If he's still under her control when we find her, she could use him against us or just kill him."

"If she does the first, we'll stop him by whatever means necessary. If it's the second, well..." Iolanthe shrugged. "You know what the Fae consider justice. He might be better off if she does kill him."

" ** _No._** " This time they heard him and turned. Iolanthe frowned and started to open her mouth, but Ferb silenced her with a glare. "You are not using Phineas like that, and if your precious Queen wants him, she has to go through me. You lot aren't too fond of Cold Iron, are you? Care to see how well you do against a smith with I don't know how many Loops worth of experience? If she hurts him, I'll spend the rest of this Loop making her pay, and if she kills him, then you've just declared war."

"Weren't you ready to let me roast him less than an hour ago?" Almandin blinked.

"No. Besides, I was wrong. I should have trusted Phineas, and that's what will really put Isabella at risk. If I hadn't lost my temper, we'd be over an hour ahead of where we are now." Ferb took the cat off his shoulder and put her on the table. "Now tell them what you told me."

She did. After what he'd just heard, it was gratifying to see the Godmothers turn pale and Almandin look as horrified as Ferb felt. The cat wasn't too impressed with any of them at the moment and wasn't shy about letting them know it. There are few living things that can deflate an ego like an unimpressed cat, and that was when they couldn't speak the same language. By the time she was finished, all of them felt like the biggest idiots in the history of a very stupid people.

" _So are you going to take the spell off Longlegs or not?_ " the cat finished. Iolanthe was looking a bit shell-shocked; Ferb was willing to bet she'd never been dressed down by a cat before. Elena, on the other hand, twitched a little and raised her wand.

"Yes. I'm almost certain what spell she used, but give me a few more minutes to be sure. Iolanthe, you haven't told your Queen about this yet, have you? You did wait until you had all the information?"

"I didn't, but Fleta was visiting and while I told her not to go running off, you know what a gossip she is. She might be too distracted by Phyllis being expecting again, and I wouldn't put it past Phyllis to play that up; you know how fond she is of the boys."

"Go check, and if she's gone, go straight to your queen and make sure she hears what we just did. Cat—I do wish you'd let us give you a name-"

" _Why? I'd just ignore it. But I'll go with her. And if that Queen won't listen, I'll scratch her wings off._ "

"She doesn't have—oh, never mind. Come along, cat." Iolanthe hurried off, staying far enough ahead to keep the cat from jumping on her shoulders. Elena turned back to Phineas and studied him, then looked at Ferb.

"I need you to go to the stillroom and fetch me small bunches of pine, thyme, snowdrop, rue, white pinks, mugwort, and most especially coltsfoot. Oh, and sumac. Fresh is best, dried if necessary, and a tincture will do in a pinch, which this certainly is," she said. "I can only hope he's been unaware of what's going on, or he may never forgive us. And at the moment, I'm not sure he wouldn't be in the right."

Ferb ran. It didn't take him long to find what they needed; the stillroom shelves were meticulously organized. He swept the items into a basket and got back to the library as quickly as he could. Elena had set up a small silver brazier next to Phineas, and Almandin was just spitting out a tiny spark to light the coals underneath. She nodded at him and grabbed the basket without a word, getting straight to work. She muttered under her breath constantly, sometimes drawing in the air, sometimes on Phineas, which made Ferb twitch every time it happened. She only stopped to drop something into the brazier, and before long the library was more full of smoke than the small amount of fuel justified. It wasn't hard to tell when the spell ended, though; as soon as she dropped in the last bit of sumac, there was a soft whumph and the smoke suddenly cleared.

Phineas sagged, moaning softly. Ferb hesitated for a moment, wondering if Phineas would even want to see him, until he saw his brother shivering. Within seconds he was on the floor, holding Phineas, babbling apologies. Phineas didn't respond, and after a few minutes slumped even further. For one terrified heartbeat Ferb thought that breaking the spell had killed him before he realized Phineas had just passed out. He looked up at Elena, who he wasn't surprised to see had tears in her eyes.

"He was awake for all of it, wasn't he?" he asked, voice shaking. Elena just nodded. Ferb closed his own eyes, wincing. It was Almandin who summed up what they were all thinking.

"Well, bugger."

* * *

8.6-8.10: And the adventure continues.


	10. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eight (Part Three of Three) - Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-09-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eight (Part Three of Three)**

8.11 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 11**

At the moment, Elena rather wished she was the type to throw tantrums; it would be a great comfort to scream and throw breakable objects against a wall. Alex was busy fighting a Dragon who had started laying waste to the border of Acadia, and unlike the last time this had happened, the Dragon was doing it of his own volition. Calling in other Godmothers before they cleared Phineas was a Bad Idea, and it would have to be Iolanthe who did that anyway. Phineas was out of commission, and Ferb wasn't in much better shape. Which meant it was going to be up to her, Almandin, and Eilyr to rescue Isabella, if they could even find her in time.

She could feel the Tradition at work, which only added to her stress. Falsely Accused for certain, although she doubted they'd have to worry about one of the usual outcomes of that; the boys' culture didn't place honor (which in this case really meant reputation) over one's life, so suicide to restore one's honor was unlikely. Brother Against Brother, yes and no; Ferb had come around more quickly than most, and was actively working to atone for his lack of trust. There were others at work as well, but there was too much that needed doing to count them.

She was about to make a quick dash back to her own cottage to grab a few supplies when to her surprise Phineas moaned again; he was waking up. She knelt by him and Ferb, watching closely. Phineas' eyes fluttered open, and she could see the exact moment he remembered how he got there. He pushed away from Ferb and struggled to his feet, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"How long has it been?" he asked, voice rough.

"Almost two hours. Do you know how Sacharissa got in?" Elena asked in turn.

"No. How soon are we leaving to get Isabella back."

"Er, we rather need to find her first," Almandin said. Phineas just shook his head and took a device out of his pocket.

"Done. She's still got her phone; whatever else Sacharissa's done, she didn't search her for anything. And the readings say she's asleep, which I guess is close enough; they're not really designed for assessing the effects of magic. Have to fix that next time we're in a Loop with a high enough tech level." His voice had gotten stronger, but was still oddly flat; if Elena were to hazard a guess, she would say he was in shock. She was debating the wisdom of casting a sleep spell on him to keep him out of the upcoming battle when Col rushed back in.

"The daft old cow came in through the old cavern that you can reach through the well by the rose garden. We never thought to guard that one because of all the sinkholes—there's one in there no human could jump across and it fills the cavern from side to side, so she couldn't have walked around it either. And there's neither rope nor ladder in the well, so how she got up is anyone's guess."

"Free-climbing," Phineas said. "Ferb and I could do it. So could Isabella. But that's not how she left."

"No, she used a spell for that; it's how we knew something was up. You ready for a fight like this, lad? Control spells can take it out of a body."

"Isabella's in trouble." It was all the answer that was needed. Col nodded and walked off, with a purpose clearly in mind that he wasn't bothering to share. Almandin sighed, blowing all the papers and most of the books off the tables.

"Phineas, once this is over I promise you a ruddy great apology, but for the moment, I rather wish you'd sit this one out. Despite my recent bone-headedness, I do trust you, but you can barely stand right now. I'd rather grovel in front of you, not your grave. And if you get yourself killed, I'll see to it you have the most embarrassingly heroic grave this country had ever seen, and that's going some."

Phineas made a sound that might have been a quiet laugh; Elena hoped it was. Phineas was running on sheer determination, she knew. But she also knew if she didn't bespell him, he wouldn't let go until either Isabella was safe or he was dead. She was strongly tempted to do it, and at the same time she couldn't help but feel he should have the chance to fight Sacharissa. Twice now he'd been taken down without a chance to strike back, and she honestly couldn't blame him for either one. It was almost as though Fate had decided to go out of its way to make his life difficult, perhaps because he was both gifted and genuinely nice and it felt it had to balance the scales somehow.

"Good, you're still here." Everyone looked up to see Strephon striding in, face grim. "Mother sent me; the Queen's on a tear. She's planning on amassing an army to retrieve Isabella's body—she won't even bother checking to see if she's still alive—and then she's coming here to insist Almandin hand Phineas over. Fleta got to her first, and all the Queen heard is that a Godmother's Apprentice has fallen into the hands of a Necromancer. Oh, she'll regret any hasty actions later, but that's not much consolation when you're the one she's been hasty at. Mother's staying on to try to talk her down; she's usually the only one who can when she's in a mood. Oh, and she has learned one thing: Sacharissa's allied herself with a group of rogue dwarfs. Guess how many."

"Then we have to move quickly," Elena said. "Phineas, do you have a plan? Mine is mostly go in, I fight a magical duel with Sacharissa, and you free Isabella, but the dwarfs could make that considerably more difficult."

"I've got a plan. We'll use Ferb's and my phones to track Isabella, and I was kinda hoping you'd take Sacharissa 'cause I know I'm not up to it. And the dwarfs? If they're armored, Ferb and I are ready for that, and if they aren't, well, Ferb and I can handle them if Almandin doesn't beat us to it. I don't mind if you do, since I'm going to focus on getting to Isabella."

"And I shall ensure that you do not have a second chance to betray her," Eilyr said, striding in. "Why is the knave still alive?"

"Eilyr, shut it," Ferb said.

"Why do you defend him? The maiden was-"

"I. Said. Shut. Up." Ferb gave Eilyr a glare almost as impressive as Almandin's. The unicorn opened his mouth for a second before closing it with an audible snap. "Right. We haven't much time. I need to get a few things from the forge. Don't leave without me."

"And I need a few minutes myself, but I shouldn't be too long," Elena said. "Less than half an hour. Then we must leave if we want to rescue Isabella before the Queen gets her killed."

She and Ferb left together, Ferb heading for his forge, Elena for the mirror she used to travel. Ten minutes to change into an outfit the Tradition would recognize as a Godmother, which was essential if she wanted a chance against a known Necromancer; ten to warn various allies of what was about to happen; five to grab the wand she favored for battles along with the kit she kept ready for when that wand was needed. By the time she returned, the others had done the same. A Wizard-in-training, a smith, a unicorn, a Dragon, and a Godmother. Well, if anything was going to invoke the Unlikely Allies Traditional Path, this certainly ought to. She hoped it would; they were going to need all the help they could get.

* * *

Phineas had felt slightly detached from everything from the moment he awoke, and it didn't seem as though that was going to change any time soon. He supposed he should be worried about it, but he wasn't. If nothing else, it was keeping Eilyr's open contempt from hurting as much as it should.

Strephon had headed back as soon as he'd warned them, in order to give his mother plausible deniability. It was just as well; he was a good friend, but he wasn't a fighter, and if he came along he'd probably get himself killed. That would be bad on many levels. He had given them one bit of good news, though: Daniel was checking his own library for anything that could help. Since Daniel was the one who'd figured out a way to allow Fae and mortals to wed in this Queen's jurisdiction, Phineas had actually felt a small twinge of hope.

Col had returned with Phineas' staff and an outfit that he insisted was just the thing for a Wizard battling Dark forces. It was a little Ben Kenobi-ish, but if it helped Phineas wasn't going to complain. Ferb had produced leather and iron bracers for their forearms; he'd had them ready in case they ran into some of the hostile Fae, like the cabyll-ushtey that had tried to set up shop in the ornamental pond. Almandin had dealt with that one, and Phineas still wished he hadn't been told that it tasted like soggy burnt goat.

Ferb wasn't meeting his eyes, and that did hurt. He was almost sure it was because Ferb felt bad about punching him and not trusting him, but a small part of him was afraid that Ferb still hated him for letting this happen. He could hardly blame Ferb if that was the case; he knew perfectly well that he was going to spend the rest of this Loop and probably beyond hating himself for it.

He was angry that none of them had wondered how Sacharissa got to him, and that they had all assumed that he'd left the castle walls against orders. Iolanthe at least had pointed out that it could have been a bout of Tradition-induced stupidity, which he had to admit wasn't impossible, but everyone else seemed to think he'd done to show off or something. Even Ferb. And Eilyr now believed that he'd been Sacharissa's spy all along. How could they think he'd have put Isabella at risk like that? And if the cat hadn't seen everything, what would they have done with him? How could he trust any of them not to turn on him again?

He was distracted from this line of thought by Elena's return. She had also changed her outfit, and was more intimidating looking than a blue-eyed blonde in a pink dress had any right to be. With her arrival, everyone was there who was going to take part in the rescue, and they had no time to waste. If Iolanthe's Queen struck first, there would be no chance of rescuing Isabella; they had to leave immediately.

"Okay, so Godmother Elena tackles Sacharissa and the rest of us take on the dwarfs," Phineas said. "They might not be her only allies, though, so don't drop your guard. Isabella won't be happy if we get ourselves killed, and if we get ourselves killed 'cause we weren't paying attention near a Necromancer, well, don't think being dead will save you from her. Our friend Baljeet learned that the hard way. But Isabella's safety is the most important thing."

Zorah bustled in just then, holding something in her hands. As she drew nearer, Phineas recognized the items: Isabella's favorite wand, and her unicorn-hair necklace. He looked at the silver clasp Ferb had made for it, but it didn't look broken, so why hadn't she been wearing it?

"The poor dear will be wanting these," Zorah said. "Now don't you bother her about forgetting to put her necklace back on after she washed her hair last night, either; I dare say she'll have enough on her mind. I blame that Tradition, if you ask me."

"I can't think of a better reason," Ferb agreed. "She's not taken that off for more than a few minutes since I first made that clasp. Since the first day, the Tradition has been railroading—sorry, term from our world—it's been determined Isabella would be on that Path no matter what we did, and it certainly hasn't been shy about cheating to make sure. So I say we do some cheating ourselves."

He reached into his pocket and drew out a silver cylinder. Phineas almost smiled when he recognized his brother's lightsaber; he'd planned on using the phaser he'd snagged during that stint on DS9. It had been a depressing Loop, but the tech was pretty sweet. And non-lethal, which was still important to him. Nobody could Loop forever without eventually winding up in a situation where killing someone just couldn't be avoided, but he still wouldn't if there was any alternative. He planned to stun the rogue dwarfs and turn them over to their people, and Ferb mostly agreed. Granted, it wouldn't be doing the rogue dwarfs any favors, from what he'd heard of Dwarvish justice, but sometimes a shaky rationalization was all you had.

He took both wand and necklace from Zorah, and a small part of him felt mean-spiritedly satisfied at the look of shock on Eilyr's face as he did. Hopefully it would get the unicorn thinking clearly; after all, he'd been the one to tell them that it was supposed to ward off evil. One way or another, he would get these to Isabella so she could help rescue herself. Isabella just didn't do Distressed Damsel with any amount of patience, and he couldn't blame her. There were few things more frustrating than being useless, and fewer more horrifying than being helpless, as his impending nightmares were going to be reminding him.

"Thanks, Zorah. I'll make sure there are in her hands as soon as possible. Okay, now, judging by the tracker, she's about three hours' walk from here, in that stone circle—yeah, we probably should have seen that coming. Eilyr, Almandin can't carry you, but-"

"I'll go with Eilyr," Elena said. "My All Paths Are One spell should get us there as quickly as you can fly. Quicker, actually, but I don't want to warn her by using a spell that close. You three go your way, we'll go ours, and we can get her in a two-pronged attack. That should take her by surprise."

"Good." Phineas nodded, then froze as he saw what his screen read. "Isabella's awake. We gotta go _now._ Be careful, you two."

"You be careful too, Phineas. I agree with Almandin; I'd rather apologize to your face than your grave."

Godmother and unicorn left quickly, and Phineas could feel the magic building before she got out of range. Almandin headed for the courtyard, Phineas and Ferb behind him.

"Well, here's a how-de-do! Fight off the Necromancer's forces to rescue my Maiden, then fight off the Fairy Queen's forces to rescue my Wizard. Heigh-ho, but it's a wonder I don't start shedding scales from all this."

Almandin complained all the way out to the courtyard, which was a relief; if the Dragon had been really worried, he'd have been quiet. And... he'd called Phineas _his_ Wizard. It didn't lay all doubts to rest, but it did help. A lot. He just wish he could be as sure of Ferb's forgiveness. But they were in the courtyard, and Almandin crouched down to make it easier for them to climb onto his back. Phineas went first and reached down a hand for Ferb.

"Well, Ferb, I know what we're going to do today."

For the first time since he'd been hit by Sacharissa's spell, Ferb met his gaze squarely. Phineas saw shame, even grief, in his brother's eyes, but they disappeared behind firm resolve.

"Yes. Yes, you do."

And Ferb grasped Phineas' hand and let himself get hauled onto Almandin's back. The Dragon leapt into the air, and the rescue was on.

* * *

8.12 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 12**

Isabella awoke and immediately wished she hadn't. A semi-washed face with the nastiest teeth she'd ever seen was bending over her, and she couldn't get away from it. Something, probably a spell, kept her frozen. It was just as well, because if she could move she'd kick herself for forgetting her necklace; if she'd been wearing it, that apple would have had no effect and she'd have had a little chance to fight off Sacharissa, maybe even keep her busy long enough for Almandin to get there. She might even have been able to beat her, if she'd used the right combination of Godmother magic and Loop experience. She also might have been able to help Phineas.

Despite the whole deranged-Necromancer-wants-to-kill-her thing, it was Phineas she was most worried about. That evil witch—as it were—had done something to him. She'd been too lost in PhineasLand to notice his glassy eyes at first, or how still he was after giving her the apple, but she had noticed after a while. It would have been nice if she'd noticed before biting into the apple, but whatever. What mattered now was finding a way to break the spell on her, escape, break whatever spell was on Phineas, and then deal with Sacharissa. Anything else could wait, including the seriously sketchy dwarfs muttering around the clearing Their usual rule was to stick to in-Loop skills and powers unless there was an emergency; she'd be willing to bet this qualified. All bets were now officially off... once she was able to move again.

"So, the precious Snowskin is awake," Sacharissa purred. Isabella found she had just enough control to be able to roll her eyes. "You've led me a merry dance, but you'll not escape me now, and that gawky Wizard of yours is no doubt getting the blame for allowing me to take you as we speak. That will distract them long enough for me to perform the ritual properly this time. I'm surprised you all made it so easy for me; did you really think a few sinkholes constituted a barrier to one with my power? Or the lack of a ladder in the well? The hardest part was in creating a disguise that would fool people for just long enough; a few seconds was all I needed to get your swain under my control, after all."

Definitely just as well she couldn't move at the moment, because she was very tempted to use some of the ruder gestures she'd learned from Spike that time she replaced Cordelia in Sunnydale. She could see Sacharissa, still in the trampy red dress she'd worn earlier. (Okay, so it was a copy of one of her good dresses; since Sacharissa was wearing it, it was trampy.) Yeah, no doubt Phineas hadn't noticed anything wrong in time.

"I must say, it was good of the Tradition to provide me with seven dwarfs to keep guard over you until it's time to play your part. Saves me creating any more servants; that fool of a huntsman cost me a great deal of energy. If I'd known you had a unicorn... well, that silvery sycophant can't help you now, can he? Now shall I tell you what's in store for you? I'm afraid it won't be very pleasant. You see, for this ritual, I need your blood as well as your heart, and I need them while they are still fresh. That should break my curse and remake me in your image, and then I can return and lay claim to your inheritance as well as all your power. It's only the beginning of my plan, of course, but I'm sure you don't need to know how I will use your face and form to ensnare the Crown Prince and eventually take over the kingdom. I will be supremely powerful, and all shall worship my beauty even as they tremble at my wrath!"

She'd either forgotten how much of a drama queen her Stepmother was or the woman had gotten a lot worse over the years. It was hard to be properly afraid for one's life and soul when the person threatening her sounded even more ridiculous than Doofenshmirtz. She wished she could ask if the woman planned to take over the entire Tri-Kingdom area, but it would have gone over Sacharissa's head anyway.

"Now, you lot, take her and chain her to that flat stone there and be quick about it. Take any liberties and I'll skin you alive."

Isabella suspected that wasn't an empty threat. Sacharissa was a melodramatic psycho with delusions of grandeur, but she was also a vicious crazy; what had happened to Dickon was proof of that. The dwarfs hauled her to the stone and chained her in place, which is when the spell freezing her wore off.

"Nice Traditional villain rant," she said. "I don't think you missed a single cliché."

"Insolent child! How dare you mock me?"

"I stand corrected. Or lie. Lay? Whatever."

"I will enjoy carving your still-beating heart out of your chest and devouring it as you watch, little fool."

"Okay, one: ew. And two, another line like that and I'll have filled my Evil Overlord Quote card. One more and I win."

"I think not. You have lost everything, and I stand triumphant as is my destiny!"

"That's Bingo!" And Phineas literally dropped out of the sky to stand between Isabella and Sacharissa. Isabella suddenly realized she'd been hearing the sound of great wings but not noticing it over Sacharissa's blather; they must not be too far from the castle. "Let Isabella go and we'll make it as painless as possible."

"Why aren't you dead? They should have slain you on the spot when they found you there and the girl missing!"

"Uh, hello, good guys here? And magic types? You think they wouldn't notice a big honking spell on me?"

"Er, actually, we bloody well didn't... and you didn't want me to tell her that, did you. Sorry. Now would you be a good Necromancer and drop the illusion? I'd really rather not roast someone who looks like my Maiden; it's bad form, don't you know."

"You wouldn't dare," Sacharissa laughed. "We're too close together; you'd never be able to hit me without also risking your precious children."

"Besides, fighting her is my job," Elena said, appearing from behind one of the standing stones. Eilyr was beside her, looking like he had the day he'd faced the cabyll-ushtey and held it off until Almandin could take care of it. "I am Godmother Elena, and I challenge you. Face me in mystic combat or surrender. Or try to run and get eaten by Almandin; it's not Traditional, but I won't lose any sleep over it."

"You think you can defeat me? Very well. I shall add your power to the girl's and your Wizardling. Dwarfs, avoid the dragon, kill the green-haired oaf and the unicorn, but restrain the Wizard. All right, Godmother, fight me and perish."

Isabella couldn't see her Stepmother because Phineas was in the way, but she saw the bolt of sickly green light race towards Elena. It was deflected into a tree and the duel was on. Eilyr suddenly loomed over her, having shoved Phineas out of the way. It hadn't been accidental, either, and Isabella glared at the unicorn. He didn't seem to notice, focusing instead on trying to open the locks with his horn. Ferb was working on another lock, and Phineas was looking over his shoulder while sustaining a shield that the dwarfs were hammering on when they weren't dodging swipes from Almandin's claws.

"They're dwarf-forged, aren't they," he asked. Eilyr ignored him, continuing to attack the chains, but Ferb put his down and nodded. "Okay, then, we'll just convince them to unlock them."

"And if they do your bidding, that will be proof-"

"Eilyr." Ferb only said the one word, but the unicorn flinched and quieted down. Phineas looked a little annoyed, which wasn't a good sign.

"Hey, Almandin," Phineas called as loudly as he could. "You haven't eaten any of them yet, have you?"

"Not yet. Dodgy little buggers, in every sense of the word. Why?"

"One of them has the key for Isabella's chains. And whichever one does is going to come here and unlock them."

"Why would we do a damn fool thing like that?" a dwarf snarled. All expression drained from Phineas' face as he turned to face the one who spoke. The shield disappeared, Phineas raised a hand, and the mouthy dwarf found himself floating ten feet in the air. It wasn't magic, though; Phineas was using the Force.

"Next question?" Another dwarf tried to sneak up on Phineas, but before Isabella could warn him, the second dwarf joined the first. "Okay, see, that wasn't too bright. But I believe in second chances, so here's what I'll do: you unlock Isabella's chains and just walk away, and you get to live. It's a pretty sweet deal, considering what'll happen otherwise."

Yeah, she could have guessed that Phineas would be mad. She just hoped the dwarfs were smart enough not to make things worse. The two that were floating didn't seem to be, judging from their language, but the dirtiest of the lot stepped forward.

"We's all got 'em, an' I ain't dyin' for th' likes o' that one," he said. The other dwarfs tried to attack him, but he was too fast for them. As he approached them, Phineas kept one eye on the dwarfs and one eye on Isabella. Eilyr reluctantly stood to one side, as did Ferb, but not before Ferb made sure of him.

"Try anything clever and you'll wish we let the dragon eat you."

Again, not bluffing. The dwarf flinched and unlocked her as quickly as was humanly (dwarfly?) possible, then ran for his life. Phineas dropped his two dwarfs on top of the remaining four and turned to her. Reaching into his Pocket, he drew out her necklace and the wand she usually used. The wand he just handed over, but he stepped closer to her and very carefully placed the necklace around her neck, even managing the clasp without pulling her hair. Ignoring the sounds of combat behind them, he looked into her eyes worriedly.

"Um, are you okay? They didn't hurt you, did they? You know, other than the kidnapping and chaining you to a stone altar, I mean."

"I'm fine," she said, smiling. The smile faded as she noticed the large bruise on one cheek. She reached out and touched it lightly, eyes narrowed. "Who did that?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, it's... yeah, we should probably help the others. You know, just in case Sacharissa summons something nasty," Phineas stammered, drawing his phaser. Before Isabella could stop him, he ran towards the fight. Isabella rolled her eyes and followed. Some things never changed.

As Desperate Struggles For Freedom went, it wasn't very impressive. The dwarfs were nasty, brutish (and short), and might have posed a problem for normal people, but not for three experienced Loopers, a unicorn, and a Dragon. Not that the fight was without a few tense moments: Phineas learned that his phaser didn't affect theses dwarfs for some reason, Almandin misjudged an attack and nearly got Ferb, Isabella kicked a dwarf where it wouldn't do him any good and broke at least one toe. Luckily, magic worked where the phaser didn't, so the dwarf she was facing at the time found himself much smaller, furrier, and with an increased appetite for acorns. Knowing she'd just become a liability, Isabella braced herself against one of the standing stones and kept an eye on the fight, firing off spells if things looked dicey. She saw that Phineas and Ferb were mostly trying to immobilize their opponents as usual, but that Almandin and Eilyr weren't. Two dwarfs lay on the ground, struggling; one against invisible bonds, the other cocooned in misty thread. That one had to be Ferb's, since it was from the Loop he'd been in Hogwarts with her, Lucy van Pelt, and Shaggy Rogers, when Donna Noble had been DADA Professor; that had been a fun Loop. Another lay—okay, not looking there anymore, thank you very much, and a fourth was lying in a pool of blood with a hole in his chest. The last one faced off against Phineas, who just shook his head and used his Wizard's staff as a quarterstaff. That one went down quickly and Phineas tried to get back to Isabella, but Eilyr shoved him out of the way again.

"Maid Isabella, you are hurt! I will-"

"You will explain why you're being such a jerk to Phineas, when if you had half a brain you'd know that none of this was his fault. Sacharissa told me she used that cave to get into the castle and you can see she disguised herself as me, and she also told me she put a spell on him. It was a Traditional Villain Rant, so you know she was telling the truth. And more importantly than that, Phineas would never hurt me if he was given a choice in the matter, and you should know that. Now, if you'd lost your temper at him when it happened, that would be one thing, but it's been long enough now that you should be over it. Now, are you just sulking and refusing to admit you were wrong, or are you being a complete idiot?"

Eilyr wilted under Isabella's glare, and if it wasn't for the magic duel still going on not far from him, it would have been pretty funny to see. Isabella didn't let up, though; instead, she stood up straight, ignoring the pain in her foot, and gave him the Look that had once cowed the Weasley Twins and Peeves at the same time. Eilyr shrunk into himself even more, and his ears flattened against his head.

"I am sorry, Maid Isabella," he said in a small voice.

"I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

"...I am... sorry, Phineas." It wasn't as sincere as Isabella hoped, but it was something. For a few seconds, Phineas just looked at Eilyr, then he sighed and shook his head.

"Look, you were trying to protect Isabella, and I looked like a threat. Can we just agree to blame every stupid thing we've all done today on the Tradition and let it go? No, Ferb, that is NOT a song cue." Someday Isabella would find out how Phineas knew when Ferb was doing something behind his back; in this case, restoring a grand piano to his Pocket. Eilyr blinked at that, but since it wasn't close to the strangest thing he'd seen them do, he didn't react beyond that. He did look at Phineas for a good long while, even absent-mindedly dodging a stray spell as he thought.

"Very well. And the maiden is right; while I hate to admit it, we unicorns are not known for our wisdom, but I still should have known that you would not simply hand her over to a foul necromancer. I allowed my worry for my beloved maiden to over-rule my good sense. For that and all that I have said and done to you since, I am truly sorry."

Phineas looked like he was about to reply, but instead he whirled around and cast another shield. As expected, Sacharissa had started summoning; there was a horde of redcaps rushing at them, more than could be counted. Phineas, Ferb, and Eilyr placed themselves in front of her, and she set her back to the stone again. Broken toe or not, she had to be in this fight. Redcaps were evil little Fae, enjoying all the killing they did; she hoped Phineas didn't try to be merciful this time, because it would only hurt them in the long run.

That wasn't a worry, as it happened; the second the redcaps came in range, Phineas cast a fireball that incinerated at least half a dozen. Ferb did the same, and Almandin swooped down from the sky to carry off two bunches and drop them from altitude. He only did that once, because Sacharissa's second summons was a great pack of flying dog-like creatures and he faced them with a roar that could probably be heard three Loops away.

"What are those things?" Phineas asked, blasting another lot of redcaps.

"Gabriel Hounds," Eilyr said. "They steal souls."

"Yeah, that's not good."

"You think?"

Despite everything, Phineas snickered and Isabella had to giggle; after all these years, they had finally taught Eilyr how to snark. They didn't laugh for long, however, because the redcaps had enough of a numerical advantage that they could absorb their losses and continue to advance. Isabella was careful of where her spells went, and worried that she'd run out of power before they ran out of redcaps until she remembered some non-magical abilities she'd made a point of keeping from one Loop. Isabella used Moonblast. It was super-effective. Phineas let out a whoop and a devastating Razor Wind, then wondered loudly why he hadn't thought of it before. Ferb's Dragon Pulse also did a number on the redcaps, and before long it looked as though they weren't as badly over-matched as they thought.

The fight continued, frequently lit by the glow of Almandin's flame as he fought the Gabriel Hounds. A few of the redcaps got close enough that Eilyr, who had no distance-fighting capabilities, could get in on the action, and a couple even snuck around to try to get them from behind; they soon learned that Isabella was just as deadly a fighter as the rest. Redcap bodies piled up, and the numbers fell until there were just large groups attacking rather than a seemingly endless horde. Still, they were getting tired, and all of them were injured now. Ferb was bleeding from a gash on one arm. Eilyr's coat was streaked with blood, and some of it was his own. Phineas was limping almost as badly as Isabella. They'd probably be able to take the rest of the redcaps, but if Sacharissa summoned anything else, they were in trouble.

The redcaps finally got too close for long-range attacks; letting out a howl; they rushed forward as a group. Ferb's lightsaber was up and ready, and a heartbeat later, so was Phineas'. The reason for his delay became obvious as many of the redcaps tripped and were trampled by their own side: Grass Knot did have its uses. The lightsabers hummed and sang as they sliced into the redcaps; Eilyr bucked, reared, and trampled. Some got by, but Isabella was still able to fight and they didn't last long. She dispatched one last attacker with a blaster shot to the face, looked for the next, and discovered that there wasn't one. Phineas had swapped out his lightsaber for his staff and was leaning on it heavily, panting, while Eilyr and Ferb seemed to be holding each other up. Phineas looked over at her.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. You?"

"I'll live. Ferb? Eilyr?"

"I've had worse," they chorused, then laughed weakly. They checked on the captive dwarfs and weren't really surprised to find that the redcaps had killed them all, then regrouped closer to Isabella, everyone watching for the next bit of bad news. They also watched Elena and Sacharissa, who were showing no signs of slowing down. Elena looked like she was worse off, but Sacharissa was still maintaining her Isabella illusion, so they couldn't be sure of how badly she was doing. They wished they could help, but even if they had the strength, there had been a formal challenge, so butting in would be highly frowned on.

A final gout of flame overhead followed by a groundshaking thump told them that Almandin had landed. He poked his head around the stone with a weary sigh.

"Tiresome things, Gabriel Hounds. But did you know they taste like roast goose? Almost worth the hassle, what?"

"Dude, TMI," Phineas groaned. Almandin just chuckled. "You do that on purpose, don't you? Just to mess with us."

"Of course. Dragon's got to have some fun, after all. And the look on your face every time just makes it irresistible. Oh, now, what's all this?" They looked over at the battle and saw that Elena had used a spell that wasn't reacting well with Sacharissa's illusion. It was flickering, blurring around the edges, growing and shrinking, and finally it cut out entirely and everyone was left gaping at what they saw. Sacharissa was dressed in tattered deerskin, which was in really bad taste considering that she herself had somehow become closer to deer than human. She still stood upright and still had human hands, but her legs were deer legs and her face almost a deer's face. That her eyes were also still human just made matters worse. "Oh, dear—oooo, I just said that, didn't I? Frightfully sorry."

"You think you have won, don't you," Sacharissa hissed. "My power is gone, my forces destroyed, and an army of Fae are only minutes from here. But I have not yet lost—there is still my Traditional Final Curse!"

"Oh, no, you d—OH, COME ON!!!" Elena shook her suddenly recalcitrant wand and the others discovered that they couldn't do anything either. Isabella sighed again.

"This is going to be annoying, isn't it?" she asked.

"Pretty much, yeah," Phineas replied. "I'll find a way of breaking it, though."

"And someday I'll come back for a Variant where the Tradition is anthropomorphized and then I'm gonna kick it. Hard."

"I'll make you some special boots," Ferb said. Sacharissa just looked annoyed.

"Listen as I proclaim your doom, child! You will fall into a deep sleep until you are awakened in the Traditional manner, but for the rest of your life, the Tradition will never leave you alone! The Snowskin Path will end, but another will replace it, and when that ends another will come, then another, and then another, and nothing you can do will prevent a Tradition from meddling in your life! You will never be free!" She began the Traditional evil cackle, then plunged a knife into her own chest. Still laughing, she died.

"Well, that is annoying," Isabella said as she collapsed into darkness.

* * *

8.13 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 13**

All Elena wanted to do at this point was find the nearest safe bed, crawl into it, and sleep for a week. Her duel with Sacharissa had been exhausting; having to use a lot of her power to keep Sacharissa from summoning more monsters while simultaneously defending against the Sorceress' attacks and launching her own was not what she'd hoped to do when she arose that morning. Not that the duel had come as a complete surprise; it was Isabella's sixteenth birthday, after all, and they'd all been expecting something. But knowing that something was coming and actually having to deal with it when it came were not the same thing, and no matter how well one prepared, there was always something that popped up to complicate matters. And the greatest complication was due in a few minutes, if Sacharissa had been right. She probably was; it was the most inconvenient option and therefore the most likely.

She watched Phineas catch Isabella and ease her to the ground, holding her. Despite his quips, he was visibly shaken. Of course, part of that was reaction to the battle; despite his experiences, Phineas was still an idealist. He hated killing. He was practical enough to know it couldn't always be avoided, as innumerable redcaps would be able to swear to if they weren't heaps of ash, but he hated it. It was admirable, but it was also hard on him. Ferb and Isabella had more pragmatic outlooks, also trying to avoid killing but not feeling it a personal failure if it happened. Still, Phineas would recover, if he was given time.

Elena looked around the stone circle as she headed toward her protégés, making sure that they hadn't missed anything. They hadn't. The number of bodies strewn around was appalling; how on earth had Sacharissa managed to call so many? Granted, they were redcaps, so the answer was probably that they'd heard of a fight and jumped at the chance for some bloodshed. She'd never know for certain, and it wasn't really important, so she pushed the thought aside. Instead, she assessed the group. Almandin was tired but uninjured. Eilyr was almost healed already, but was exhausted. Ferb was in the same shape, which was a bit confusing until she noticed that the two were leaning against each other; Eilyr must have bled into Ferb's wounds and transferred the healing virtues to the young smith. It might even have been deliberate. Phineas looked battered but not substantially harmed, and as close to collapse as the rest. Isabella, even in a cursed sleep, looked the healthiest of anyone there. If they had to fight an army of Fae and the Queen, they were doomed.

"All right," she said wearily, "let's try to wake her before the Queen shows up. We don't need any more misunderstandings. Try True Love's Kiss; that usually works."

There was an awkward silence before Phineas blinked up at them, bewildered.

"Why are you all looking at me?"

Even Eilyr looked incredulous at that, and Almandin rolled his eyes. When they looked to him for an explanation, Ferb just shrugged. Elena was struggling to find a tactful way of pointing out that any idiot could see he loved Isabella, even if he was too dense to have noticed, when the day's bad timing popped up again.

"Unhand her, knave!"

And there was the army of Fae, coldly beautiful in glittering armor, the Queen at its head. The only part that wasn't Traditional was Iolanthe just behind the Queen, grimacing and shaking her head. Wonderful. If it had been the Queen who reigned over the Fae in Elena's region, it would have been a lot easier, but this Queen was known amongst the Fae for making hasty decisions and then having to find someone to clean up her messes. Elena frowned as a thought occurred to her; each mess had been a long-time problem for the Fae, and had been resolved permanently during the clean-up with results that would not have been accepted by most Fae if there hadn't been such urgency. Marriage with mortals, for example, and Fae involvement with mortal politics. Was it possible that the Queen did it deliberately?

She added that to her list of Things To Find Out LATER and joined the others in stepping in front of Phineas and Isabella, shielding them.

"I say, doing it a little brown, aren't you, Rhiannon? The lad's a bit thick-"

"HEY!!!"

"—but calling him a knave is a bit much." Almandin acted like he hadn't heard Phineas' indignant squawk. The Queen just gave him a cold glare, which failed to have an effect. Elena envied the Dragon his composure; even at full power she was no match for a true Fae Queen, and she knew it. "Now why don't we all relax and try to discuss this like rational beings before we do something we'll regret? I'd really rather not find out if you'd taste as much like candy floss as you look."

"Not helping, Almandin," Phineas groaned, and again Almandin ignored him. The Queen glared even harder in reply.

"Do you deny that it was by his doing that Our Godmother-Apprentice was taken by a foul Necromancer?"

"More of a Sorceress, really; she never did much with the dead after that unfortunate incident with the huntsman Dickon."

"Almandin..." Ferb sighed, facepalming.

"Do you deny that Our Godmother-Apprentice now lies dead at that woman's hand?"

"Er, well, yes, actually. You see-" Almandin was going to get them either killed or turned into something unspeakable, and when he did, Elena just hoped that she became something big enough to step on him properly.

"SILENCE!!!"

"Oh, I say; how rude."

"She's not dead."

"Tremble as We pronounce Our judge—wait, what? Of course she's dead. All that Traditional Power and overwhelming tragedy? What else could it be?" The Queen seemed to shrink slightly, her glamour diminishing as she tried to understand what Phineas had said.

"Well, Sacharissa did this whole Final Curse thing, and now we have to find either Isabella's True Love or a handsome prince." Phineas didn't sound too thrilled at either possibility, and Elena couldn't blame him. Well, not entirely. She'd thought it was just the Tradition that made otherwise clever people complete dunces at noticing the tender emotions, but maybe it was just human nature.

"Be that as it may, it still does not excuse your foul-"

"—falling victim to Sacharissa's enchantment while she was disguised as Isabella and walking around inside the supposedly safe Dragon's Castle," Ferb interrupted. He winced slightly as the Queen shifted her glare to him, but didn't back down. To Elena's surprise, Eilyr backed him up.

"It is true, Great Queen," the unicorn said, bowing. "I too assumed he had betrayed her, to my everlasting shame, but Maid Isabella rebuked me for my lack of faith most resoundingly."

"I can attest to the enchantment and the illusion myself, Your Majesty," Elena said, stepping forward. "I was the one to break both, and it was no simple task. Sacharissa was more powerful than we knew."

"So I perceive," the Queen murmured, giving her a critical glance. It was Elena's turn to wince; being around these types made any human feel filthy, clumsy, and ugly, and right now it was closer to the truth than usual. Prolonged magical duels with Dark Sorceresses were rather rough on one's appearance. "But do you meant to tell me that We have ridden out with a full court for no good reason?"

"Uh..."

"Well..."

"Oh, dear..."

"Yes," Ferb said bluntly. "Unless you'd like to help us break the Final Curse."

The Queen gave him a Look, but this time he didn't flinch. For an excruciatingly long minute, the two faced off. Everyone—human, Fae, unicorn, and Dragon alike—held their breath, waiting for one to give way. Eventually, the Queen lifted a single brow and Ferb's eyes widened; he stepped aside, looking away, but Elena had the sneaking suspicion that the two had reached some sort of agreement rather than actually giving in.

"We like your courage, young smith," the Queen said, almost smiling. Behind her, Iolanthe looked as though she was about to faint from relief. "As for the Final Curse, why, the answer lies before you. Phineas Flynn of Danville in the Great Loops, I order you to kiss that maiden."

"WHAT!?!" Phineas started to stand up, remembered he was holding Isabella, and tried to keep from dropping her. The end result was Phineas falling on his backside, Isabella on top of him. Elena stifled an unholy desire to laugh, half afraid it would come out as an hysterical giggle unworthy of a Godmother. The rest of the Fae had no such inhibitions, nor did Eilyr or Almandin. The Queen did not join in the merriment, but raised that eyebrow again.

""We are certain We did not stutter."

"Yeah, but—me? Kiss Isabella?"

"Are you defying Our Royal Command?" The Queen's voice was casual, but the laughter stopped abruptly.

"Uh, well, no offense, Your Majesty, but... Yes. Yes, I am. See, I do like Isabella, but we're both still pretty young. In our home Loop, we're less than fifteen. Even when you take the Loops into account, we're still kids. Too young for all this True Love stuff. But... that's not the real reason. I guess I just don't want to mess with Isabella's emotions like that. If she ever decides she wants more, I want it to be her choice, not some mysterious force making her love me. That's just not right." Phineas met the Queen's eyes more easily than anyone else had that night, his sincerity clear to see. The Queen regarded him as she had his brother, and her smile grew.

"Well spoken. Although it does leave Our Godmother-Apprentice in an unfortunate situation. The nearest Princes are not what I would wish for her, although they do have good hearts, and it does not answer the other dilemma. If her heart was already given to one who could match either Tradition..." The Queen's smile became a touch sardonic as her hint went right over Phineas' head. But something in her speech had clearly touched a chord; his head snapped up with that familiar spark in his eyes, a smile—no, a grin—blossoming on his face.

"Your Majesty, we've been to a lot of different places and cultures, and while a lot of the basics are the same, there are always some details that are a bit different. I haven't needed to ask this before, but what exactly is the definition of True Love here?"

"True love must single-hearted be," the Queen declared.

"Exactly so," the Knight next to her intoned.

"From every selfish fancy free."

"Exactly so."

"No idle thought of gain or joy a maiden's—or a young man's—fancy should employ. True love must be without alloy."

"True love must be without alloy," Iolanthe echoed.

"Exactly so."

"I'd swear I've heard that somewhere before," Ferb muttered, but Phineas laughed.

"That's it! True Love, and even without the Tradition it would be love at first sight! How quick can somebody find a puppy?"

"Oh, you clever boy!" The Queen dropped her regal air, laughing along with Phineas. Elena slapped her forehead, disgusted with herself.

"Why did I never consider that?" she asked the stars, then wondered exactly when night had fallen. She'd been busy, but usually she noticed minor details like that.

"And if it's already named Prince, that might help too," Ferb added.

"Good thinking, bro. See, Isabella loves dogs—she's got one back home. And it's not called puppy love for nothing, right?"

"A dog's love is truly a noble and unselfish thing," Eilyr said approvingly. Almandin nodded.

"I rather like the beasts myself. Straightforward, no having to wonder whether they really like you or are just waiting for you to turn your back. Know where you stand with a dog. Although Daw will raise quiet hell while you train it not to dig in the gardens. And just wait until the cat finds out!"

" _I'm right here, Lizard. Think I was going to let this lot muck things up even worse than they were? I'll tolerate the wretch for Softhands' sake, if it will break the curse._ "

"Uh, yeah, about that... Um, Elena? I think I got the gist of it, but it's more your thing than mine. Traditional Final Curses and all that, I mean," Phineas said, biting his lip. All eyes turned to Elena, who suddenly wished she'd run away with a footman before the Tradition had ever meant anything to her. The she remembered what their footmen had been like and decided she'd rather have to explain a cursed Godmother-Apprentice to a Fae Court and a cat.

* * *

8.14 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 14**

While Elena told the Fae just what Sacharissa had done, Ferb ambled over to his brother and sat, waiting for the adrenaline crash to hit. Eilyr joined them with a weary sigh.

"There's no good way to say this," Ferb said to the unicorn, "but thanks for bleeding on me. That is what healed me, isn't it?"

"Yes, the blood of a unicorn, freely given, can do that. I did not notice I was doing so at first, but when I did, it seemed to be the least that I could do."

"And thanks for backing me up against the Queen," Phineas said. "What finally convinced you I wasn't the bad guy?"

"My maiden said so," Eilyr said as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Ferb just managed not to roll his eyes; he should have known. Phineas wore his I-had-to-ask face, and the two avoided each other's gaze. Eilyr had become a lot smarter since they'd first met him, but some things never changed: to a unicorn, a maiden's wishes were paramount. Isabella wished for him to accept Phineas' innocence, so he did.

They sat quietly, watching and listening as Elena finished her story and the Fae set to work. There was quite a bit of confusion as Knights vanished and were replaced by a variety of other types. In less than an hour, seven dwarfs marched up to them, looking determined. This was a very different group, though: clean, organized, and with armor that Ferb itched to get a closer look at. These weren't just dwarfs, they were Dwarfs.

"We've been told there's a Snowskin who needs Traditional protection until her rescuer appears," the leader said, and somehow Ferb wasn't surprised that he looked and sounded like John Rhys-Davies. Phineas looked down at Isabella, then up at the Dwarf.

"Yeah, we do, but I'm hoping we'll have this done by sunrise."

"No reason not to do the matter properly, and besides, it's good practice. Never know when this'll pop up; need to keep the skills up-to-date. My cousin over in Barataria's had to do this three times, and he thinks there's going to be a fourth before much longer. So he and the rest of his lot are used to it, but we haven't had a Snowskin since I was barely big enough to lift a hammer. Now if you'll lay her down on the ground so we can get proper measurements..."

Phineas looked doubtful, but did as they asked. Or tried to, anyway. He'd been sitting for so long while holding Isabella that both legs had fallen asleep; Ferb and two of the Dwarfs had to pick him up and carry him. The leader looked amused, winking at Ferb, and one of the other Dwarfs confirmed that they knew what had happened, including Phineas' freakout over kissing Isabella. Ferb happened to agree with Phineas that it would have been a bad idea, but that didn't mean the floundering hadn't been fun to watch. He was just glad that nobody had noticed his miniature spy-drone; he'd started filming before the fighting started to show the kind of nasty that this Loop could throw at visitors, but was thinking of showing select clips to Isabella later.

Elena staggered over and flopped down next to them with a noticeable lack of Godmotherly dignity. Her dress was torn, stained, and even burned, her hair was the type of tangle that only curls can create, and she looked a fright. Her sigh was even deeper than Eilyr's had been.

"They've agreed that by handling Sacharissa, I've done my share for today," she said. "I don't expect any of us will have more than a few hours to rest, but at least we get that. We've played merry hell with the Tradition tonight, and are bound to do the same when they find a suitable pup. Thank you for that, Phineas; we've agreed to do what we can to make that a Traditional loophole. After all, the Loyal Hound is well known in many lands already, so this can be added to it. And there are Traditions involving other loyal animals as well, so we can build on that."

"Good," Phineas said firmly. "I don't like the idea of anybody having their minds messed with like that. And what if it lasted beyond the Loop? How fair would it be for Isabella to do the whole unrequited love thing until the Loops are over and we can grow up?"

Sometimes Ferb really wondered if Phineas was as oblivious as he acted.

"...Right," Elena said, blinking rapidly. "So, Ferb, could you tell me what all that was about. With the Queen?"

"It's... complicated. The Queen is playing a dangerous game, but from what I've seen of her court, I can understand why. The Tradition has saddled them with a number of laws, and most of the Fae don't think much about them. The Queen is trying to undo some of them, but needs the rest of her court to accept them, which they won't really do if she just issues an order. I suspected as much when I heard Iolanthe's story. She uses each crisis that comes up to force her people to become aware of situations beyond their own interests. I think this lesson was about jumping to conclusions and doling out too-hasty vengeance." He wasn't too thrilled that she'd taken chances with Phineas' life, but since he wasn't a centuries-old Fae Queen, he couldn't really be sure she hadn't been certain of the outcome, in which case she hadn't risked anything, so it wouldn't be fair to get annoyed at her. He ran that thought through his head again and decided that if his internal monologue was pulling run-on sentences, he really needed sleep. But Elena wasn't quite done.

"You've both managed to impress the Fae this evening. Between that and Isabella's curse, your lives are going to be unspeakably busy now. I'm glad that Phineas has forestalled every variation of the Sleeping Maiden that I know of, but there are still so many Paths that the Tradition can throw at you. We need to keep the King well away from Castle Bunthorne; King Arac is a good ruler, but he's not much of a thinker and has a roving eye as well as a jealous wife, which is exactly the setup for a Fair Rosalinda. Then there's the Dragon's Maiden, which we'll keep going as long as we may. Although I'm already trying to think of ways that a dog could meet a Dragon's Challenge, just to be safe. Well, thinking may be too strong a term right now. I feel as tired as you all look—sorry, that was-"

"Honest," Ferb said. "I think we all need a good sleep and a bath, maybe even in that order. We're in safe hands now, so..."

A huge yawn broke his chain of thought and traveled around the group. As if it had been a cue, Phineas' eyes drooped shut and he tumbled over onto Eilyr. Eilyr blinked at him, then tucked his head in carefully so as not to stab anybody with his horn and was asleep within seconds. Elena spocked an eyebrow at Ferb.

"I think they have the right idea. And I also think that any more thinking can wait."

"Fair enough. In the morning, then."

Elena curled up in a manner that suggested even to Ferb's sleepy mind that she had lots of practice sleeping in uncomfortable surroundings, and Ferb lay down next to Phineas. Neither noticed Almandin curling himself around the group protectively.

* * *

"When did it get to be morning?"

"After midnight, if you want to get technical about it."

Phineas threw his pillow at his brother. As soon as he had, it occurred to him that since he'd fallen asleep in the middle of a stone circle with no pillows around for miles, that was a rather strange thing for him to be able to do. He looked around and found himself on a large cot inside a large tent, a shaft of sunlight peeking through the silken curtains at the door. Furthermore, he was clean, his injuries had been healed, and he was dressed in clothes that could only have come from the Fae. Ferb was in the same shape. There was no sign of Eilyr or Elena, and Almandin wouldn't have fit inside.

"Okay, time to get up. I wonder how long we slept?" He stood carefully, but his twisted knee really was as healed as he first thought. Without another word, he and Ferb stepped outside to a scene that would make fantasy artists and RenFaires everywhere implode from sheer jealousy. The Fae could be amazingly subtle at times, operating so stealthily that nobody knew they were there until they were gone and the fruits of their labors were found. And then there was this: a small town of silken tents and pavilions, with various types of Fae, Wizards, Sorceresses, and magical creatures wandering around. The Dwarfs from last night were still around as well, and the first they saw pointed them towards the center of the stone circle.

"Just how long were we asleep, anyway?" Phineas gaped at the display. Isabella lay on a golden bier, beautifully molded/carved, with a dome over her of glass etched with a delicate lacy pattern that in no way obscured the sight. Phineas winced at first, but a closer look revealed that the Dwarfs had thought of the breathing thing; there were scallop-edged holes around the base of the dome. The head Dwarf stood on guard, with Eilyr beside him.

"Well there you are, slugabeds," the Dwarf said cheerfully. "It's just past noon."

"Of what day?" Ferb asked, and both Dwarf and unicorn laughed.

"It is difficult to believe it has been less than a day, but it is no less than the truth," Eilyr said. "I'm afraid we've become what I think you once called a teaching moment; it is quite rare to see someone find a new loophole in the Tradition, and nobody wants to miss out. This should actually help us; the more to spread the tale, the better."

"Okay, I can see that," Phineas said. "Oh, by the way, Eilyr, did you think about trying to kiss Isabella yourself? A unicorn's love for a maiden is true, and you did swear to be her champion, so it might work."

"Godmother Elena suggested it shortly before you awakened," Eilyr said. "It did not work, to our disappointment. Perhaps because our love only lasts while they are maidens; we can retain a fondness for them ever after, but it is not the same. Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, as one of your human poets said."

"I guess... but it was still worth a shot."

Eilyr nodded, then sent them on their way to see the Queen. It took some time to get to her, as everyone wished to congratulate them on Phineas' bright idea. They'd already known how much those who knew of the Tradition hated how it would force emotions like that, but somehow the theoretical knowledge wasn't the same as seeing how happy everyone was that they now might have a workable solution. Phineas just hoped it actually would work; he'd hate to disappoint everybody if it didn't. The worry that the Tradition would see through his trick grew stronger and stronger, but he kept smiling; he'd let the others be happy for as long as he could. He had a feeling Ferb wasn't fooled, though, since his brother kept very close, putting a hand on his shoulder every so often if someone got a little too gushy.

By the time they reached the Queen's pavilion, Phineas was beginning to feel like he'd turned into the Joker. Then he remembered that stint in Gotham and hastily thought of as many other things as possible. The Queen was not sitting majestically on her throne the way she had most of the other times he'd seen her; instead, she was leaning over a table as an assortment of people and creatures looked at the same papers that she was assessing. When she saw them approach, she greeted them with a smile.

"Don't be scared, Phineas. I am certain that your idea will work. Now, do come see what we've already achieved in the way of songs and sagas—I was lucky enough to have knowledge of where to find some quite talented songsmiths, and Almandin flew up to see his cousin and brought back an actual Songweaver. They are all waiting to see the results of your idea and our search, at which point they shall all create the perfect endings for their works."

They did as requested, and were mostly impressed by what they saw. There were a few that needed tweaking, and one that Phineas had to work hard to find something positive to say about it, but all of them would do the job. He was pointing out to an oddly familiar poet with a strong melodramatic streak that actually, "indulgent" rhymed with "effulgent", so, yeah... when Fleta returned looking perkier than ever. Phineas had already forgiven her for her part in the mess; she was very earnest and had good intentions, but there was no denying that she had as much common sense as Doofenshmirtz. And that was on her good days. If there was a way for her to put her foot in her mouth, she would find it, and then apologize for hours once she realized what she'd done. There was no point in staying mad at her, so he didn't. Ferb looked slightly miffed, but he'd let it slide for now.

"We've found him! He's perfect!" she exclaimed, then remembered to bow to her Queen. Behind her, two of the more sensible Fae were standing beside...

"Uh, well, I said a puppy, but he does look friendly," Phineas said.

"Oh, he is still a puppy! Not even a year old yet!"

Phineas was speechless. Ferb was staring, open-mouthed. The Queen had the patient expression common to those who had to deal with centuries of well-meaning flibbertigibbethood. The pup just rolled over on his back, paws waving.

"I thought I was familiar with land animals," said a tiny blonde who had been staying out of the way during the brainstorming, "but is it possible to breed a dog and a horse?"

"No, Katya, although it looks as though someone may have done so anyway," the Songweaver replied. "Don't ask me how. I don't want to know."

The pup was almost big enough for Katya to ride, and if it was that big before it was even a year old, it was going to end up almost the size of an Arcanine. It was a handsome animal, though: long brindled brown fur, sparkling eyes, and quite obviously healthy. The Queen walked forward to take a closer look, and the pup reared up on its hind legs. The Queen stopped, raising an eyebrow, and the pup stayed balanced for a few seconds, looking hopeful. After a moment's consideration, she held out her arms and the pup allowed itself to fall forward so that its front paws landed directly on the Queen's hands. Even knowing that this was the Queen of the Fae, Phineas was shocked when she caught the pup's paws without so much as a wince.

" _Hi! I'm a dog!_ "

"Yes, I know. Have my children explained matters to you?"

" _Sleeping girl needs a kiss to wake up from someone who loves her or a handsome prince or both. I can do that. Mother says we must find someone worthy and give our hearts to them entirely. I can do that. Sleeping girl is someone worthy, I will love her, and I am Maelgwyn._ "

"Maelgwyn. It means prince of the hounds, does it not?"

" _Uh-huh. See? I am good dog. Pup. Yeah._ "

"Yes. Yes, you are. But there are some we must ask first. Phineas? Ferb? Is he acceptable in your eyes?"

Phineas took a long look at Maelgwyn, as did Ferb. Then the two looked at each other and gave it a moment's thought before turning back to the waiting Queen and hopeful pup.

"I think he's perfect, and I think Isabella will love him," Phineas said. Ferb nodded.

" _Yay! Can I meet her now?_ "

"I see no reason to wait," the Queen said. Without another word, she started toward the stone circle, and everyone followed. It became a procession through no effort of their own. Almandin swooped down to give his approval, and was vocally glad about having a dog he wouldn't have to worry about stepping on because he didn't see it; Phineas couldn't really argue that. They approached the bier as the Dwarfs carefully removed the dome. Eilyr stared at them, obviously not having expected them to produce anything that might outweigh him. Maelgwyn froze for a moment when he saw how many eyes were on him, but shook himself all over before drawing himself up and walking majestically forward. He reared up again to rest his front paws on the bier, looking down at Isabella thoughtfully.

" _Yes. She is good and kind and smells like sunshine. She is Mistress, and I love her._ "

He bent his great head forward and licked Isabella's face from chin to brow, then pressed his nose against her cheek. Everybody watched, breathless, waiting to see if it would work.

"Ohmygosh, you're _adorable!!!_ " Isabella was up and flinging her arms around Maelgwyn's neck, or trying to, before they knew it. There was another moment of stunned silence, then—

" ** _YES!!!_** " Phineas jumped and punched the air, and seconds later the rest of the crowd roared approval. The Tradition now officially had a new loophole, and more importantly, Isabella was awake.

* * *

8.15 (katfairy): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Five Hundred Kingdoms] / [Big Hero 6]

**Phineas and Ferb in the 500 Kingdoms, part 15; conclusion.**

Nobody was surprised when Isabella grew to be the most beautiful woman in the 500 Kingdoms. The Tradition had her in its sights, and Traditional tales always insisted that the heroine was the most beautiful person in the history of ever, so it was inevitable. She didn't waste time whining about it, even though she knew that it would be several Loops before looking in a mirror would stop being disappointing. In other Loops when she'd had the opportunity to grow up, she'd been pretty, but this Loop had gone overboard. It attracted attention, of course; hardly a week went by without a Traditional hero popping up to rescue her from durance vile. Ferb started a betting pool on which Path would pop up next, and it took less than a month before Isabella found out about it. She would swear for the rest of the Loops that turning him into a squirrel had been an accident.

Sacharissa's Final Curse kept them busy in other ways as well. King Arac came to visit one of his Dukes who lived inconveniently near Castle Bunthorne, and avoiding him for the length of his visit was awkward. It didn't help that he'd heard of Isabella's great beauty and was thinking with the smaller brain, but when he failed Almandin's Challenge, he did leave with good grace, even thanking them for the fun. Someone started saying that Isabella was under a curse and would die if she looked toward the nearest town; Ferb knew his Tennyson and squashed that one before more than a small handful got to hear it. Isabella's hair started growing like crazy for a few days, but since she hadn't been traded to a Dark Witch by a father desperate to save his own skin, the Ladderlocks Path just couldn't take hold. A minor god from the next kingdom started paying too much attention, but the local deities didn't like him much, so that only lasted long enough to be annoying. They weren't sure which god-lusting-after-mortal Tradition had been intended, but they agreed that they were happier not knowing.

They knew exactly which Tradition was in play when an arrogant young twit from a kingdom to the southeast showed up, demanding that they hand Isabella over to him as his rightful prize. Apparently he'd been asked to judge a beauty contest between his local goddesses and had been bribed with the promise of the most beautiful woman in the world as his bride. His views on gender equality were noticeably backwards, even for this Loop, and he had expected Isabella to start obeying her Lord and Master—which he was actually stupid enough to call himself—the second he arrived. Isabella had not reacted well to that. She didn't even need Maelgwyn, now fully grown and almost big enough for Isabella to ride, to scare the twit away. Ferb had already gotten into the habit of recording every Challenge, and decided that one was going on the highlights reel. Although technically it never got to the point of a Challenge; Almandin had been laughing too hard at how thoroughly cowed the twit was within seconds of Isabella letting him know her opinion. Which she did at great length and with very thorough descriptions of his manners, demeanor, appearance, and upbringing. Brigantia, the most important of the local goddesses, actually showed up and took notes. When Isabella was through with the twit, the goddess marched up to him, caught his ear between thumb and forefinger, and vanished with both the twit and a promise of _having words_ with the other goddess.

It wasn't all about Isabella, though. Phineas would have gained a reputation anyway, what with being a Wizard living in a Dragon's castle, but his intelligence and ability to use it on the fly (sometimes literally) gained him the title of Wizard of Wyrms. He discouraged the use of it, and it must be admitted that it had less to do with modesty than with being called, well, Wizard of Wyrms. As he pointed out repeatedly, it sounded like he ran a really geeky bait shop. His reputation brought him many challengers, and he gained another reputation for his success rate in turning Dark Wizards through a combination of impressive magic, unconventional brilliance, and sheer darn nice. Ferb became known as a Mastersmith, one of those whose skills were ranked second only to Dwarfs. He didn't get challenged as such, but many of the Heroes and Princes who came to try for Isabella ended up commissioning arms or armor from Ferb, with the understanding that they would never use Ferb's works against Dragons until they knew said Dragons were a clear and present danger. A rumor started that any who tried attacking an innocent Dragon while using Ferb's work would be cursed to die a horrible death; nobody ever found out where it started, but all agreed that anything that made Heroes think twice before attacking Dragons that weren't actively destructive was a Good Thing.

It was a busy but interesting life, and years passed quickly. The cat wandered off one day in their eighth year in the Loop and never returned. They mourned, but knew that it was how the cat wanted it. The next year, Eilyr fell to a Unicorn hunter; the hunter fell to Almandin, who saw it but couldn't get there in time to prevent it. Phineas and Ferb tracked down the Sorcerer who had hired the hunter; the man was left alive, but the entire city witnessed what happened when Phineas and Ferb were well and truly pissed off, and would not soon forget it. Unicorn hunting was not highly regarded in any land, but Rederring became one of the few that banned it outright; nobody wanted to try the brothers' temper a second time.

Maelgwyn became a dog of great dignity—when strangers were around. When it was just the castle residents, he was a gigantic ball of fluffy goofiness. He never wavered in his devotion to Isabella, and they suspected he wouldn't have even if he didn't have the Tradition backing him up. Some one-person dogs are standoffish or even hostile to people who aren't their human, but Maelgwyn considered everyone Isabella liked to be a friend and would defend them almost as fiercely. He lived to a ripe old age, as large dogs go, dying peacefully in his sleep at the age of twelve. They knew it was coming, but it was still hard, and naturally it was hardest on Isabella. She locked herself in her room for three days, refusing to see or even speak to anyone, and when she came out she was quiet and subdued for quite some time. Her first smile after that came when she and Phineas, out visiting a Sorceress on the other side of the Kingdom, overheard a peasant granny telling the local children a tale of a giant dog with an even bigger heart who once saved a Godmother with the purity of his love and became the defender of all innocents. It was a simplistic, even sappy story, but the old woman believed it and therefore the children believed as well. They couldn't have asked for a better memorial.

Nearly fifteen years to the day since they Awoke, Elena sent word that the Loop was about to end. They decided to gather at Castle Bunthorne for a Last Night party and see the Loop out together; just a quiet gathering, only the Loopers and Almandin. As the date approached, they said their goodbyes to those who were Loop-Aware and hadn't asked not to be told when the end was near. It had been a long Loop, sometimes fun, sometimes stressful, sometimes flat-out terrifying, but always interesting. They were disappointed it was ending and eager for it at the same time, hoping they'd Loop back to their respective baselines to see what had stuck with them besides memories.

"I'm really gonna miss this place," Phineas sighed. "I kinda wish the Fae were Dreaming instead of Loop-Aware so we could come visit them if we ever Loop back in here again and they'd at least have some idea why a bunch of strange kids were popping up."

"I'll check on things myself when the Loop resets," Elena said. "I wasn't familiar with this region in baseline; with 500 Kingdoms only the Fae are likely to know them all and this is quite far from my home. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that Iolanthe and her family didn't Loop in and just keep it quiet. It wouldn't be the strangest thing I've heard about the Loops."

"I wouldn't be surprised if the whole kingdom wasn't Fused from another unfamiliar Loop," Ferb said. "So many things are familiar, and I've never been able to put my finger on it."

"I won't miss the curse," Isabella grinned. The others laughed.

"Reduced to mere cuteness," Alex teased; Isabella bounced a raspberry off his forehead. He caught it on the rebound and popped it into his mouth with a smug grin.

"I wish I could say I'd miss you, but unless I start Looping now, I won't even remember you," Almandin said quietly. "But please believe that somehow I shall always consider you friends. In fact, I've got presents for you, and they'll serve a dual purpose: parting gifts for friends, and a way to prove to me that you know me if you ever need to in a future Loop. I chose things I'd never give up for exactly that reason."

"Almandin..." Phineas was about to object, but couldn't. For one thing, Almandin was sincere, and refusing would hurt his feelings. For another, Almandin was using puppy-dog-eyes, which was just surreal on a Dragon of his size. "That's cheating."

"It's not cheating if it works. Besides, if I don't do something to break up the mood I just created, we'll turn into a blubbering mess, the lot of us. A blubbering Dragon is not a pretty sight, I must say, so I'd really rather spare you all the mental trauma. Col's going to be bringing the gifts out once the sun goes down. Have you all packed what you want to keep?"

"I can't pack much yet," Elena said. "But I've got a number of books and the jewelry Alex commissioned from Ferb for my birthdays."

"Neither can I, so I'm afraid I have to leave my armor," Alex said regretfully. "But I was at least able to keep my sword; I'd have been more upset about losing that."

"I'll make you another set," Ferb promised. "I've kept my special supplies in my Pocket anyway, so I'll have plenty of time to make it as close to perfect as I can and do the final fittings next time we Loop together. And I've been checking every morning since Elena warned us to make sure I had everything packed."

"Me too," Phineas said. "Those wands are just too cool to lose, even if I can't use them in a lot of Loops. Plus we've all got presents for our friends in other Loops and our family back in Danville. Candace is gonna flip over that red dress with the white lace."

"So will Jeremy," Ferb deadpanned.

"I'm done," Isabella said. "I... might have kinda stolen that statue of Maelgwyn King Arac had in his courtroom."

"I'd shake my finger at you, but they're full of sugared berries right now," Elena laughed. "Besides, it would be a shame to let that disappear; it's a masterwork in every sense of the word."

"Yeah..." Isabella might have said more, but the sun finally dipped below the horizon and Col appeared right on schedule, carrying a covered tray.

"Right; here we go," Almandin said. "Save the sniffles 'til the end, please. Now, most of these are simply amazing works of arts, but one or two do have stories attached. Ladies first: Elena, I've given you the Crown of Banafrit, an ancient Queen known for her wisdom and kindness, and Isabella, yours is more recent, but I think it will suit you: the diamond and emerald parure crafted by Mihangel. Only made the one parure before he died—far too young, poor chap, but he would insist on drinking like a ruddy fish and challenging men to duels. There was almost a war over it, but I put a stop to it. Took it and the king's only daughter and flew away, and the other king's youngest son, who wasn't a bullying prat or hopelessly obtuse like his brothers, won the Challenge fair and square. He got the girl, she got him, I got the parure, happy ever after."

Crown and parure were duly admired before being stowed safely in Pockets. Both were impressive in their own ways, and Isabella already knew which Loop she'd wear the parure in.

"Phineas, yours is also one of Mihangel's pieces; look familiar?" It was a foot-high sculpture of a dragon made of gold, jewels, and enamel; it reminded Phineas of a Fabergé egg as well as-"Yes, I posed for it. Official court dragon, don't you know. Alex, if you can fit another sword inside your Pocket, I've got the legendary Ophiuchus, made by the very first Dragonsmith, whose name is lost even to us."

"I'll make it fit. Almandin, this is... I don't know what to say!" Alex took the sword, awestruck. The scabbard was simple and elegant, and the sword itself was exactly what a legendary sword should be. It did indeed fit into Alex's Pocket, much to his relief.

"It's more important than you know," Elena said. "I didn't bother telling you because it never mattered, but before this Loop, Dragonsmithing was not a craft in this world. I think it was imported from another Loop, or possibly a minor Variant. It's a useful skill, wherever it comes from, and I've got notes on it in my Pocket for next Loop."

"Oh." Almandin blinked at that. "So, I won't recognize it as such. But I will know something I would have had in my hoard when I see it, so that should do it. Ferb, son, I had a devil of a time making up my mind what to give you. The others—well, it's Tradition for a Dragon to give his maiden jewelry as a parting gift-"

"It is?" both Godmothers chorused.

"Well, it is for me. And a Champion always needs a good sword, Godmothers are perfect caretakers for historical artifacts, and if Banafrit exists outside of this Loop, Elena will love reading about her. There was really only one thing in my hoard appropriate for the Wizard of Wyrms—better luck on nicknames next Loop, old chap—but for my apprentice? Not so easy. So I rather cheated. Called on the Queen to help me make this, and nobody will ever mistake it for anything other than what it is." Col handed what looked like a polished gem the size of a tangerine to Ferb. A closer look showed it to be an orb of crystalline material with shifting flames inside. Elena nearly dropped her teacup.

"You captured Dragonfire in a crystal? How is that even possible?" she sputtered.

"With very precise magic and a tiresome amount of patience. Even if it can only be done in this Loop, that will still be crystallized Dragonfire, freely given. The Queen wanted to call it a Dragonheart, but that sounds like it could be asking for trouble."

"Thank goodness; that was a rubbish movie," Ferb said dazedly, staring at his crystal. After a few minutes, he took a velvet-lined silver chest from his Pocket, carefully stored the crystal inside, and returned the chest. Then he tackle-hugged Almandin. He'd grown very fond of the Dragon, and now he would have more than just scales and talon filings to remember him by. Almandin stood still so that Ferb wouldn't cut himself on the sharp-edged scales.

The gift-giving over, Col disappeared again, and Almandin hastily cleared his throat and began a rather jumbled story about a Wizard who had defeated a budding Necromancer by turning him into a strange animal that looked like a cross between a duck and a woodchuck, but with a broad flat tail. Knowing that he was trying to keep things from getting too emotional, they didn't bother reminding him that the Wizard in question had been Phineas.

As the evening progressed, they finally broke down and all but Almandin had some wine. After all, toasting fallen comrades with tea, milk, and juice just lacked a certain something. They all avoided mentioning that for this purpose, wine was Traditional. They toasted Dickon, the cat, Eilyr, Maelgwyn, and finally Daniel, who, like Maelgwyn, had passed away peacefully in his sleep at a respectable age. A flood of do-you-remembers followed each toast: Dickon's dogs, who had escaped Sacharissa's attack and were taken in by a kindly old hermit; the cat's refusal to ever be cowed by a Dragon whose smallest scale was still twice her size; Eilyr's way of switching between deep thoughts (for a unicorn) and featherheadedness when around Isabella; Maelgwyn's love of apple turnovers; Daniel's joy at helping with research. Nobody tried to hide their tears except Almandin.

Night faded; the sun was almost up. Elena had said that the Loop usually ended as she saw the sun break free of the horizon, so they had only minutes to go. Phineas started singing quietly; _The Parting Glass_ was just too appropriate at the moment. After the first line, Ferb and Isabella joined in. The others didn't know the song, but recognized the rightness of it. They finished the final line just as the sun spilled over—

* * *

Isabella sat up in her own bed, waited for the memories to hit, then flopped back down, suddenly exhausted. She was glad it was a baseline Loop; the entirety of the last Loop had just kicked her in the teeth. Somehow it hit harder getting her memories in a flood rather than living it; she choked back tears as she saw Pinky, wondering how he and Maelgwyn would have gotten along. Then something else occurred to her, and she got up quickly, rushing to her mirror.

"Yes! I'm cute!"

She rushed through her morning routine and zoomed over through the pouring rain to see Phineas and Ferb. They were hugging a huge white marshmallow/balloon... thing, (okay, not as baseline as she hoped, but she'd take it) but turned around when they heard her. They looked as tired as her, but Phineas still grinned.

"Isabella! You're cute!"

" _I know!_ "

Candace opened her mouth, closed it, and shook her head.

"Phineas is noticing girls? What's up with that?"

The three exchanged looks, sighed, and hugged the giant marshmallow-bot, glad to be home, safe, and as normal as Loopers and residents of Danville could get.

* * *

8.11-8.15: And so one story ends... but the adventures _never_ will.


	11. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Nine

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-10-21. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Nine**

9.1 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]

WHO FRAMED OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT? (PART 1)

In the middle of a poorly-lit office, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit Awoke to find himself sitting at a desk, with a series of pictures strewn out in front of him, and two rather worn-looking gentlemen standing behind him. From the way the man in the suit was looking at him and at the photos expectantly, it was obvious that he was supposed to look the photos over, but hadn't yet. Deciding to humor the man while he waited for his Loop memories to kick in, Oswald picked up the photos in a single large pile, and began to idly flip through them. They depicted a scene in which a third, slightly portly man and a much more... _voluptuous_ version of his girlfriend, Ortensia, were playing patty-cake.

Just then, the Loop memories hit, and Oswald nearly dropped the photos from the shock of it. Apparently, he was a major cartoon star, the equal of the likes of Bugs Bunny, or his little brother Mickey Mouse, but he had recently entered a slump. The man in the suit was his boss, R.K. Maroon, head of Maroon Cartoon Studios. Maroon had gotten it into his head that Oswald was having trouble with Ortensia, and it was screwing up his concentration. He had hired the other man, a private detective named Eddie Valiant, to take these pictures of his girlfriend (a lounge singer? That was new.) committing the Toon equivalent of adultery with Marvin Acme, CEO of the ACME corporation.

Oswald fell back into his seat with a thump, as he processed all of this. "Mickey never had to put up with malarkey like this," he muttered. He needed to find Ortensia, check if she was Awake. That was the first thing. They could work things out from there.

R.K. Maroon went over to Oswald, and handed him a handkerchief. "Take comfort son," he remarked. "You're not the first guy who had his wife play patty-cake on him."

Oswald decided that he didn't like Maroon that much, but accepted the handkerchief anyway. He dabbed at his forehead with it, and then put it in his subspace pocket. He could always throw it out later.

Eddie watched the exchange with a cool, calculating demeanor, but Oswald saw his eyebrows raise just a fraction of a millimeter, as if he had seen this scene play out before dozens of times, but saw something different happen. A Looper? He had to check.

Feigning a trembling, shocked demeanor, he turned to R.K. Maroon, and asked in a quavering voice, "Can I have a few w-w-words with M-Mr. Valiant, sir? I n-need to ask him a few questions. About wh-what he saw."

Maroon nodded, and stepped outside the office, shutting the door behind him. At once, Oswald dropped the act, and turned to Eddie. "Okay, what the heck is going on?"

Eddie walked over to the drinks cabinet, and poured himself a glass of bourbon. "Well, that depends. Does the word "Looping" mean anything to you?"

Oswald broke into a relieved grin. This might be easier than he thought. "You're a Looper?"

"Even better," he replied, before knocking back his drink. "I'm the Anchor for this Loop. So, let's get the basics out of the way. You ever leave your baseline before now?"

"Yeah, once or twice with my brother Mickey."

Eddie set the glass down. "Then you've already had the whole "Welcome to the Multiverse," speech, right? Yggdrasil, computers, all that jazz?"

"Yep."

"Good. I always hate giving that speech. So, let's just get down to the nitty-gritty, then. Currently, you're replacing my friend, Roger Rabbit, a cartoon star married to a lounge singer, name of Jessica Rabbit. Your Loop memories say anything similar?"

Oswald concentrated for a few seconds. "Mmmmmm... Got it. Don't remember Ortensia looking like a pinup girl, though."

Eddie looked over the pictures. "She your wife in the baseline?"

Oswald grinned sheepishly. "Not officially, but she might as well be."

Eddie nodded sagely. "Yeah, I get where you're coming from. She Looping too, or...?"

"Yep! Started a couple loops after me though, so she's still new to the whole thing."

Oswald looked at the door where R.K. Maroon was probably listening in on everything, and getting very confused. "So, uh, what usually happens here?"

Eddie set his glass down on the desk. "Well, Roger, assuming he isn't Awake, usually gets all worked up, yells about how he and Jessica are going to be perfectly happy together, then jumps out the window, thus setting himself up as a murder suspect in th' case of the death of Marvin Acme. He's the shmoe in those pictures playing patty-cake with your girlfriend, by the way."

"Fun. Well, I suppose I'll just go with that, check if Ortensia is Looping or not, then meet up with you at your office."

"Sounds good to me." Eddie pulled out a business card, with the address of his detective agency, and tossed it to Oswald, who stuffed it in his subspace pocket. "Hey, if you could, try to stop your girlfriend from showing up at my office tomorrow afternoon, will you? I'm trying to convince Dolores to not think that I'm a two-timing rat. Tends to make things much smoother during a baseline run."

"You got it."

The detective and the rabbit shook hands, then Oswald cleared his throat, before grabbing Eddie by the coat front and shouting at him. Eddie picked up on the ruse instantly (having gone through the scenario multiple times with Roger), and started shouting back. R.K. Maroon burst into the room when he heard voices being raised, and watched Oswald bounce off of Eddie's stomach, and through the window. Eddie smoothed out his coat front, then turned to Maroon. "I think he took it well," he quipped.

* * *

9.2 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]

WHO FRAMED OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT? (PART 2)

Oswald, not being one to do anything by halves, immediately rushed over to the Ink and Paint Club, where his Loop memories said that Ortensia sang five nights a week. It was, much to his distaste, a speakeasy located down a random back alley in the middle of the seedier part of LA. He knocked on the door, gave the password ("Walt sent me."), then rushed over to the dressing room. He stopped at the door, made like he was going to bust it down, then politely knocked.

"Who is it?" sang a voice Oswald knew all too well.

"It's me! Oswald!"

The instant he said that, the door burst open, and Ortensia grabbed Oswald, dragging him inside and shutting the door with a flick of her tail. They spent the first couple of minutes snuggling together on the bed. Oswald took the time to look Ortensia over. She was dressed in a slinky red dress that seemed to be nearly painted onto her rather, ah, generous figure, along with a pair of gloves, and a pair of red stilettos. She had also gotten an impressive mop of red hair, which hung over one of her eyes in a way that just screamed "sultry lounge singer"

However, the delighted grin on her face, and the way she was now covering his face with kisses was undoubtedly, undeniably, Ortensia. Some things never change, no matter how many Loops they shared or didn't share.

Oswald finally broke free of the embrace, and pulled out his locket from his subspace pocket. Ortensia looked at the locket confusedly for a few seconds, before her eyes widened in recognition, and she pulled out a plush toy of Oswald from her own subspace pocket. "Sorry Oswald," she apologized. "I'm still getting used to this whole signalling system of ours."

"It's okay, dear. We've only implemented it, what? Two, maybe three Loops ago?"

Ortensia sighed happily, as she put the plush toy away. "So, Oswald, how has this Loop been treating you so far?"

Oswald shrugged. "Can't complain, I guess. Things might be getting a bit hairy later on, though." He explained about his Awakening in R.K. Maroon's office, and Ortensia's eyes widened in recognition.

"So that's the reason why that guy was taking pictures of me and Marvin Acme last night! I was wondering about that. I mean, it's just patty-cake! What's the big deal?"

Oswald blushed a bit, and rubbed his arm. "Well, Ortensia, about that patty cake? That's the Toon version of adultery this Loop."

Ortensia's ears folded back onto her head, as she winced. "Oh. Oh dear."

Oswald smiled softly. "It's alright; you didn't know. Besides, you stuck by me during the Blot Wars, stopped me from going nuts trying to run Wasteland, and had all four hundred and twenty of my kids. We both know that you're committed to me."

Ortensia smiled back, and pulled Oswald close to her again. "I know, Oz. Still, I think I should make it up to you somehow..."

"What d'you have in mind?"

Ortensia gave Oswald a very sultry grin, and batted her eyelashes. "Oh, I think you know."

Oswald grinned back. "After you, my dear."

* * *

The next morning, a very exhausted and very happy Oswald and Ortensia were in the dressing room, just enjoying each other's company in the bed, when the door knocked twice. A rough voice shouted "Police! Open up!"

Oswald shot out of bed, and dived under it, while Ortensia went to answer the door in her dressing-gown. She opened the door, to see a sharp-looking man in plainclothes accompanied by an uniformed officer. "Miss Rabbit?"

"Who wants to know?"

The man in plainclothes pulled out his badge. "Lieutenant Santino of the LAPD. We have a couple of questions regarding an ongoing investigation."

Ortensia nodded. "Investigating what, if I may be so bold?"

"The death of Marvin Acme. He was murdered at around 10:15 in his own warehouse."

Ortensia's eyes widened. "Oh my god. Murdered?"

Santino nodded. "That's right. If you'll just come with us, so you can answer some questions, we would be very grateful for your assistance in this investigation."

Ortensia nodded. "Of-of course. Anything to help the boys in blue."

Once Ortensia left the dressing room with the policemen, Oswald popped out from under the bed, shaking slightly. That was too close. If he had forgotten about that murder, then he would have been landed in the hoosegow--or worse. He was all set to split for Eddie's office, when he noticed a piece of paper lying on the dresser. "Eh, might as well take it with me. You never know when you have to write a note for someone." He grabbed the paper, stuffed it into his subspace pocket, then jumped out of the window. Right now, if Eddie was right, the whole town would be crawling with cops. It was even odds that he would hit an ambush on the way over.

Oswald briefly entertained a wild, insane notion of using his Psychonaut training to mind-whammy any inconvenient cops into forgetting they ever saw him as he strolled down the street to Eddie's office. He was pretty sure that they didn't have any psychic training.

He shook his head. "Nah. Doesn't fit my in-loop characterization, and I'm already in deep doo-doo with the police."

Oswald looked at the dumpster, then at the roof of the Ink and Paint Club. "Of course, some good ol' fashioned free-running might work..."

With that, he jumped on the dumpster, then leaped up onto the rooftop quickly disappearing from sight. Sometimes, it paid to be a rabbit.

* * *

9.3 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]

WHO FRAMED OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT? (PART 3)

Eddie sat in his office, looking at the pictures of Marvin and Ortensia. The first encounter with Judge Doom had happened nearly identically to how it happened in the baseline, right down to Ortensia, Jessica's stand-in, slapping him and berating him for taking pictures of her. He only hoped that she wouldn't show up later, and get him in hot water with Dolores again. He was planning on wrapping up this case early, and actually taking that trip with her to Catalina. Maybe he'd invite Oswald and Ortensia; they seemed like good enough sports.

As if thinking of that rabbit was enough to summon him, the door to his office sprung open, and he dived in, slamming it shut behind him. He locked the door, then dragged a nearby file cabinet in front of it, before wiping his brow in relief. "Oh boy. That was not fun."

"I take it you ran into some cops?"

"Nope. Had a bunch of close calls though. It's a good thing I have four rabbit's feet, huh?" _Plus the advantage of people never checking the rooftops,_ he thought to himself.

"Yeah, I guess it is," Eddie replied, smiling.

Oswald looked around the cluttered office. "What's with all of the files?"

"Past cases. Back before I started Looping, I used to do detective work in Toontown, along with my brother, Teddy. We did some good work back then. Remind me to tell you about the time we cleared Goofy of spy charges."

Oswald looked at a picture on the desk. It showed a grinning Eddie relaxing in front of the building next to a tall, thin man wearing glasses. He had a sort of vivacity about him, that not even the faded, dusty photograph could hide."He looks like a pretty cool guy. Where is he, anyhow?"

Eddie's smile faded. "He was killed, while we were chasing down a crook."

Oswald's ears drooped in shock and sadness. "Aw gee, I'm sorry to hear that. I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories..."

Eddie waved him off. "It's alright. I've made my peace with him long ago. In fact, it's rather lucky you brought that up, 'cause that last case has a lot to do with what usually goes wrong in a baseline loop."

Eddie and Oswald then spent a good portion of the next hour going over the death of Teddy Valiant at Judge Doom's hands, how Doom bought the election in Toontown, and his plan to DIP Toontown off the face of the Earth. By the end, Oswald was shaking his head in disgust. "I can't believe any straight-thinking Toon would do all of that. And you dealt with that in the baseline?"

"Pretty much. 'Course, it took me a while to piece it all together, and it cost R.K. Maroon his life when Doom shot him mid-confession."

Oswald nodded slowly, as he processed this information, and thought of ways to throw the mad Toon's plans off the rails. He was at "call Mickey, and have him go Sorcerer's Apprentice on the lot", when he heard a car screech to a halt outside. He and Eddie shared a look. "Toon Patrol," they said in unison, right before leaping into action. Oswald jumped into the sink, and hid in the drain, while Eddie filled it with water, and began to wash his socks.

Right on cue, the roar of a machine gun cut through the air, as one of the weasels shot the lock off of the door. The weasels barged into the room, roughly shoving aside the filing cabinet, and began to search the place quite thoroughly. The head weasel, Smarty, pulled up a stool, then hopped up on it, so he could look Eddie in the eye. "Okay, wise guy. Where's the rabbit?" he snapped, pointing his pistol at Eddie to show that he meant business.

"Haven't seen him," Eddie replied nonchalantly, as he continued his laundry.

Smarty sniffed the water suspiciously. "What's in there?"

Eddie promptly pulled out a sock. "My lingerie."

Smarty turned away in disgust, giving Oswald enough time to come up for a brief gulp of air. He ducked back down right before Smarty whipped his head around. He glared at Eddie, narrowing his eyes. "Search the place, boys!" he ordered. "And leave no stone unturned."

While Eddie was dealing with the Weasels, Oswald suddenly got a brilliant idea. He could use the pipes connected to the drain to pop out elsewhere in the apartment! He sucked in his gut, wriggled a bit, and found himself sliding through the pipes with minimal difficulty. Twisting and turning, he moved through the pipes, until he saw light up ahead.

When he popped his head out of the shower drain, he saw himself looking at a rather frumpy-looking woman, who was just about to step into the shower.

For three agonizing seconds, they just stared at each other.

Then the woman screamed.

* * *

Eddie had just shoved the soap bar into Smarty's mouth, and was enjoying the ensuing chaos, when a loud scream reverberated throughout the apartment. Smarty stopped mid-tirade when he heard the scream, then motioned for his boys to follow him. "We'll be keeping an eye on you, Valiant," he drawled. "One wrong step, and we'll hang you, and your laundry out... to dry." He splashed some water at Eddie to emphasize his threat, then hopped down from the stool. "C'mon boys! The rabbit might be where that scream came from. Let's am-scray!"

Not a few minutes after the weasels left, Oswald popped back out of Eddie's sink, blushing furiously. Eddie just gave him a deadpan look. "Let me guess: you tried the pipes."

"Yeah. How'd ya know?"

"Roger tries that roughly half the time, if we haven't handcuffed ourselves together first. He always ends up bumping into the lady a few doors down."

Oswald was now wringing out his ears. "You don't say."

"Yep. Luckily, I know a place where you can lie low for a while. Follow me."

* * *

9.4 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]

WHO FRAMED OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT? (PART 4)

Eddie ducked his head when he entered the hidey-hole next to the bar, to avoid hitting the lamp. It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to start doing that, though he usually had the excuse of dealing with Roger's shenanigans at the same time. Dolores switched on the light, while Oswald looked around with some interest.

"Nice place, Dolores. Tell me, when are the gin runners coming to claim it?" he asked only slightly sarcastically, as he hopped onto a crate, and started swinging his legs.

"Rabbit's sharper than he looks," Dolores said. "But then, he'd have to be, to avoid getting pinched by the cops by now."

Dolores gave Eddie a sidelong look. "Besides, I thought that you said that you'd never take another Toon case. What's the matter Eddie? Have a change of heart?"

"Nothing's changed," Eddie snapped. "Somebody's made a patsy out of me, and I'm gonna find out why!" He pulled out the photo of Ortensia and Marvin Acme, with Acme's pocket circled in red pen. "There! Take a look at that, then tell me that my theory behind Marvin Acme's death is crazy."

Dolores took the photo, and Eddie's magnifying glass with some reluctance, then looked at the circled area, her expression changing from neutral to surprised in the process. "The Last Will and Testament of Marvin Acme?"

"Exactly! The connections are obvious. We know that Marvin Acme owns all of Toontown, in addition to the Gag Factory. That's ripe property for anyone who deals with Toons, like the big animation studios. R.K. Maroon wants Toontown so he can corner the Toon market, but he knows that if Acme's will turns up after he dies, Toontown will go to the Toons, which will give them some much-needed political leverage against studios like Maroon Cartoons. So, he comes up with a plan: Ortensia swipes the will during one of their patty-cake sessions and disposes of it discreetly, then Maroon whacks Acme, leaving Toontown in a perfect position to be bought up by Maroon Cartoons. You with me so far?"

Dolores nodded in understanding. Oswald had taken one of his ears off, and was polishing it with a handy rag.

"Now, all Maroon needs to make the crime foolproof is a couple of saps to take the fall when the murder inevitably comes to light. So, he hires me to take pictures of Ortensia and Acme, knowing full well that Oswald will go berserk when he sees them, and thus establish a motive for the murder. Cops don't look into it too deeply, since Oz is a Toon, and I'm a drunk, and Maroon is free and clear."

Oswald stuck his ear back in place. "Wait. Your big theory is that my boss killed Acme to get Toontown, and roped my wife into this as an accomplice?"

"Yeah, I know how it sounds. That's why I need more evidence before I go talk to Santino. Dolores, I'm gonna need your help for this one."

Dolores put the photo on the table. "Sure, Eddie. What do you need?"

"I need you to go down to the probate, and check their records for anything that they have pertaining to acquisitions or purchases of the property of Marvin Acme."

Oswald idly looked out of the peephole. "Probate, huh? I once worked with this gremlin Toon who had trouble with his probate. The poor geezer needed to take these huge pills before he could do a shoot-"

"Not prostate, you idiot! Probate!"

"Whoops! Always get those two mixed up..."

Eddie turned towards Dolores, and hooked a thumb at Oswald. "Can he stay here for a day or two, until the heat dies down?"

Dolores shot Oswald a worried look. "He's not going to do anything weird, is he?"

Oswald took the opportunity to remove one of his legs, and use it as a backscratcher, making pleased noises in the process.

The two humans just looked at each other, before Dolores sighed, and walked upstairs.

When she was out of earshot, Oswald popped his leg back in place. "So, Eddie, why the bull-hooey theory about Maroon?"

Eddie sighed as he leaned against the wall. "Well, we both know that Doom and his phony company is behind all of this, but nobody else knows for certain. We won't be able to nail that dirtbag and make it stick unless we get some concrete evidence of Cloverleaf doing its dirty dealings on the quiet, but if we move openly, the law will be all over us like ugly on Lena Hyena. After all, who do you think people are going to side with, if push goes to shove: the drunk PI and the murderous Toon rabbit, or the one guy who can control the Toons with any degrees of success?"

Oswald nodded reluctantly. He could see the logic behind Eddie's reasoning, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "It still feels bad that we have to lie to her, though."

Eddie nodded gravely. "I know, kid. Believe me, I know. Still, once we get Doom, we can explain everything to her at the big denouement. I happen to know for a fact that she takes it pretty well, considering."

"If you say so, Eddie. But, if we meet up with Ortensia, we're telling her everything. Got that?"

Eddie smiled. "Loud and clear."

* * *

9.5 Leviticus Wilkes): [Big Hero 6]

"This test... yaaaah... Eighty four. Beg..."

Tadashi Hamada, for a nearly imperceptible second, found himself feeling split between two places. In one, he was standing in front of his greatest creation... and in the other, he was burning to death. Blinking hard, Tadashi stared at Baymax, inert and asleep. But... wasn't Baymax working? And where was the exposition, and Hiro, and Callahan, and...?

Tadashi was standing in his sunlit workshop, staring at Baymax, all the way back on the day he turned Baymax on. "What the hell..."

Baymax, at that moment, engaged itself. "Hello. I am Baymax, your personal healthcare unit. Are you in need of medical attention?"

Tadashi stared at his greatest... creation? "Uh... I think I need psychiatric help."

Baymax leaned towards Tadashi. "I am currently programmed with psychiatric procedures. Would you like me to exercise them."

"I..." Tadashi vaguely, but not consciously, realized that Baymax was talking about a subject he had not been programmed to know. "Actually Baymax, try scanning me."

"Scan complete. Your body has no physical injuries. Your brain has heightened endorphin and hormone levels, indicating stress and confusion, symptoms of severe exhaustion, or sudden changes in setting."

Tadashi rubbed at his head, trying to place himself. "No injuries, no burns, no smoke inhalation... but I was there. I was right there in the building. How could-"

"Tadashi."

Tadashi nearly jumped out of his skin when Baymax said his name. Despite be a massive huggable marshmallow, Baymax could have a surprisingly small presence. "Uh... Yes Baymax?"

"Were you recently in danger of: smoke inhalation, suffocation, third degree burns or worse, crush syndrome, lacerations, or heat stroke?" The robot said.

Tadashi stared at Baymax, the pieces inching together ever so slowly. "You... you know about the fire..."

Tadashi got the distinct impression that Baymax was smiling. "Diagnosis: looper. I have now updated all known acquaintances to assist in improving your mental state."

"What?"

Further comment was delayed by a yellow discus that went through the lock to Tadashi's workshop and missed the inventor and his creation by a hair. "TADASHI!" Gogo lunged through the door and tackle hugged her friend, followed immediately by Fred.

"Guys, what-"

Hiro appeared with a crack, and lunged at his brother. "TADASHI YOU'RE AWAKE!"

"But guys I'm-"

"Tadashi!" Honey Lemon stepped out of a portal that had appeared from thin air and joined the group hug, followed by Wasabi almost instantly.

"Uhh..."

Tadashi and company overbalanced and fell.

* * *

"So let me get this straight: time travel."

Honey nodded from behind her shake.

"Parallel and alternate dimensions."

"You're on the money bro," Fred said around his pizza.

"Computer god trees."

Gogo popped her gum. "Yup."

"Magic and science from across a multiverse."

Wasabi patted down his lips with a napkin. "Exactly Tadashi."

"And my brother... is ancient."

"Wow, you all sound like you're having fun," Cass Hamada said as she walked by. The six sitting loopers and Baymax, who was standing, all gave Cass idle greetings and some light thanks for the free food from her cafe. Tadashi watched his aunt walk by with more then a little surprise and amazement. "So time resets infinitely?"

Hiro nodded. "That's why we call it the infinite loops."

Tadashi thought it over, before realizing how HUGE everything had just become, and dropped his head into the table. "Oh god... everything's messed up now."

The Big Hero Six (alternatively, Fred's Angels, alternatively alternatively, the San Fransokyo Angels) shared a very worried look. Tadashi had never seemed to be the sort of person that could be susceptible to Setsuna Syndrome, but if he did develop it...

"Oh all my work is going to be useless if I can't carry it with me," Tadashi groaned.

Hiro smiled and tapped Tadashi's shoulder. "Hey Tadashi, watch this." With his brother's eyes on him, Hiro pulled back his sleeve ("nothing up it"), and then upended his hand. Microbots came raining out. "This is a subspace pocket. I'll teach you how to make one in a while."

"Wow..." Tadashi grabbed a Microbot. "Hiro, you never cease to amaze me."

Hiro chuckled and fist bumped his brother. "Trust me, you haven't even begun to see everything."

* * *

9.6 (Blazingen1): [Kingdom Hearts]

**Sora's Keyblades**

Sora had learnt from his loops that just as many things may vary loop to loop, so do Keyblades. Sometimes they are normal (by loop standards at least), and sometimes they're just plain ridiculous. Sometimes they aren't even key 'blades' at all, but some other combination. As he looked at some of the odder Keyblade variants in his Pocket, his mind wandered back to the times he used them.

**Keydagger**

Sora hid in the shadows as Xemnas's forces walked past. If a Keyblade wielder was similar to a knight, Keydagger wielders were more like Ninjas in the shadow. This was a fused loop with the Ancient Looper Naruto's world.

With a soft flash, Oathkeeper and Oblivion appeared in both his hands. They were shorter in length due to this loop's variant of Keyblades.

"It's a good thing I learned to wield dual daggers back in the Ragnarok Loop that time."

**KeyHammer**

The chest was smashed to bits as a giant hammer version of Kingdom Key was tapped on it. Sora struggling to carry the heavy weapon made the scene all too funny.

"Of course the Keyhammer can open any lock," Sora muttered under his breath, "It practically smashes any lock open."

"Don't tell me you're already sick of the Keyhammer?" asked Riku, who for some reason was able to lift his own hammer version of the Way to Dawn.

"... How can you carry that thing with just one arm?"

"Why haven't you tried using magic to lighten your load?"

Sora was blank faced. He looked at his keyhammer, then at Riku; then back to his keyhammer and then to Riku's.

"Oh," Sora said as he now lifted Kingdom Key weightlessly.

**KeyCannon**

"WHOOOO HOOOO! YEAH!"

Sora swung from the ropes of the ship as he used his current weapon, 'Pirate's Life' to blast the Heartless off Jack Sparrow's ship.

"'Pirate's Life for me' is a pretty good description for this thing!"

**Key... (Just Key)**

Sora looked at his Kingdom Key that sat at the palm of his hand. This Loop, all Keyblades were the size of real keys.

"...So how did Xehanort cause the worlds to plunge into darkness with these things?" Sora asked the Looping!Mickey, who sat on the throne as his King Mickey persona.

"Trust me Sora, you don't want to know." The in-loop memories showing the horror Xehanort managed to make with the tiny trinkets were something he wished not to pass on, especially not to a good person like Sora.

"And the heartless being the size of bugs is because?"

**MonKey (Yep, that pun)**

"Gaaaahh! Get him off of me!!!!"

Riku and Kairi watched as their Anchor ran around screaming alongside a MonKey that was clinging onto Sora for dear life. Both were panicking at the presence of the other.

Riku, learning from in-loop memories, that the MonKey will mimic your emotions, which is why his MonKey sat quietly on his shoulders, while panicking Sora had a panicking MonKey clinging onto his face.

"What's wrong with him?" asked the rather concerned Kairi, who had her own MonKey beside her.

"He had a bad experience with monkeys a few loops back. He'll be fine in a few loops."

**MicKey**

Sora was speechless as he looked at his weapon for this loop.

Mickey, who was for some reason stiff as a board, was attached to the hilt.

"Just... Go with it," Mickey sighed in acceptance. _Pun loops. It just had to be pun loops._

* * *

9.7 (Blazingen1): [Kingdom Hearts]

**Sora's Keyblades Part 2**

As once said, Keyblade variants sometimes can be fairly ridiculous...

**LeaBlade:**

"Doesn't this thing usually happen to Sora? You okay there Axel?"

"Why am I the blade? And it's Lea this time, not Axel."

"Alright then. Lea it is. I have to admit though. You make a pretty good heartless fighting weapon."

**Keybread:**

"What?" Riku was horribly confused when he summoned his Keyblade, but instead got a 'Keybread', 'Bake to Dawn'.

"Yup! Our Keyblades are edible this loop." Sora said excitedly as he summoned his own baguette looking Keybread.

"It'll probably feel weird to bash heartless with these things," Riku said rather annoyed.

"It's not that bad; we've had worse Keyblade variants plus, look!"

Sora bit off a bit of his Keybread, much to Riku's astonishment. The Keybread began to regenerate immediately, "Infinite bread!" Sora bit off a bigger chunk of bread this time.

"..."

"What?" Sora asked with his mouth stuffed with bread.

"...Nothing." 'Sora, you are really weird sometimes.'

**Meblade:**

"Ow ow ow!" muttered Sora as he swung his Meblade at the heartless around him until they were completely annihilated.

"Sorry. I know it hurts, but that's the way it is this loop."

In this loops, the Meblades were in fact copies of their wielders, like the time Mickey became a keyblade, only this time, since the blade is formed from the wielder, they too shall feel the pain inflicted by swinging it at enemies. Thus for the Kingdom Hearts loopers, there was a kind of Mikasa Glitch going on between Meblade and Meblade wielder.

"Why can't we use our own Keyblades again?"

"Because we can't access our Pockets this loop?" he answered rhetorically. Damn those hackers!

(A little later)

"So if Meblades are the thing, that means Xehanort had one too. Do you think he actually enjoys using...?"

"Whoa whoa whoa. We do not want to go there."

"Right! Right! Sorry. Save the therapy for when we _really_ need it."

* * *

...and sometimes they can be very awesome.

**Keytar:**

"Wow! You're really good at this Riku." Sora and Riku were eliminating the Heartless with the power of music. Riku was unsurprisingly really good at using his Keytar, playing his in a fast paced rock music rhythm.

"I had practice in a hub loop as a band member," replied Riku.

"Besides, you should have seen Mickey use his! He literally brought the house down on Ansem (the Xehanort one)."

**KiBlade (Dragonball)**

It was the battle of the thousand heartless, and man were there a lot of them.

"HYAAAAAAH!"

Luckily Sora was prepared for it. He slammed his large blue Kiblade to the ground surrounding the heartless, the wave generated from it easily eliminating more that 200 of them.

"FIIIIIIIRRRREEEEEE!!!!!"

A large Firaga Laser launched from the KiBlade and swept across the heartless army.

"SAAALLVAAATIOOOON!!!!!"

Sora then swept his blade around himself as blinding light launched across the heartless, eliminating them all.

The battle was practically over in 10 seconds.

Donald and Goofy, both wearing cork earplugs on their ears, peeked through the barricade they made for themselves and then teleported themselves to the exhausted Sora, who was panting from expending so much ki.

"Did you really have to yell so loud?" asked Donald as he removed his earplugs.

"It's (pant) anime logic. (Pant) The louder you scream, the stronger the attack."

"I can't argue with that logic, ahyuk."

* * *

9.8 (wildrook; edits by OathToOblivion): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Kamen Rider]

Blade Blade:

"This might tickle a bit, Kenzaki-san," Sora muttered, almost wondering HOW he ended up working with the Destroyer of Worlds.

"Again?" Kenzaki Kazuma, Kamen Rider Blade, asked him. Kadoya Tsukasa, Kamen Rider Decade, rolled his eyes as he threw Blade's Final Form Ride Card into the Decadriver.

**FINAL FORM RIDE: BL-BL-BL-BLADE!**

This changed Blade into a giant version of the Blay Rouzer, the Blade Blade, for Sora to wield. Decade himself grabbed the Keyblade as Sora caught the Blade Blade.

Surprisingly, the Kingdom Key then changed into a magenta bar-coded Keyblade known as "Ride The Wind," which matched his own style. He also wondered why this next Card had a time limit on it. Whatever, they needed to get rid of Kurt Zisa. So, he tossed it into the Decadriver.

**ATTACK RIDE: LIMIT BREAK!**

"DECADE!" Sora yelled, using the Blade Blade to strike Kurt Zisa from the front while Decade used the Keyblade he was borrowing to slash through the Heartless' behind. After a few strikes, Sora tossed the Blade Blade to Decade as the Keyblade respawned in Sora's hand, striking the giant Heartless down in both areas. Decade then threw Blade's Final Attack Ride Card into the Decadriver.

**FINAL ATTACK RIDE: BL-BL-BL-BLADE!**

Both Sora and Tsukasa had gone for a final slash, Kurt Zisa collapsing onto the ground and exploding... and Kamen Rider Blade changed back to Rider Form.

"This is not one of my better Loops," Blade muttered.

"The A.R. Riders don't complain as much about Final Form Rides," Decade replied with a roll of his eyes.

Sora shook his head, before something occurred to him. "By the way, what happened to Yuusuke?" he asked them.

"Tried to safeguard the Princess," Onodera Yuusuke, the AR World Kamen Rider Kuuga, muttered as he arrived. "However, some weird guy dressed in red and black beat me to it."

"Red and black..." Sora said, then cringed. "You ran into Vanitas!?!"

Decade groaned, as something from his Loop Memories hit him. Blade just looked at them in confusion.

"Bad guy?" he asked the three.

"Very," Sora replied. "He's technically the darkness within my friend Ven's heart in human form...sorry for asking another favor out of you guys, but if he's out and about, something's up."

Decade then gave out a scoff. "It's another day at the office for a Passing Through Kamen Rider..."

"Well, I suppose it's nice to know that you never change, Tsukasa," Kuuga said, shaking his head.

Blade sighed. "Guess this puts my plans for this Loop on hold this time," he lamented. "I'll inform the other Riders about this... if they're Awake, of course."

* * *

9.9 (Hvulpes): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Star Wars]

Luke waked into the bathroom, only to see Phineas and Ferb using it.

Ferb spoke, "It had to be done."

As Luke saw Chewie in the bathtub getting wash, he realized they were giving a Wookie a shower.

* * *

9.10: [Star Wars] / [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [The Little Mermaid]

A long time ago, in a Galaxy far far away... three people were trapped in an Elevator that showed them places all over the multiverse.

These are the floors where they witnessed Disney Loopers.

(wildrook): Floor 63

"What's that sound?" Tarkin asked them.

Vader and Leia, wondering what Tarkin meant, heard the familiar music that was associated with a certain incident in one of their friends.

The door opened to reveal... a sapient broom with arms? Carrying buckets of water?

Tarkin, being the unawake one, wondered what kind of droid that was.

"That's not a droid," Vader said, shocking Tarkin. He was looking around the area to see if someone was around. "And if it wasn't for the force-field, the place would be flooded by now."

Leia then groaned. "How early are we?" she asked Vader.

"Let me put it this way... even Lord Diz-Ni had his off days..."

As soon as he said that, a certain mouse Woke Up... in both ways.

"Oh no, not again," he muttered. "Master Yen Sid may have thought it was funny the first time, but Waking Up in the middle of it? Good thing I remembered how to stop it."

He then extended his arms and slowed the broom to a halt with magic... as he sighed.

He then looked at the people in the elevator... then sighed.

"Elevator Loop?" he asked Vader and Leia. "With someone NOT Looping?"

Both of them nodded.

"Never heard of Lord Diz-Ni," Tarkin muttered. "Isn't there a rule concerning..."

"Normally, yes," Vader replied, "but this is him in his early stage. Being an apprentice is hard work."

"If you guys are finished," Mickey said, "I need to get rid of the excess water before something else happens."

That's when the door closed.

"And I was about to say the hat suited him," Leia muttered.

* * *

(Blazingen1): Floor 1013

The elevator opened to reveal a white room with three figures fighting. Awake!Sora and Awake!Riku were in their final battle against Xemnas in his armoured form, during the part where they reflected Xemnas's red aerial blade away. Sora and Riku were in overdrive, but that didn't stop them from looking at the elevator that appeared in thin air.

"Hey Mansex!" yelled Vader.

Xemnas actually turned away from his opponents and glared at the offending black armoured man.

"Ha! You responded!" said Vader, "F*ck off, Sith Lord wannabe!" The dark figure then flipped him the bird.

This distracted Xemnas enough so that both Sora and Riku could laser blast him into oblivion (or at least until he comes back again).

"Hey, Anakin! Hey, Leia!"

"Hello Sora."

The elevator doors then closed just as they were saying their goodbyes.

* * *

(Gamerex27): FLOOR 20000

The doors opened to reveal the seafloor, with dozens of little sea creatures swimming everywhere and singing.

A redheaded mermaid swam up to the elevator. "Leia? So _that's_ what your human body looks like!"

"Hey, Ariel," Leia greeted her fellow princess. "How have the Loops been so far?"

"There are a few creepy Variants," she said, "like the one where my lower body feels like it's on fire whenever I get legs. Or the one where there are those painful tuna nets everywhere."

"Don't even get her _started_ on the pollution ones," Flounder muttered.

"But other then that," she continued, "I'm fine. How are you?"

"Pretty fishie!" Tarkin cooed, much to Vader's discomfort. "Look at the pretty fishie!"

"Elevator prank," Leia explained. "We've been in here for... a few days now, I think... and Tarkin's lost it."

"Well, I'd try to give you something to help, but since everything's blocked off in those... I guess we'll just have to say good luck!"

"Right. See you at the next Eden Hall princess meeting," Leia said, as the elevators slid closed and Vader wiped more of Tarkin's drool off his leg again.

* * *

9.11 (katfairy): [Frozen] / [Batman Beyond]

Terry Awoke at the rail of an old-school wooden ship as it sailed into a ridiculously picturesque harbor. He'd gotten pretty good at judging how Loops compared to his baseline; this looked vaguely Victorian-era, judging from the clothes. He wasn't a sailor in this Loop, which had been his immediate guess; in fact, judging from his clothes, he was stinking rich. Then his Loop memories hit and it took all his training not to swear hard enough to crash the Loop, which he still couldn't believe was a thing. He wasn't just rich. He was the second-youngest of twelve princes, Prince Terje, which was as close as this language could get to Terry, and he was here to make sure his little brother didn't cause any trouble. Such as seducing a princess to gain access to her kingdom.

He had experience in dealing with bratty little brothers, but this was the first time he'd had to deal with one that was working on becoming evil. The twip thought that just being royalty entitled him to anything he wanted, and had no qualms about taking it by whatever means necessary. He'd been that way from the time he was a toddler, throwing temper tantrums any time someone told him "no", graduating to stealing his brothers' toys, to deliberately breaking them, to... wow. This guy was a dreg, no question. He acted like he'd realized he'd gone too far, and in return people pretended to believe him. This visit was his final chance to prove himself, and Terry had been sent as insurance.

As the ship docked, Terry could hear music. An entire orchestra, in fact. And a girl singing happily about something happening for the first time in forever. And absolutely nobody reacted to this as though it was strange. Yeah, it was going to be one of those Loops.

The girl appeared soon enough, dressed in a green gown almost as expensive as his outfit. She was pretty, if a bit awkward, and he wondered if he was going to have to fish her out of the harbor at the end of her song. That was how musical numbers sung by pretty but awkward girls near any water larger than a kitchen sink tended to end, after all. And sure enough, just after they docked, she started to go in. His brother had been watching too, with that too-innocent expression on his face, but Terry was faster. Before his brother even had a chance, Terry had swung down on a convenient rope (because of course there was one) and plucked her out of harms' way. Well, embarrassment's way, at least. She looked up at him as he set her down on the dock, hero worship in her eyes. He was so doomed.

"Uh, thanks. For- for saving me. Not that I can't swim, but—I'm Anna."

"Terje. Or Terry, depending on how you like to pronounce it."

"Terry. What a nice name. Oh! I—Bye!" And she was gone, dashing back toward the castle, and even from behind he could swear he could see the glow of her blush. Well, at least if she had a crush on him she wouldn't be likely to fall prey to Hans. But why was it that he couldn't seem to go a single Loop without someone getting a crush on him?

"Nice work, brother," Hans said with apparent sincerity. "Very swashbuckling."

"I just reacted."

"Of course you did." Hans went back onto the ship to gather his belongings; Terry's were already on shore, since he'd gathered them before Awakening. He used the time to send out a Ping, and was glad to get one back. He had done a few as-good-as-solo Loops, when nobody had responded to his Ping, and it was never as satisfying. He didn't expect to hear a voice almost immediately afterwards, though.

"I wondered if you were a Looper. Welcome to Arendelle; name's Kristoff. Where's home for you?"

Terry turned to find a big burly peasant smiling at him. Kristoff had spoken quietly enough that they wouldn't be overheard, and Terry responded the same way.

"Gotham. That girl—she's a princess, isn't she? Is she in danger? Or is she our plucky young heroine?"

"Yes. So, I'm guessing that you're not new to the Loops, even if it is your first time here. We need to talk, but this isn't the place. Can you get an hour or so away from your brother?"

"We're staying at our embassy, so that should be pretty easy. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye on him, but he'll take hours to get ready for the coronation. Can you meet me by the way the servants use to sneak out at night? I'm pretty sure there is one, and I can find them pretty quick most of the time. Yeah, that sounded less sketchy in my head," Terry admitted as Kristoff's smile turned into a grin.

"I'll be there," was all he said before he left. Hans came back a few minutes later, and for the next hour, Terry was busy getting them settled into their country's embassy. As expected, Hans no sooner got into his room than he ordered a bath followed by a string of carefully worded requests that never sounded unreasonable but added up to a fair amount of pampering. Terry didn't argue, since it meant Hans would be busy until it was time to go. Terry simply laid out his own outfit, asked for a bath to be ready in three hours, and considered that to be good enough. That done, he slipped down the back stairs, and within seconds of stepping into the garden he'd spotted the little door half-hidden behind the vines.

"Okay, so what's the story here?" he asked as soon as the door closed behind him. Kristoff had been waiting in the alley, which was clean and quiet.

"The girl you rescued is Princess Anna, and in baseline it was Hans who did that. You can guess how things went after that. But that's actually not the important part." Kristoff's story was straight out of a fairy tale: a princess with ice powers, cryptic advice from magic creatures, betrayal, and true love. It was a little disappointing to learn that both princesses were unAwake Loopers, as he would have enjoyed comparing notes with them too, but oh, well. "So, I don't mind her crushing on you, since she's not Awake and nobody from the Bat crowd is going to pull anything on her that I'd have to stop. Because I would. Not that I think you would, but..."

"Nah, I get it. I've done the same thing with my girlfriend when she's fallen for another Looper. Of course, she's not Looping, but still. I'll try to keep Hans away from Anna, but I don't think that's going to prevent some other kind of blowup. Elsa sounds like a time bomb. No offense, but those trolls of yours really screwed up on that."

"No, that's fair," Kristoff shrugged. "Elsa's told me the exact wording enough times that I've got it memorized, and if I'd been her parents, I'd probably have thought the same as they did. I've called them on it any number of times, but they aren't Looping either, and I'm never Awake early enough to do anything about it."

"Well, that sucks."

"Yeah. Both girls need therapy at this point in the Loop, and I'm not really very good at being as tactful as I should be for that kind of thing. Also, peasant. There's no way I'd be allowed in the castle to help. It's all on you, unless one of them Awakens later. No pressure."

"None at all."

They talked a while longer, and Kristoff made sure that Terry had as much detailed knowledge of the events of the next day or so as he could cram into a couple of hours. There were so many little things that could go wrong; still, if Elsa did freak out and run from the castle, the Loop tended to follow the pattern. It was quite railroading, but it was similar enough that Terry would know exactly where to head to intervene at any given moment. Both agreed that the best thing to do if things went all Fimbulwinter was to make sure Terry would be with Kristoff and Anna when they tracked down Elsa. Kristoff would be leaving as soon as he was done talking to Terry, making sure that he would be in place to rescue Anna once she fell in the stream. Not before, though; he wanted her in a more sensible outfit for traveling and experience had told him that she wouldn't voluntarily waste time on silly things like clothes that would keep her from freezing to death. They wished each other luck and went their separate ways.

* * *

Terry awoke, this time without the capital A, head throbbing, in the dark. He had expected Hans to pull something, but being sucker-punched and... was he? Yep, locked in a trunk... was a bit much. He took a few seconds to decide how best to handle this, then shrugged and pulled his wand out of his Pocket. One quick Blasting spell and the trunk was splinters raining down around the room; a casual onlooker might get the impression that Terry was a bit peeved. The wand went back in, and he stormed down the stairs, bellowing orders to find Hans and arrest him. He knew it wouldn't do much good, but the evidence he showed that Hans had attacked him (mainly, the bump on his head and the fact that Hans had lied about Terry's having left early for the coronation) was a good foundation for later. His next order was for a horse from the stable that was both sturdy and fast, and for a riding costume that wouldn't leave him with frostbite. Since the blizzard had already enveloped Arendelle, nobody argued. As soon as he was changed, he left one last order: send someone to find the ambassador and tell him what had happened. Then he jumped on an impressively large dapple-grey horse and thundered away in proper fairy-tale fashion.

He didn't think he'd been out for too long, but he'd bet Anna was more than halfway to her ice bath by now. He'd head for the store where Kristoff had met her in baseline. He got there almost an hour before they did; he hadn't been out for as long as he'd thought.

"Terry? What are you doing here? How's your head?" Anna stared at him, ignoring her icy clothes. "Hans told me you had a bad headache."

"Yeah, well, since he's the one who bashed me over the head, he should know."

"What a jerk," Kristoff muttered. "Told you the guy had a bad reputation."

"But he was so sweet to me," she said. "Why would he do that?"

"Because you're a princess and next in line to the throne," Terry said bluntly. "I was sent to keep him away from you, because our parents knew that you'd been sealed away in that castle most of your life and probably hadn't had much company outside of books. That's bad enough for anyone, but for a royal, that's a recipe for disaster. You're smart, I can see that, but some things have to be learned by just getting out into the world and meeting people. Look, I don't know all of what's going on, and I hope you'll tell me, but first you need to get into something dry and warm."

Anna stared at him still, but finally bit her lip and accepted the only warm outfit available. Terry wasn't surprised that both fit and color were perfect for her. She explained her side of the story through the closed door as she changed, and Terry winced. So far, he hadn't done much but keep her from falling for Hans. That was better than nothing, but from things she let slip, Hans was not willing to settle for being friend-zoned. The three men in the shop exchanged grimaces.

"Nice girl, but too sheltered," the shopkeeper sighed. "These royals need a good dose of reality sometimes. Could be worse; at least she and her sister aren't like those step-sisters of the princess in the kingdom just south of here. I could tell you stories..."

"I was down there once," Kristoff said. "Heard 'em sing. Good thing is, it cleared out that impacted ear wax."

"I really hope that's the most disgusting thing I hear today," Terry deadpanned.

"No fair challenging me when we have to ride with Anna."

Terry just grinned.

* * *

Kristoff had told him about the spat with the wolves, which wasn't too hard to avoid, along with a few other incidents they could skip to save time. It would mean getting to Elsa before she made the giant psycho snowman, which Terry wasn't all that eager to meet. The whole thing was reminding him of the many and varied ways he failed to save Victor Fries from either falling into Derek Powers' hands or being stuck as a disembodied head forever, and evil snow was hitting a little too close to home after his last Loop. Thankfully, the first living snow creature he met was anything but.

"Kristoff! Hi! Who's our new friend?"

Introductions were made, and they continued towards Elsa's ice castle. By knowing all the difficulties in advance, they were able to avoid them, arriving at the castle hours earlier than they had in baseline, according to Kristoff's muttered aside. As they crossed the bridge, Terry began to whistle a tune his grandmother for one Loop had loved. To his surprise, Kristoff groaned.

"You had to do that, didn't you? Now I'm gonna have that stuck in my head for years!"

Terry just cackled dementedly. He hadn't expected anyone to recognize the tune, but he was always happy to torment people with it when they did. As far as he was concerned, it was the single schmaltziest song in all the Loops, and he put great effort into avoiding hearing anything worse. But they were entering the castle now; time to get serious.

Elsa's new dress was distracting, but Terry reminded himself that Dana would kick his ass and focused his mind on getting her straightened out before Hans and that guy from Weaseltown or whatever the name of that country was showed up with their mob. But first they had to convince her that she wasn't going to Doom Them All by accident.

"It's not safe for me to be around people!" she insisted. "Look outside! At least if I stay here, Arendelle will be safe. And you, if you go back there."

"Yeah, about that," Kristoff said. "Arendelle's in a deep-freeze too."

Elsa's eyes grew wide, and the light snow around the castle started to intensify. Terry gave Kristoff a dirty look.

"That tact thing? Work on it. Seriously." He turned to Elsa, choosing his words carefully. "Look, the problem here isn't you. It's your training."

"I—I haven't trained this. I've just tried to fight it back."

"Well, there's your problem." Terry mentally dope-slapped himself for the impromptu Mythbusters imitation, and Kristoff returned his dirty look. "Your Highness, you have these powers, and all the pretending in the world won't make them go away. You have to learn control, not repression. It's a lot harder, but it actually works. Have you ever seen what happens to a sealed bottle if it gets heated?"

"I've been working on my control since I got up here," Elsa said. "But after so many years, I—I can't. I didn't even know I'd created Olaf. I am trying, I swear I am, but I just can't. Not yet. When I just let myself go, I made this castle. I know when I'm not being scared of myself that I can do wonderful things. But I have to be alone to get that confidence. When there are others around, I'm terrified; I almost killed Anna once, when we were young. She doesn't remember it, but that's how she got that streak in her hair—we were playing, and I slipped, and my magic hit her in the head. Father and Mother took us to the trolls, and they helped Anna, but they said I had to—Oh. Oh, dear. Oh, Father... He meant well, he did, and he was never anything but kind, but he got it wrong, didn't he?"

"Little bit, yeah," Kristoff said.

"Please stop helping," Terry said, wondering if Kristoff was, well, trolling. "Anyway, ignoring him, you can't solve this by hiding. You're going to make mistakes. Everyone does. But there are so many reasons why you need to get used to having people around, and soon."

"Because of Prince Hans' mob of angry... shutting up now," Olaf said. Terry hadn't realized a snowman could blush. He looked back at Elsa, but she didn't look more nervous. If anything, she looked slightly feral.

"Prince Hans, is it?" she said. "The Prince Hans who tried to manipulate Anna?"

"You knew too?" Anna blurted. "Am I the only one who didn't?"

"Anna, before the accident, we left the palace fairly often to play with children of the local nobles. I was old enough to see some of what people could get up to, and our parents warned me about other dangers as I grew older. You never had the chance, and part of that was my fault. I should have insisted on you being allowed to go out. Isolation can make you..." Elsa broke off, frowning. "I'm using your argument, aren't I, Prince Terje?"

"You kinda are."

Elsa thought for a few minutes, and they let her. Outside, the snow thickened and dissipated in turns; they were all relieved when it slowed to a mere flurry, occasional flashes of sunlight visible.

"I'm still not sure about this," she said, "but I have responsibilities. To my people and my sister. Can you help me?"

"We all can," Anna said. "I don't know how, but I want to help. After all, part of this is my fault, and even if it wasn't, you're still my sister. Look—you've even built a snowman, just like we used to. And I'm not afraid of you. I know you'd never deliberately hurt me. And if you do by accident, well, accidents happen even when you're careful. Elsa, please—come home. I've missed having a sister."

"...So have I," Elsa whispered. The two hugged, and the last of the clouds vanished from the sky. Terry heard a loud sniffle next to him and handed Kristoff his handkerchief without looking. An even louder _honk_ followed.

"Don't even think of trying to give that back," he said.

"Okay. But this part always gets me, no matter when in the Loops it comes. It may not be romance, but it is True Love. They are looking through—"

"Do you want to _be_ a snowman? Then finish that sentence. I dare you."

"Do I want to know?" Elsa was looking at them, amused, with Anna grinning by her side.

"They've been like this since we met at that trading post. I don't understand half of what they say, but it's just so much fun to watch."

"Just for that, I think Terry should explain. And sing."

"Oh, no. You brought it up again; you explain. And sing."

"You started it."

"Yeah, but not where anybody but you heard it; Anna was too far ahead."

"Gentlemen..." Elsa's smile was far too sweet, and the ice began to sparkle ominously. Terry and Kristoff looked at each other yet again, cringing. Maybe they were doomed after all.

* * *

" _...Since Iiiiiii fouuuuund yoooooo/ Looking throuuugh the ey-ey-eyes of Looooove_ ," Terry and Kristoff harmonized, Sven yodeling in counterpoint. Elsa and Anna were collapsed in Elsa's throne, helpless with laughter. Olaf was giggling hard enough to dislodge his nose; he held it in one stick hand.

"Oh, dear heavens, that's _awful_ ," Elsa gasped. "And you say this was popular?"

"Yep. And ten years later, nobody remembered it even existed." Terry said.

"Or at least would admit to it," Kristoff snickered.

"Can you blame them?" Anna giggled. "I know I've read too many romances, but none of them were so... sappy."

"It was a heartwarming, inspirational story," Terry said as pompously as he could, bringing out a fresh spate of giggles from the sisters. It wasn't quite how he'd intended to get Elsa to relax, but if it worked, it worked.

"Heartwarming and inspirational," Elsa said. "Two words that strike fear into the hearts of anyone with taste. But I am so using that song for something someday."

"..."

"..."

"Okay, how long have you been Awake?" Terry and Kristoff chorused.

"Since about halfway through the first line. You were performing it so... intently that I just didn't have the heart to interrupt."

"Me neither," Anna said, blushing as she looked at Terry. "Oh, and sorry about that whole hero-worship thing."

"It happens. Every. Single. Loop. Not your fault; I think the damn tree thinks it's funny. I'm sorry it picked on you this time."

"Well, at least I wasn't crushing on ol' Horrible Hans. Ooooo, Elsa, I just had an idea! How quickly can you learn that song?"

* * *

Terry had worried that the Loop was going to be overloaded on drama. As he watched Elsa pretending to throw herself at a panicking Hans who was clearly trying to figure out how to explain that he wanted Anna and not the scary ice witch who could turn him into a jerksicle with a flutter of her eyelashes, while Elsa sang the Worst Song Ever, he knew that his fears were groundless. He and Kristoff had dealt with Weaselduke and his mooks, and Anna had charmed the rest into submission. Olaf helped by being utterly unintimidating. He walked out on the balcony, looked down to Arendelle where the harbor was clear and blue. and smiled. Yep, definitely one of those Loops.

* * *

9.1-9.4: And so a movie retelling begins. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the conclusion was ever written, but I'd like to think it had a happy ending.

9.5: Welcome to the Loops, Tadashi.

9.6: Puns are an occasional fact of life in the Loops.

9.7: "I can't argue with that logic." No. No, you can't.

9.8: For context, Tsukasa and Yuusuke are looping in place of Donald and Goofy, and the original (as in, not A.R.) Kazuma Kenzaki, Kamen Rider Blade, is present. Also, because of the Fused Loop potential... Vanitas is Dark Decade.

9.9: For those unfamiliar, this references a scene from the Phineas and Ferb theme song.

9.10: Elevator Sagas pop up occasionally. For the full Star Wars Elevator Saga, see chapter 12 of _Star Wars Episode Infinity: the Loops_ by Crossoverpairinglover.

9.11: Frozen Beyond.


	12. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Ten

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-10-21. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Ten**

10.1 (LordCirce): [Phineas and Ferb]

**Isabella's Birthday Surprise**

"Phineas and Ferb, what are you two up to?" Candace marched across the yard towards her brothers, Stacy following behind her, eyes rolling.

"It's a surprise, for Isabella's birthday!" Phineas glanced up, Unawake but smiling brightly. Candace froze.

"Isabella's... birthday..." Blinking, she shook her head and spun around. "Right, well, that sounds like fun, but, oh, look at the time, I've got to, run errands. Yeah." Grinning, she pushed the sodas she was carrying into Stacy's arms and dashed out of the yard, leaving Stacy and her brothers to stare after her.

"Wow, Candace sure is busy." Phineas said.

"You could call it that." Stacy sighed. "Well, I guess I will be watching the Grievance by myself. Joy."

* * *

Candace raced down the street. 'Note to self, next time, take the time to grab your bike.' Still, she knew she had plenty of time to put her plan into motion. Isabella had confided a bit in her before the end of last Loop about what she really wanted for her birthday, and Candace had had a crazy idea for how to fulfill it. Plus, she owed Looping Isabella for her help with fighting those weird goo aliens from a couple of loops ago, so she figured this could be a chance to pass it on.

Finally, her goal came in sight. Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated.

Luckily, the elevator was working, so she was able to head straight up to the top floor. She headed over and knocked on the door to Dr. D's lab.

After a couple of minutes, the door opened, and Vanessa peered out. "Oh, hey Candace, what's up?"

"Hi Vanessa. Do you think that I could borrow your dad's hoversled for a little bit?" Candace grinned brightly.

Vanessa blinked. "Sure, I guess. Dad is off driving some sort of bee-mobile, so it's just parked on the roof. Do you even know how to drive it?" Vanessa headed back inside, and Candace followed her in and out to the roof.

"Yeah. I mean, it can't be any more difficult than flying one of Phineas and Ferb's spaceships or monster trucks or walking treehouse robots."

Vanessa raised and eyebrow. "Treehouse robots? You have got to show me some time."

"Sure. Now, before we go, does your dad have any spare cages laying around?"

Vanessa burst out laughing.

* * *

"Alright, make a wish!" Phineas cheered brightly as he and Isabella climbed up the ladder for her to blow out the candles on her massive birthday cake.

Isabella sighed lightly, before closing her eyes to make her wish. 'I wish for time alone with Phineas.' Then, she blew out the candles. With a loud pop, the candles then burst, shooting confetti into the air.

* * *

"There's the signal! Alright, let's do this!"

* * *

"So, did you get what you wished for?" Phineas smiled up at Isabella, but before she could answer, Buford cut in.

"Yeah, because it's every girl's wish to have her backyard covered in litter. Come on you two, next event."

However, before any of them could move, a large hovercraft shot overhead, with a dangling arm shooting down and creating a cage around Phineas and Isabella, whisking them straight off of the ladder. Buford blinked.

"Wait, I thought I was providing the forceful transportation. Someone jacked my gig."

* * *

"Oh no! This isn't part of the plan." Phineas raced around the cage in a panic. "Now the schedule will be all off. The finale is on a timer, and we don't want it going off during the piñata. Don't worry, I'll get us out of here." He quickly started fiddling with the latch of the cage.

Isabella glanced around and noticed something out of the corner of her eye. Someone was leaning over the edge of the hovercraft. She was about to point it out to Phineas when she recognized the figure.

"Candace?"

"Did you say something Isabella?" Phineas glanced over at her, and up above, Candace ducked back out of sight, but not before giving Isabella a thumbs up.

"Oh, uh, I said, um, can you wait? I mean, we are pretty high up, so we should wait till we get lower to try and escape."

Phineas blinked. "Okay. I guess we can wait."

Isabella smiled then sat down on the floor of the cage. "Until then, we can just enjoy the view."

Phineas nodded, distractedly. "Yeah." He sat down next to her and ran his hand over the floor of the cage. "I do have to say, I like the shag carpeting for this cage."

* * *

"So, let me get this straight. You captured your brother and his friend, and we are going to fly them around over the city." Vanessa raised an eyebrow from where she was working the cage controls.

"Yep. Isabella likes Phineas. I have no idea why, but she needs all the help she can get, so I figure we can give them a romantic fly-over for two."

"In a cage." Vanessa was smirking at this point.

Candace rolled her eyes. "Well, it's not like I had a lot of resources to work with. They got the carpeted cage, anyway." Candace blinked, then glanced back at Vanessa. "Why does your dad have a shag carpeted cage?"

Vanessa shrugged. "Something to do with a Static-Clinginator. I don't really remember." Glancing over the side, she blinked twice. "Huh, looks like my dad crashed into a house down there."

Candace glanced over. "Oh hey, that's Stacy's house." Thinking back, Candace realized what must be happening down there. "Eh, she'll be fine."

* * *

10.2 (RockGolem): [Attack on Titan] / [Gargoyles]

Eren saw the giant titan kick through the gate of the outer wall the doors flying through the air and crashing into some of the houses near by. Removing the high tech binoculars he'd been using, the looper turn to the people sitting next to him on top a building close to the second second great wall Rose. "I still say we should kill the titans now and have a nice relaxing loop hanging out with the new guys."

Connie popped some chips into her mouth before telling Eren to "Shut up and enjoy the show."

Jean just shrugged as his eyes moved to the sun which had almost completely set. "Armin says when something cool is going to happen at nightfall and that's good enough for me."

Armin just sat there with a smug look on his face, a few loops ago he had swapped places with someone called Owen Bennett and had been working as a personal assistant for one David Xanatos one of the most awesome and machiavellian loopers he had ever met. So when he awoke this loop and realized what was going on he used his telepathy to connect all the other loopers and told them not to check their memories for this loop and meet him on this building next to the Rose Wall. He'd brought a load of chairs, binoculars and snacks and now as the last of the sun's rays were visibly fading into twilight he turned giddily to the top of Rose Wall where stood close to a thousand statues, each of a hellish demon like form and sitting a couple feet apart from each other. No two were the same the, closest ones ranged from small with wings like those of a flying squirrel attached to his arms and legs to a medium sized one with and large beak in place of a mouth and bat like wings from sprouting from his shoulders to a giant one over nine feet tall his regal features clear through the stone and had his wings drawn around him like a cape.

"Any second now." muttered Armin.

"Well the titans have breached the outer wall so if something is going to happen it needs to happen soon." Sasha said as she put away her binoculars not wanting to see what the titans would do to those unfortunate enough to anywhere near them.

"Look!" shouted Armin as he pointed to the top of the second wall. The loopers turned to see all the statues start to crack at the same time and then with the sounds of stone shattering and roars of powerful animals the statues exploded to reveal creatures of flesh and blood. Eyes glowing, muscles bulging the creatures roared into the night.

"So many colors." said Mikasa as she stared at these creatures who indeed came in many different hues from grey to bright yellow to the purple giant who shouted orders to his kin atop the wall.

"Brothers, sisters, protect our home, protect our human brethren, attack these monsters!" the creatures roared again and then took flight into the night to go forth and battle the titans.

Eren having seen enough looked at his memories and discovered just what was going on. It seemed in this loop humanity had allies in the form of Gargoyles, stone by day warriors by night. As long as humans protected the gargoyles during the day when they were unable to protect themselves the gargoyles would aid the humans in return. Strong enough to bend steel, able to glide through the air with their wings and with talons able to pierce stone they were great warriors and fantastic fighters against titans.

Suddenly a blue blur knocked Armin of his seat and onto the rooftop everyone summoned a weapon from their pockets only to halt as they heard Armin laughing "Hahaha Bronx knock it off that tickles hahaha."

Eren felt the air stir behind him as he heard something settle behind him. "Bronx what are you doing... oh hey Armin!"

Armin finally pushed the blue hell dog off him and turned to the gargoyle with a beak, who turned out to be red colored, and gave him his hand. "Hey Brooklyn welcome to my loop I hope you enjoy your stay with us."

* * *

10.3 (wildrook): [RWBY] / [Beauty and the Beast] / [Snow White] / [Mulan]

"You're not Belle," a voice said. "In fact, you seem rather... beastly yourself."

"I get that a lot," the black-haired woman replied. "You're just nicer than Adam Taurus, from what I've seen."

The beast gave out a chuckle. "Coincidental, but I haven't gone by Adam in a while. You are?"

"Blake Belladonna. Guess that makes me Belle for this Loop."

It wasn't exactly a romance, but a friendship. Probably because Blake wanted to see the Library.

* * *

Weiss was going through her default annoyed expression.

This wasn't because her friends are nowhere to be found, nor is it because she got stuck with the chores of seven little men who mined in the field.

Instead, it was the foresight of an evil queen about to come to her house and offer her a poisoned apple. She was NOT some damsel in distress to be rescued by a prince.

"Yo," a voice said, catching her by surprise.

Weiss's weapon was out as she looked at the man in question, but settled down.

"Well, you're an improvement over the future visitor, at least," she replied to the blond-haired male. "I take it you're the prince, Jaune?"

"Had this been when we first met," he replied, "I think I would have fainted at the opportunity. Still, better me than the Queen. Thank Pyrrha's training that I was able to get out in time, too."

Weiss gave out a small chuckle. "Yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled about her, either. Assassination plots are common where I'm from, and her methods aren't exactly noteworthy in our world. You bring our weapons?"

Jaune nodded as he brought out his sword and shield. "Take it you're up for a spar?"

Weiss then gave out a smirk. "It would be interesting to spar with someone my size this time." Jaune's look was of confusion. "Turns out in this variation, the Dwarves are war veterans and they're mining what's left of the fortress that fell. Surprisingly, Grumpy acts a lot like Jayne Cobb when it comes to battle."

"Oh, I thought they were Awake."

* * *

Within the Imperial Boot Camp, Lie Ren had to maintain the look of a professional in the face of the Emperor's Assistant. He wasn't exactly a speaking man, but after sending out a few pings from at least four or five of his soldiers, he had a sneaking suspicion that he didn't replace his namesake.

That was actually confirmed when he noticed four of them talking like they were old friends, but only three of them were on his list.

'Must be Mulan,' he thought. 'Wonder if that dragon's with her.' "Excuse me," he said, catching them by surprise as they stood to attention. "Can I speak to you four in private?"

"Uh, sure," the smaller one replied. "What for?"

"Well, I need an Anchor to stabilize myself considering I've been thrown for a Loop."

That got the soldier in green in surprise. "My tent's out of the way," the "man" replied. "If you're feeling Loopy, we can talk."

Lie Ren nodded. "Nightfall," he replied. "I have to deal with the Emperor's Secretary staring down my back."

* * *

"I must admit, I didn't expect to meet my namesake," Ren said, looking at the woman in disguise. "I thought I'd end up in a Rule 63 Loop."

"You think that's crazy," a voice replied, "I sometimes end up as a cop in Detroit for some reason. Hey there, new guy. Name's Mushu... and this is Mulan, or rather, Ping."

Mulan rolled her eyes. "Yeah, Mushu tends to wake up in roles by Eddie Murphy more often than we can count," she said. "And you are?"

"Captain Lie Ren for this Loop," Ren replied. "And those three were close friends of yours?"

"Lang, Chen Po, and Yao," Mulan said. "And yes, they're recent Loopers who know my secret and of Mushu. I'm just surprised you replaced Shang."

Ren shrugged. "I felt something was off when Nora wasn't bugging me when I was Awake... in both senses of the term."

"So I take it you're not going to tell anyone about Ping's secret?" Mushu asked him, prompting a nod from the man. "Right, so... what was that about Mulan here being your namesake?"

"Well, it's a long story..."

* * *

10.4 (Awesomedude17): [Mortal Kombat] / [Frozen]

Sub-Zero could only smile at how well he was training his newest pupil this loop.

A strange woman had replaced Frost this time, but as far as he was concerned, she was more humble, in spite of her greater power.

Still, he wondered if the ice powers she had were baseline, or a result of becoming Frost.

That would be a question for later, now he finished up his training session with her.

"Good job Elsa. You are doing well."

"Thank you Grand Master. I must ask you something."

"Hmm?"

"Have you ever felt like you've done something before?"

"I am a looper if that's what you're asking."

"Oh good! I can tell you so much."

 _I knew it._ Sub-Zero chuckled. This would be an interesting talk.

* * *

10.5 (LordCirce): [Frozen] / [Pokémon]

Elsa sighed as she rubbed her forehead. "Ok, run it by me one more time?"

Off to the side, Anna giggled, while Pikachu, or rather Helen this Loop, let out a long breath. "Ok, we are all shrine maidens at Shamouti Island, one for each legendary elemental bird. You have been pestering Anna and I for weeks about going out on an adventure and seeing the world with Articuno, while Anna and I, responsible sisters that we are, have been standing firm on the idea that you have responsibilities here that you can't just abandon for a flight of fancy. You decided to sneak out today, and the two of us just caught you, when we all Woke Up."

Elsa nodded slowly, before shaking her head. "Yes, that's what I thought you said and what I remembered, but I still just can't picture Anna being the responsible one."

"Hey!", Anna put her hands on her hips of her decorative kimono. "I can be plenty responsible." She maintained her scowl for all of three seconds, before breaking down in giggles again.

Elsa smiled at her, before turning around. "Right, well, I'm going to change out of these tight pants and make myself a proper ice dress, and then we can discuss what we will do this Loop."

* * *

10.6 (RockGolem): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Darkwing Duck]

**Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated**

Dr Heinz Doofenshmirtz was putting the finishing touches on the inator of the day when his new warning-system-inator went off "Ah, Perry the Platypus, your coming here is unexpected, and by unexpected I mean COMPLETELY EXPECTED!" He whirled around to trap Perry the Platypus only to not find him but something else instead.

"Sorry Dr Doofenshmirtz but today you don't face the powerful, pint-sized platypus but the newest agent of the Organization Without a Cool Acronym, the masked mallard of mystery instead."

"What are you? Some kind of giant duck who talks, what's with that? And who's your tailor I mean the purple jacket is fine but the purple cape, mask and fedora thats just pushing it. Oh and it's pronounced OH-WAK-AH you genius."

Blue smoke quickly filled the room to the point that mere seconds later Doofenshmirtz couldn't see a thing in front of him. He pulled out his ray-gun-inator just in case and as he put one foot forward a voice boomed out. "I am the Terror that flaps in the night!"

He made his way to where the voice had come from only to spin around as the voice now came from directly behind him. "I am the invention that disappears when you turn your back!"

Heinz twisted around pointing his trembling ray-gun-inator at the all encompassing cloud of smoke. "I am Darkwing Duck." The voice whispered in his ear causing him to freeze in terror. "Now then Dr Doofenshmirtz, Let's get dangerous."

* * *

Perry the Platypus sat on his deck chair on top of the big tree in the Flynn-Fletcher backyard drinking something tasty from a coconut and enjoying his rest. He was happy that Drake Mallard had offered to take over his Doofenshmirtz duties for the loop and hoped both of them had fun.

* * *

10.7 (Hvulpes; wildrook): [Phineas and Ferb]

Doctor Doofenshmirtz said, "I didn't build this Inator for evil, Perry the Platypus. No, I built it for good. To save Danville from the plague which floods its streets. The people are ill, even if they don't look it, don't know it. They are sick and I have the cure with this Inator."

Perry from his tiny cage, look puzzled at the unawake scientist as he pointed to another ray-gun like Inator. Pondering what disease the Mad Scientist was trying to cure with it as Doof continued his monologue. It was soon close to ending...

"Yeah, Danville has a fever, Perry the Platypus. The only cure for the fever is The More-Cowbell-Inator!"

* * *

If Perry could speak in human tongue, his response would have been a flat "What."

* * *

10.8 (kingofsouls): [Frozen] / [Sword Art Online] / [My Little Pony] / [Avatar: Legend of Korra] / [Munchkin - safe-mode Loop] / [Admin Shenanigans] (not compiled in MLP)

Elsa Awoke to the smell of rotting skin, ruined houses, and a darkened sky. Cars were flipped over and broken, and dead bodies that looked half eaten littered the surrounding ground. All in all the feeling of overwhelming helplessness and the end times being the current time.

She sighed. A Zombie Apocalypse loop.

The gnawing unending hunger clued her in about what she was: a zombie. Looking down she saw her decayed flesh, bone sticking out for the added gross factor. Oddly eight canisters with cards were in her rotting hand, depicting cartoonish things.

"Great. A zombie apocalypse loop."

"Better than being a prisoner of a pervert." Else turned to face the speaker, a orange haired young girl with a style of clothing, the coloration white with red highlights. The clothing looked unusual in the zombie setting she currently was in. "....are you looping?"

Elsa nodded, the girl sighing. "Good. This place... it's not exactly... pleasant."

"Well judging from what my sister told me of this one loop where I was a lich sorceress... that's probably an accurate statement." Elsa laughed. "I'm Elsa, Queen of Arendelle."

"Yuuki Asuna." The other girl replied, holding her hand out for Elsa to take, which she did. "So... uh where are we?"

"I do not know..."

"Neither do I." The two girls turned to face the newcomer, a purple dead unicorn, a sour expression showing despite the decaying face. "Hi Elsa."

"Twilight. Good to see you again."

"Likewise Elsa. " Twilight replied. She then noticed the rotting Asuna. "Asuna, right?"

"Yea, how do you..?"

"I'm familiar with Sword Art Online." Twilight spoke. "A pleasure meeting you."

With a gust of wind Jinora landed, looking just as undead as the other three ladies. "...I don't like this loop. Not at all."

Asuna blinked, noticing the girl she did not know. "Hi, uh..."

Twilight took it upon herself to introduce the two. "Asuna, this is Jinora. She Anchors her part of the Avatar loop. Jinora, this is Asuna."

The two girls shook hands, grateful for the chance to meet. Jinora took the opportunity to break the ice. "So any idea what's going to happen here?"

"No idea, but for some reason it feels like being in a game. Like Sword Art Online or ALFheim Online." Asuna mused. "Maybe it's some kind of Varia..." Then the loop memories hit. "...what's Munchkin, and why are there zombies involved?"

A letter then appeared out of nowhere, Elsa taking it and reading it out loud. "Dear Loopers. Trying out a new safe mode game loop. Instructions on how to play should be in your Loop Memories. Have fun. Xenu."

Twilight shrugged, the action hard for a pony, especially a decaying one, to do convincingly. "Huh. Haven't been to one of the loops he admins in a while."

"So...we're playing a game...where we're zombies." Jinora said out loud with a heavy sigh. "...this is going to be... awkward."

Asuna however was busy looking at the cards in her 'hand', taking the form of little capsules with the card inside (her loop memories told her that if she wanted to play a card breaking the capsule was the thing to do). "You're telling me. Forked Tongue? Leftovers? Decaying Flab?? The hell is this?"

Twilight took a look at her cards, laughing. "Smart Shoes? Well, at least I got something close to normal."

"You're lucky Twilight. I got my Own Pancreas And/Or Spleen." Jinora mused, resisting the urge to gag.

Elsa took a look at her hand of cards, particularly one that stood out.

"On Fire?" Elsa mused. Shrugging, she decided to be the brave one, and crushed the capsule, playing the card.

Predictably, she was immediately set on fire.

"Uh..."

"Yes, I probably should have seen that coming."

Jinora took another look at her cards and found one in particular. "...Swallow the Leader? Might as well."

She crushed it, and then eyed the far reaches of the background. "...uh...is it just me or did the White House just appear in the distance. And why....does the president sound tasty right about now?"

"I wouldn't go there. Politicians are fattening." Twilight jested. A snowball was flung into her, Elsa smirking as Twilight and the other shared a laugh.

After about a minute of dinking around, Jinora became Smart (a hard feat for a zombie), Twilight had an Umbrella coming out her head, and Asuna wielded Another Zombie like an unliving sword. Elsa however remained unchanged, the ice queen continuing to burn. "This is going to be one of those Loops isn't it?" mused the queen.

"Kurito and Klein are never going to let me live this down, that's for sure." Asuna complained. "Well... who wants to kick down the first door."

"I guess I will." Ela gulped, approaching the door or a broken decaying house. Gently, she opened the door, revealing a previously unseen human sitting on a couch watching the TV.

Oddly there was no power source to turn the TV on. The human turned to face the Zombie Player characters and waved at them. "Hey guys! Friends is on! Wanna watch it with me?"

The number four flashed above Elsa's head while a two flashed above the Slackers' Suddenly Elsa's number went down by one while the Slacker's number went up by the same amount.

"...he does know we're zombies, right?" Twilight asked, eye twitching. The others just shrugged as Elsa crushed another capsule, causing Antique Vinyl records to fly at the Slacker.

* * *

Asuna stepped up to the door, clad in Shining Porcelain Armor, Stronger than ever as she kicked down the door, knocking it open in a clatter. She yelled as she brandished her Another Zombie, the creature strangely happy with being used as a sword.

She balked when she noticed what she had run into.

"Like oh my god guys it's Asuna from Sword Art Online!"

"I love you!"

"You're so hilarious!"

"HOW DO I EAT YOU?"

"I got XP's, is that bad?"

"Hey Gary!"

Asuna couldn't close the door fast enough, panic contorting her face in an amusing manner. Her companions started to laugh out loud, amused by Asuna's expression.

"It's not that funny!" Asuna cried.

"Actually it kind of is." jested the airbender. Asuna moaned, the door slowly opening on it's own, revealing a never ending mob of geeks, nerd, and enthusiasts. "What are they?"

"3,872 Dorks."

Twilight laughed even harder now, Asuna reddening in embarrassment. "What got you so scared dorks? You're Level 7, and you have plus 7 anyway."

"Lets just say I had an Abridged Loop and end it there."

Several ooohs of understanding was spoken, some spoken by the zombies that served as the audience. Elsa, still of fire and now wearing a Car Door, smirked. "Well, sorry about this Asuna, but now those dorks are Driving a Steamroller."

Suddenly the 3,872 Dorks got into 3,872 steamrollers.

"And a Firmly Attached Doberman."

"OH COME O..."

Asuna didn't get to finish that as she was comically flattened 3,872 times.

* * *

Meanwhile, Sleipnir and Fenrir gave each other a high five. Several of the admins were watching the game, and thanks to Thoth a betting pool was made.

* * *

Elsa carefully opened the door, seeing nothing beyond it. "huh... is there supposed to be anything back..."

Thunder cracked and everything suddenly got wetter.

"Raaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnns!" the audience moaned. The still on fire Ice Queen huffed, her hands freezing as she urged her icy magic into the sky, freezing the rain and turning it to hail.

Her companions just stared in amazement. "...what?"

"Uh...isn't that cheating?" Jinora asked. Elsa shrugged. "Well.... this is munchkin."

"I'm actually okay with that." Twilight replied.

* * *

10.9 (kingofsouls): [Big Hero 6]

Hiro rushed into Tadashi's lab, exhausted from running. Tadashi was the first to notice as Loopers started to converge. "Hey Hiro... what's wrong? You look like you saw a ghost."

Hiro said nothing as he held up a golden statue of a man, shaking it gently.

The screams of joy could be heard in every corner of San Fransokyo.

* * *

10.10 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [My Little Pony] (not compiled in MLP)

Empress Celestia, Caretaker of the Sun and Supreme Ruler of Equestria Reborn, glared at the intruder, as they stood on opposite sides of the courtyard. Above them, the once-glorious barrier, the thing that would have saved the worlds, had a gaping, jagged hole, as if someone had smashed it open like an egg. Through the faint golden glow of the barrier's remains, the white light of Kingdom Hearts could be seen, like a grotesque perversion of her beloved sister's moon. The only sound that could be heard was the faint whistling of the wind, as it passed through her flowing mane, and disturbed the folds of the intruder's black coat.

"Why?" she finally asked. "All we wanted to do was to help you. To uplift you from your unevolved forms and have you join us as something greater! To help you discard your hateful tendencies and your reliance on corrupted technology, and embrace the wonders of friendship and magic! We gave you the offer of utopia, and you gave us only ruin and destruction in return! How could you do this to us?!"

The intruder slowly reached into his coat, and Celestia tensed, expecting a weapon. Instead, he pulled out three photographs, and held them out to her. She automatically gripped them with her magic, and looked through them. The photographs showed three different ponies, two stallions and one mare. Judging from their wide grins and somewhat vacant eyes, they were likely newfoals.

One of the stallions was an earth pony with a chestnut coat, a dark brown mane, and hazel eyes. He was in the middle of pulling a cart loaded up with hay, and looked like he was hardly making an effort. His flank had a cutie mark in the shape of a stout tree.

The other stallion had a more slight built, as was befitting a pegasus, with a cream-colored coat, an unruly blond mane and piercing blue eyes. He was pushing a cloud into position, and his cutie mark, a pinwheel, was clearly visible.

The last one, the mare, was a unicorn, who was hanging onto Prince Blueblood's foreleg, while they were hobnobbing with the rest of the nobility. Her coat was aquamarine and her short-cut mane was a deep blue, as were her eyes. Her cutie mark was of a sapphire next to a curling wave.

Celestia looked at the photographs with confusion. "I... don't understand. You tore down our ponification clinics, destroyed our barrier, and singlehandedly infiltrated my very castle because of three random newfoals?"

"They were my friends, once."

Celestia dropped the photos, and smirked at the cloaked figure. "Ah, so it's revenge, is it? How typical of humanity, to channel their feelings into violence and hate."

The figure shook his head. "No. Not revenge. They wouldn't want me to stoop that low."

"Then why?" Celestia asked.

The figure clasped his hands behind his back. "They had a mission to complete, before they got dosed. I'm just here to see it finished properly."

Celestia snorted, and pawed at the ground. "And what would that be? My assassination, I suppose."

The figure looked up at the sky. "Celestia, when was the last time you remember seeing your sister raise the moon? Or receiving a letter from Miss Sparkle?"

Celestia's horn flared to life as she glared daggers at the figure. "If you've hurt either of them, I will burn you to _ashes_ ," she hissed.

If the figure could see the present danger, then he was doing his level best to ignore it. "You don't know, do you?"

"Where. Are. They?" she ground out through gritted teeth, ignoring the shadows that had started to build around her.

The figure pointed at her. "They are safe, in my home. After you began your campaign, they had... an Awakening, of sorts, and came to me for some help."

"You're lying!" Celestia snapped. "They would never associate themselves with the humans!"

The figure began to pace along the edge of the courtyard, while Celestia moved to keep opposite from him. "At first, my friends went to help them," he continued, "but that horrible potion of yours put paid to them. So, I chose to go myself. Your student was quite stubborn about that."

Celestia got an odd look in her eye, as her mind put the pieces together. "So that's it... You _monster!_ "

A beam of energy, as brilliant as the Sun she raised every morning, burst forth from her horn, burning through the air towards the figure. The figure _moved_ , seemingly flowing over to the banister, the jumping off of it, and over the beam's path, landing on a path of scorched ground. Had he still been standing there a second longer, he would have been nothing more than a patch of glass on the floor. "You corrupted my student, turned her against me!" she ranted, as the shadows around grew deeper and darker. "Humanity's treachery truly knows no bounds!"

Suddenly, the figure was next to her. There was no blur of motion, no sign of teleportation, no dimensional distortion. He was simply next to the banister one moment, and beside her the next. "No. She sent me to help you. You're sick, Celestia. You've been sick for a very long time."

" _Get away from me!_ " she screamed, as she unleashed another searing-hot beam of energy, which was just as easily sidestepped as the first.

The figure shook his head sadly. "It's worse than I thought. You don't even recognize my voice, do you?"

Celestia nickered fearfully, her eyes widening, as the voice finally ignited a spark of recognition. "No... no, that's impossible..." she whispered.

The figure grabbed his coat, pulled it off, and threw it to the side in one fluid motion. Celestia gasped.

Mickey Mouse, King of Disney Castle, and Keyblade Master smiled sadly at his old friend. "Hello, Celestia."

* * *

"And cut! Print! That's a wrap! Good job everyone!"

Celestia and Mickey broke out in matching grins, as they walked off of the film set. "Oh boy! Am I glad _that's_ over!" Mickey said, as he grabbed two cups of coffee from a nearby table, and handed one to Celestia.

"Indeed; that scene was quite the chore to film," Celestia replied, gratefully accepting the cup and taking a sip. "Tell me, how did you do that teleportation thing?"

"Oh, that?" Mickey asked idly, while taking a sip of his own. "I just used a soundless version of Stopza to stop time, walked over to you, then ended the spell. It only looked like teleportation because you can't really see what's happening in stopped time."

"Most interesting. You know, Twilight would be interested to learn from you."

"No fooling? Maybe we can discuss it later this evening, over dinner. I hear there's a new vegetarian restaurant not far from here..."

"That would be delightful, Mickey."

The two monarchs laughed, made their arrangements and split to their respective trailers, as the lights shining on the set went out one by one.

* * *

10.1: Candace _can_ do nice things for her brothers on occasion.

10.2: Gargoyles in Attack On Titan. What more can I say?

10.3: RWBY Meets Disney.

10.4: Ice meets ice.

10.5: Ash's Pikachu is the Anchor for Pokémon, by the way.

10.6: Say goodnight, Doofenshmirtz.

10.7: Doof comes up with some weird Inators.

10.8: Trying out a new safe-mode Loop.

10.9: In honor of _Big Hero 6_ winning the 2014 Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

10.10: We don't like to talk about the Bureau... but since this wasn't the real version, it's okay.


	13. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eleven

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-10-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eleven**

11.1 (Mr. Egret): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Disney]

**The Awakening of the Three Wayfarers (Part 1)**

As Vanitas fell out of the sky, his Keyblade aimed right at Aqua's heart, Ven tried desperately to break free from his icy prison. He may be totally outclassed, but there was no way he could just let his friend get stabbed-

Before he could finish that thought, a white blur zipped across his field of vision, and suddenly Vanitas was no longer there. He felt something land on his chest, and warmth flowed back into his body. He sat up, shivering, as the spent case of an Elixir fell to the ground. "What was that...?" he mumbled, feeling returning to his lips.

Aqua was by his side immediately. "Ven! Are you alright?!" she asked worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replied. "What happened to Vanitas?"

Aqua squinted in the distance. "I... think Mickey got him."

Ventus looked at Aqua with shock. "That blur was _Mickey?!_ "

There was a loud BOOM, and the two Keyblade wielders spun around to see Vanitas slam into the ground hard enough to leave a crater. The source of the Unversed rolled to his feet, and brought up his Keyblade just in time to parry an overhead swing from the white blur, which slowed down enough for Ventus to clearly make out Mickey's distinctive ears. Mickey was wearing a white coat with a hood pulled over his head, and Ventus could see hints of a red shirt and shorts underneath. His entire body crackled with lightning (a Command Style of some kind?) and he had a Keyblade with a golden blade instead of his Star Seeker.

Mickey suddenly looked over at Aqua and Ventus, and a smile lit up his face. "Ven! Aqua! You're all right!" he shouted.

Aqua was about to reply when she saw Vanitas about to smash in Mickey's head. "Mickey! Behind you!"

Without even bothering to turn around, Mickey reached over his head with his Keyblade, turned the blow off to the side, then elbowed Vanitas with his other arm hard enough to send him sprawling. "Is Terra with you guys?" he asked, as if nothing had happened.

Ventus nodded, rather stunned by the casual ease with which Mickey fended off Vanitas. "He's up on top of that mountain, with Xehanort. We have to help him!"

Mickey's smile progressed to a grin. "Okay, I'm right on time, then. I'll keep Vanitas occupied, so go and support Terra. I think he's gonna need your help more than he'll need mine."

He looked at Vanitas, and hefted his Keybade. "I'll be with ya in a bit."

Aqua and Ventus summoned their Keyblade Gliders, and took off for the top of the mountain, as Vanitas charged at Mickey again. Mickey took out a pocket watch, and checked it. "T-minus two minutes before Terra succumbs in baseline," he muttered to himself, as he stepped to the side, and struck Vanitas about the head with the Kingdom Key D, staggering him. "I'll have to make this quick."

Vanitas dove into the ground, and flowed behind Mickey, before bursting out of the ground, and slashing upwards. Unfortunately, Mickey had already spun around, and parried the blow, locking blades with the villain. "You think you're so cool, now that you have that new outfit, don't you?" Vanitas hissed, as he tried to break Mickey's guard.

"Well, it seems to be working, isn't it?" Mickey replied calmly, while not budging an inch. He looked past Vanitas' head, and noted with satisfaction that Ventus and Aqua were already at the top of the mountain.

Vanitas snarled as he noticed that Mickey wasn't even paying attention to his insults. "Hey! I'm talking here! What's your problem you dumb rat? Too busy worrying about your friends? Well don't bother! Once I finish up with you, they're all going to die!"

Mickey suddenly shoved Vanitas back, and then kicked him away, sending him flying back until he hit the side of the mountain. "Alright then, Vanitas," Mickey replied coolly, as he walked over to him. "Ya got my attention. Now, what were you going to say, exactly? Something about 'suffering', maybe? Or about 'anguish'? Maybe something about me being 'too slow'?"

The Kingdom Key D blurred, and Vanitas yelled in pain and dropped his Keyblade, as both his wrists were broken. Mickey glared at Vanitas, and the Masked Boy flinched at what he saw in the mouse's gaze. He was a thing born from pure negativity and hatred, but he couldn't face the emotions that Mickey was wearing so plainly on his face. There was anger, rage even. He expected that. But underneath that, there was something that he did not expect, and possibly could not expect.

Pity.

"Ya know, Vanitas, I did some research about you and your Master," Mickey continued, as Vanitas clutched his shattered wrists to him, his Keyblade lying on the ground beside him. "What he did to make you, and what he did to you afterwards... Awful stuff, if you don't mind me saying so. I was shocked, horrified, sympathetic even. For a while, I really thought that you were the victim in all of this."

"Shut up!" Vanitas screamed, as a horde of Flood popped into existence, pushing Mickey away and bowling him over through sheer force of numbers. "Sympathy?! That's a weakness, you idiot!" he ranted. "Caring for others only leads to you getting hurt! That's why I kept trying to bump off those friends of Ventus: I'm not going to have a weakness like _that_ when we become one being!"

Mickey quickly got to his feet, and began pushing his way back to Vanitas, chopping through the Flood like they were so much wheat to be harvested. "And _that_ is why I know you have to be stopped," he continued, barely breaking a sweat as he mowed through the hordes of Unversed. "Despite all of the stuff that had happened to you, you always had a choice: search for your answers the hard way, and put an end to your suffering; or take the easy way out, and let your pain corrupt you. You had so many opportunities to take the first path, but what do you do? You gave in to the pain! And now look at you! You're nothing but a monster, begetting other monsters on the world!"

"WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!" Vanitas howled in rage, as a Trinity Armor came into being, squashing several Flood as it crashed to the ground, before firing an enormous laser at Mickey. "JUST DIE ALREADY, YOU DAMN RAT! DIE, DIE, DIE!"

The laser's blast died down after the rest of the Flood were burned away, their essence returning to Vanitas and giving him the strength to stand on his feet. "Hah... hahahahaha..." he laughed shakily. "Are you finished, mouse? Are you finally done?!"

The Trinity Armor suddenly roared in pain, as several cuts opened up all over its individual components, before it exploded in a burst of blinding light. Mickey blurred back into view with the dying light of the explosion casting his face in shadow. "No, Vanitas," he replied. "I'll never be done. As long as monsters like you keep endangering people like my friends, I'll _always_ be there to protect them."

A green targeting reticule snapped into being around Vanitas, and several smaller reticules locked onto various parts of his anatomy. "What?!" he gasped, as he struggled to shake them off. "No no no no no--"

"And now, it's time to end this fight," Mickey proclaimed. "Engaging Shotlock: Galaxy of Marvels!"

He spun his Keyblade in his hand, before pointing it in the air, and releasing an ungodly number of star-shaped bullets, which all struck Vanitas again and again like so many raindrops. Vanitas screamed as parts of his armor were destroyed by the bullets, and darkness started to leak out of them like inky smoke.

Mickey then pointed the Kingdom Key D at Vanitas's heart. "SHAZAM!"

A tremendous lightning bolt ripped down from the heavens, and slammed into the screaming Vanitas with a blinding flash. For a brief moment, his screams turned to something inhuman, like the static on a radio, before he exploded in a cloud of darkness.

Mickey covered his face with his coat to shield his eyes from the blast, and when he looked again, Vanitas was no more. They only sign that he had even existed to begin with was the remains of his Keyblade, badly charred from the explosion.

Mickey sighed quietly to himself, as he picked up the charred Keyblade. "It didn't have to be like this," he murmured, before sticking it into the ground blade first.

He did another brief time check. "T-minus 10 seconds."

Jumping into the air, Mickey soared up to the top of the mountain for the confrontation with Xehanort, leaving behind a memorial to a monster that might have been a man.

* * *

11.2 (Mr. Egret): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Disney]

**The Awakening of the Three Wayfarers (Part 2)**

Meanwhile, on the top of the mountain, things weren't going so well.

"GAAAAAAH!"

"TERRA!"

Terra was sent stumbling back by the force of Master Xehanort's strike, his chest leaking blood from a gash that was visible through his armor. Ventus and Aqua, similarly wounded, were barely able to catch him.

"Ven... Aqua... I'm sorry..." Terra groaned. "Get out of here... I'll buy you some time..."

"No way, Terra!" Aqua snapped. "We're not going to abandon you!"

"That's right!" Ventus chimed in. "You're our friend, Terra. No matter what happens, we gotta look out for each other!"

"I can't risk you guys getting hurt again!" Terra replied, as he forced himself to stand, the darkness roiling around him.

Master Xehanort grinned, despite his various cuts and bruises. "Yes, yes! Now you're starting to see, Terra!" he monologued, pointing his Keyblade at the trio. "Your friends will fall here, and the x-Blade will be forged! So embrace that darkness in your heart, if you ever want to defeat me!"

"Don't listen to him!" Aqua yelled, as Terra yelled in pain and clutched his head, and the shadows started to grow. Xehanort grinned. Soon, his new vessel would be ready, and once Vanitas did away with that annoyance of a mouse, the x-Blade would be-

**BOOM**

Everybody on the mountaintop shielded their eyes, as an enormous lightning bolt ripped down from the heavens, followed by a peal of thunder only slightly softer than Krakatoa's eruption. Xehanort was the first to recover. "Impossible!" he snarled, as he stalked over to the cliff, looking down at the Keyblade Graveyard below. "Neither of them can cast a Thunder spell that powerful!"

He was then punched in the jaw hard enough to send him stumbling back from the edge. Aqua and Ventus's eyes lit up with renewed hope. "MICKEY!"

The mouse in question hopped over Xehanort, and landed next to the three Keyblade wielders. "Looks like I got here just in time, huh?"

"Mickey?" Terra asked, as the darkness around him receded for the time being. "What are you doing here?"

"With any luck, sabotaging Xehanort's plans and getting us all out of here with our hearts, bodies and minds intact," Mickey replied. "Aqua, can you heal yourself and the others?"

Aqua looked at her Keyblade, then nodded. "Yes, but I'll need time to cast the spells."

Mickey smiled. "Now that I can do!" He then turned to face Xehanort, and pointed the Kingdom Key D at him. "Okay, Baldy! You want them so badly, you'll have to go through me!"

Xehanort rubbed his jaw, where a sizable bruise was beginning to form, and smirked. "Gladly, Mickey..."

He then pointed his Keyblade at his own heart. "Once I claim my new vessel!"

Mickey stopped smiling. "Stopza."

Time ground to a halt on the top of the mountain. Terra and Ventus were looking at the scene with varying degrees of shock, while Aqua was caught in the middle of preparing a Curaga spell. Xehanort's Keyblade was inches away from penetrating his chest, and his face was locked in a mad grin. Mickey nodded to himself as he pulled out his paintbrush. "I had a feeling you would try that, Xehanort. It seems I'll have to keep you pinned down in one place if this is gonna work."

He pulled out a book titled "The Key of Solomon for Dummies," flipped it open, and checked the page. "Hmm... So it's like that? Odd design for a binding pentacle, but it should work."

Putting the book away, he walked over to Xehanort, and quickly sketched out a magic circle on his chest, right where the heart would be, muttering under his breath the whole time. After a few minutes, he smiled, and stepped back to admire his handiwork. "That should do it. _Time resumes._ "

The Stopza spell ended and time resumed its natural flow. Xehanort's grin quickly changed to a look of horror, as his Keyblade was deflected off of the magic circle drawn on his chest. The backlash sent him stumbling, his arms crackling with magic. "What have you done to me, you interfering wretch?" he snapped.

Mickey smiled grimly, as he put the paintbrush away. "Binding pentacle, designed to keep your heart where it belongs. No vessels for you, and no x-Blade either. One way or another, this madness will end here."

Xehanort recovered his composure rapidly, and started stalking towards Mickey. "In that, you are right, Mouse. You are perhaps the biggest thorn in my side to have ever existed. Such dedication to the _Light_ , when the _true_ path to power lies in _darkness!_ How can such an **imbecile** be a threat to my plans?!"

He suddenly lunged forward, aiming to catch Mickey by surprise, but was quickly parried, the sparks from the Keyblades flying through the air. "All this time, Xehanort, all of this study of the nature of Light and Darkness, and what have you learned?" Mickey asked, as he and Xehanort locked blades.

"What any child would learn in time!" Xehanort retorted, as darkness began to roil around him and he started pushing Mickey back. "The Darkness is where Light began, and it is in Darkness that Light shall end! The Light is inferior! Only with the power of Darkness can-"

" **WRONG!** " Mickey bellowed, as he suddenly broke Xehanort's guard, and gave him a gash across the stomach. "Light and Darkness are two sides of a single whole! Neither can survive without the other! That's why Ventus suffered so badly when you extracted his darkness to make Vanitas! Heck, that's why there are two Realms to begin with! I should know: I've been to _both_ of them!"

All three of the Wayfarers looked at each other in shock as Mickey's words hit home.

"Mickey's been to the Realm of Darkness?!" Aqua asked herself, as she finished casting Curaga on Terra.

"Ngh... Light and Darkness... connected?" Terra grunted, as he slowly stood up by himself.

"Where did Mickey learn about that?" Ventus mumbled, his eyes wide.

Xehanort abruptly gestured with his hand, and a pillar of earth shot up into the sky, grazing Mickey as he barely sidestepped it in time. "You will concede!" he snapped, as more pillars ripped themselves up from the ground, and Fire and Blizzard spells flew through the air. Mickey kept dodging from side to side, eventually going so fast that he was nothing but a blur. Xehanort growled, before hefting his Keyblade, and also vanishing. Aqua finished casting Curaga on Ventus, and briefly wondered where they had gone.

Then, a shower of sparks erupted seemingly from nowhere. Then another. And another. The ringing of steel on steel echoed through the air as sparks fell like rain. It took a moment for Aqua to realize what was happening. "No way... They're moving faster than I can see!"

Terra frowned in thought. "This doesn't make sense. I know Xehanort's fast, but how the hell did Mickey get this good so quickly?"

Ven nodded in agreement. "Yeah! When Mickey saved me from Vanitas before we met up, he wasn't moving nearly as fast as this! Maybe it has something to do with that Command Style he's using?"

Aqua started casting Curaga on herself. "I'm not sure that's a Command Style. If it was, he would have been forced out of it by now."

"Then what is it?" Ventus asked confusedly, scratching his head.

"I don't know," Aqua replied quietly. "If we get out of this, we'll ask him. He's got a lot of explaining to do."

Their conversation was interrupted by Xehanort being slammed into the ground, and Mickey reappeared, kicking Xehanort's Keyblade away from him, and pointing the Kingdom Key D at his throat. "You see how powerless the Darkness is, Xehanort?" Mickey asked. "Even with the power of your rage, winning is an impossibility. _Stand down_."

Xehanort clenched his hands into fists, as the darkness around him grew in intensity. "No. There's too much at risk, for me to just give up now!"

He suddenly shoved his hand in Mickey's face, and an explosion of darkness threw him back, sending the mouse sprawling. "I've dedicated my whole life to learning the nature of Kingdom Hearts! Even if it means my very _soul,_ I will see the x-Blade forged and the renewal of the Keyblade War!" He started chuckling, before laughing maniacally. "So BEHOLD! My _ascension_ from this **wretched** human form into a being of **_DARKNESS!_** "

His laughing only increased in intensity, as the darkness around him enveloped him completely. The four Keyblade wielders looked on in horror as the barely visible human form within the cloud of darkness began to writhe and change, growing steadily more monstrous and inhuman. "Oh Xehanort, don't do this," Mickey whispered, his eyes full of sorrow.

The darkness dispersed to reveal the monster Xehanort had become: a hulking black-skinned humanoid beast, with a skull-like head wrapped in bandages, a pair of thunderbolt-shaped horns, long muscular arms ending in wicked claws, and a serpentine tail instead of legs and feet. The heart-shaped hole in his torso and bat-shaped wings only completed the nightmarish picture. Xehanort laughed aloud, as dark magic played around his fingers. "Yes... YES! This is TRUE power!"

He held up his hands, and an enormous globe of darkness began to form between them. "Now you shall _learn_ to fear me!"

Aqua quickly erected the strongest barrier she could around herself and her friends. "Ventus, stay between me and Terra," she ordered. "Whatever you do, do not move!"

Ventus nodded, and gulped. He didn't know how they were going to survive this fight. Terra looked worried, as he kept his Keyblade in between him and the incoming globe. Aqua's brow was furrowed in concentration, as she put her all into making the barrier as strong as possible.

And Mickey... smiled?

"What a moron."

Just then, high above their heads, the light from Kingdom Hearts intensified sharply, and a beam of light illuminated the mountaintop. The globe of darkness dissolved, and Xehanort screamed and writhed about in pain and confusion. "GAAAAAH! WHAT... WHAT IS THIS?!"

"Remember how I said that Light and Darkness were intertwined, Xehanort?" Mickey asked, while dodging the former Keyblade Master's flailing limbs. "Well, your precious Kingdom Hearts is the perfect example! Even though it's in the Realm of Darkness, Kingdom Hearts is the collective light of everybody's hearts! No creature of the Darkness can stand up to that!"

Mickey took the moment to point at Xehanort. "Xehanort! Your next line is, 'Impossible! Nothing can withstand the Darkness!'"

Xehanort gritted his teeth, and reared back to crush Mickey under his fist. "Impossible!" he roared, as his fist came down like a meteor. "Nothing can withstand the Darkness!"

He suddenly hesitated, as he realized what he just said, giving Mickey enough time to move out of the way of the blow. "Terra! Aqua! Ventus!" he called out, ignoring the monster's screams of frustration. "I'll need you help!"

The three Keyblade wielders ran over. "What is it, Mickey?" Aqua asked.

"I'm going to open up a hole in Xehanort's defense using Stopza, but I need you three to deal the finishing blow," he explained. "A fully-charged Trinity Limit directly to the heart should finish him off. Can you do it?"

Terra, Ventus and Aqua looked at each other, and nodded. "Yes."

"Okay! Start charging up, and wait for my signal!"

Xehanort howled in rage, as Mickey went on the offensive, calling on the Strength of Hercules to open up long cuts on Xehanort's arms. Terra, Ventus, and Aqua moved into position, and held their Keyblades in the air. A complex set of runes appeared around their feet, and a soft light began to form and grow at the tips of the Keyblade.

Their efforts were not unnoticed. "FOOLS!" Xehanort shouted, as he lashed at them with his tail. Mickey swatted it aside with almost contemptuous ease. "Interfering rat! Why do you oppose my research? Why must you thwart my plans for another Keyblade War?!"

"Easy!" Mickey shouted back, as he hacked away at the tail, carving huge chunks of darkness away. "I don't wanna see the people I care about get caught in the crossfire! Do you think the Keyblade War will stay within the bounds of the Graveyard?! It will spread across the worlds, and innocent people will die for the sake of Kingdom Hearts!"

"OF COURSE I KNOW THAT!" Xehanort retorted, catching Mickey off guard by suddenly sliding back, before lashing out and striking Mickey with his fists. Mickey reeled from the blow, and Xehanort followed through, dealing a nasty three-punch combo that launched him into the air, before spiking him into the ground like a volleyball.

"Mickey!" Ventus shouted, nearly breaking formation before Terra blocked him with his free hand. "We have to help him!"

"Ven, we'll be no good to him out there!" Terra shouted back. His Keyblade hand was shaking slightly, but he held firm. "If we break formation now, we'll never be able to charge the Trinity Limit in time!"

"Terra's right," Aqua chimed in. "I don't know how Mickey's doing it, but he's currently light-years ahead of us in terms of power. If he can't stand up to that thing Xehanort's become in his current state, what makes you think we have a chance? This way, we can actually help him. We'll have to leave it to him."

Ventus bit his lip in frustration, but continued to charge up the Trinity Limit. _Mickey, please be safe,_ he thought to himself.

"The Keyblade wielders came from all sorts of worlds to fight for the x-Blade and Kingdom Hearts!" Xehanort continued, slithering over to Mickey as the mouse forced himself to his feet. "Only a fool would assume that they would not fight across the worlds! In fact," he laughed, spreading his arms wide, "I had _expected_ them to do just that!"

He then stretched his hand out, and the dull gray Keyblades embedded in the Keyblade Graveyard all ripped themselves out of the ground, and formed a gargantuan cloud of whirling death above the mountaintop. "In fact, if you don't believe me, then take a close look at THESE!" he screamed, as he brought his hand down, and the Keyblades flew towards Mickey at one.

Mickey shook his head to clear it, spat out a tooth, and grinned. "Just as planned. Stopza."

For the second time that day, time stopped on top of the mountain. Terra, Aqua and Ventus gaped at the sight. They were excluded from the stopped time this time around, and could see that their surroundings were in black and white, with two exceptions: First, the Keyblade storm, while immobile, was still gray. Second, Mickey was still in living color, and he was gathering up the Keyblades like they were Munny scattered on the ground.

He then started throwing the Keyblades at Xehanort's immobile form, aiming for the head and the chest, as well as the arms and the tail. While they moved normally while he was holding them, when they got more than three feet away from him, they stopped in time again. When Mickey was out of Keyblades to throw, he then cut at Xehanort's chest twice, leaving a gaping cross-shaped wound. "You all charged up down there?" he hollered.

"Yes!" Aqua yelled back. "We can let it fly at any time!"

Mickey gave them the thumbs up. "Great!" He then turned to Xehanort. "I don't know if you can hear me," he said quietly, "but if you can, then consider this checkmate. _Time resumes._ "

Time started up again, and three things happened in rapid succession.

First, the Keyblades resumed their flight, embedding themselves all over Xehanort's body. Xehanort screamed, as the force of the Keyblades ripped away his arms and tail, reducing him to a torso with a head.

Second, the chest wound Mickey dealt him opened up violently, revealing Xehanort's heart, now blackened and tarnished by his misdeeds.

Finally, the Trinity Limit went off, piercing the now-exposed heart with brilliant beams of light.

Xehanort screamed in agony, as his heart was obliterated under the relentless assault of light, and his body began to disintegrate. "How could this be?" he groaned, as he slowly started to fade away. "Everything was planned from the beginning..."

Mickey landed on the ground. "Destiny is never left to chance, Xehanort. It's only logical that changing destiny would be similar."

Xehanort whispered something unintelligible, before he finally faded away, like the bad dream he was. For a few moments, there was silence in the Keyblade Graveyard.

"So it's over," Terra said, as he armored down, and stretched his arms. "Xehanort's finally dead."

"As dead as it gets," Mickey agreed. "Which means I can finally power down. Shazam!"

There was another lightning strike, and Mickey was suddenly back in his regular clothes, while wrapped in a black coat. "Now, I think you all have a boatload of questions about what just happened, right?"

"That's a bit of an understatement," Aqua replied, smiling for the first time in a while.

"Okay! What do you say we all go back to my place for some ice cream, and I'll tell you all about it?"

The three Keyblade wielders couldn't agree fast enough. Soon, four Keyblade Gliders took off from the Keyblade Graveyard, leaving nothing but a new mountain behind.

* * *

11.3 (Mr. Egret): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Disney]

**The Awakening of the Three Wayfarers (Part 3)**

Mickey, Terra, Aqua and Ventus strolled through the halls of Disney Castle, passing the occasional broom sweeping up. The three humans looked around at the gleaming marble halls and the large windows out into the courtyard with interest, but Mickey moved forward with a singular purpose in mind, as if he was looking for something specific.

"Where are we going, Mickey?" Ventus asked, as the group went into an unfamiliar part of the castle, and started climbing some stairs.

"Well, there's something I've always wanted to show you guys, now that you know about the Loops," Mickey replied. "Remember when I told you all about subspace pockets?"

"That's the thing that lets you take stuff with you when the Loop resets, right?"

"Exactly. Every now and then, I like to set aside a room for some of the souvenirs I've picked up here and there. I'd figure that you guys would like to take a look."

Eventually, the group came to a wooden door in a stone hallways lined with torches. "Here we are!" Mickey announced, rubbing his hands together. "I just need to disable the magic lock on this door. Give me a second..."

He waved his hands and muttered a few choice words over the doorknob, before turning it and swinging the door wide open. Mickey's eager smile quickly deflated. "Wait, that's not right."

Inside of the room, instead of whatever Mickey had been expecting, there was a standard layout for a bathroom in the castle. Including a bath. Which was occupied by Daisy.

Surprisingly, the Keyblade wielders were not immediately bombarded with hair-care products, or deafened by an ear-splitting shriek. Instead, Daisy looked over at Mickey and waved. "Oh, hey Mickey! Good to see you!"

"Hey Daisy," Mickey replied. "I'm trying to give Terra, Aqua and Ventus a tour of the Souvenir Room, but we wound up here. Are the dimensional stabilizers on the blink again?"

"Yep. The Quantum Oscillator's jammed, too, and you know how much of a pain that is to fix. Until Donald sorts it out, you need to turn the knob counterclockwise instead of clockwise after disabling the lock, or you'll keep getting redirected to rooms with people in embarrassing situations."

Mickey snapped his fingers. "Nuts; I knew I forgot to do something. Thanks!"

Daisy waved him off. "No problem. Give your friends my love!"

Mickey laughed. "I will! Bye Daisy!"

He then shut the door, turned the knob counterclockwise, and opened it again. Behind him, the three Keyblade wielders gasped.

Instead of the bathroom, a simply massive atrium stretched out in front of them. It looked like a tastefully-done cross between a museum and hotel lobby, with photographs decorating the walls, and objects from hundreds of different worlds encased in glass display cases, complete with little informational placards. The floor was made of marble, and the ceiling was dominated by a large window, letting sunshine bathe everything in a warm golden glow.

"Mickey, this is amazing!" Aqua breathed, as the four Keyblade wielders walked through the door, and looked around in wonder. "And this is all from places you've visited in the Loops?"

"Yep!" Mickey replied cheerfully, as he passed Terra looking at some pictures of Mickey, Donald and Goofy standing in front of the Ghostbusters Headquarters. "It's a big ol' multiverse out there; there's a whole lot to see, and I don't wanna forget a thing! Plus, it gives me something to do, no matter where I end up."

Aqua looked at a golden idol roughly the size of her head, perched precariously on a charred stone pedestal. "Is that a problem for Loopers? Finding something to do?"

Mickey thought the question over, as he idly polished the glass of a display case containing a deactivated Toclafane shell with a rag. "It varies. Some of us need to distract ourselves from some nasty events that happen in our native universes, while others need to keep themselves busy, to help themselves cope with their status as Loopers. We're a mixed bag, really. Most of us are doing relatively fine, but there's always a few of us who are... _struggling_ , I guess."

"And what about you, Mickey?" Terra asked, having overheard the conversation, and walked over to join in.

Mickey put the rag away in his subspace pocket. "Me? I... don't really know for certain. My best guess is that every now and then, I hit a Loop that's... less than pleasant, so I keep this collection to help remind me that the multiverse isn't all bad."

Just then, Ventus ran over. "Guys! You gotta see this!"

The four friends hurried over to a case that was cordoned off in its own special section of the Souvenir Room. It was a long case, made of mahogany wood, with a red velvet interior, and it was propped open to display its contents: a simple Keyblade, much like Terra's Earthshaker. The Keyblade was made out of wood, and there was a noticeable crack on the shaft, where it had been broken and later repaired by somebody with passing knowledge of carpentry. Mickey looked at the wooden Keyblade, and Aqua noticed that his smile became just a bit more wistful. "Mickey?" she asked. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Yep." Mickey replied quietly. "It's the Wooden Keyblade that Terra gave to Ventus, and that Vanitas later broke. The first one, in fact, from the first time I experienced a Loop with you fellas while Awake. You guys don't remember it, of course, but I had gotten control of the Star Shard that Loop, so I was able to stick around in Neverland for longer than normal. When I saw Vanitas break the Keyblade, I waited for him to be driven off by you, before collecting the pieces. When I had a spare moment, I fixed it, and I've been hanging onto it ever since."

"Why?" Terra asked. "As another souvenir?"

"No." Mickey responded firmly. "That implies that you're nothing more than a way to pass the time. You guys are more than that. You're my friends." He turned to look at the case. "In fact, when you guys finally start Looping, I was planning on using it to teach you guys how to form subspace pockets of your own. Kinda like a 'Looping commencement gift,' or something."

"Wait, what?" Ventus blurted out. "You really think we're gonna start Looping, like those other people you mentioned?"

Mickey nodded, as his eyes twinkled a bit. "You betcha! In fact, how about this? When all of us are Awake at the same time, let's all meet up at Radiant Garden, and I'll show you a few tricks for making the Loops more fun. Deal?"

The three other Keyblade wielders looked at each other and smiled. "Deal."

* * *

11.4 (Mr. Egret): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Disney]

**The Awakening of the Three Wayfarers (Finale)**

Mickey sat by himself in a bench in a park, and he was more nervous than he had been in a long time. This was one of those rare times when he could not predict what would happen in a Kingdom Hearts loop. He didn't know if the time he spent with his friends had affected them enough to help them remember the Loop resetting. And their actions dictated how the entire loop would play out, for good or ill.

He looked up at the clock tower. It was nearly 3 o'clock. _I wonder how they'll react,_ he thought to himself, _when they see the King of Disney Castle waiting here like a kid who's lost his parents?_

It was quite a sobering thought, to look around the peaceful streets and fields of Radiant Garden and at the majestic castle in the distance, and _know_ that if his appointment were to fall through that everything here would be almost guaranteed to be destroyed by the Heartless tide. Not to mention that in ten years' time, Xemnas would use the high levels of Heartless as part of his plan to create another Kingdom Hearts, which just meant bad news for the entire Loop.

But more importantly...

"I just want to make sure they're all right," he whispered to himself, as he clenched his hands into fists. If they didn't remember, then Mickey would move Heaven and Earth to see that Xehanort would not hurt them. And that scared him. He had felt like that before, when Minnie, Donald and Goofy were still Unawake, and therefore lacked the foreknowledge of the awful times ahead. In all of its myriad variations.

Mickey still remembered when the Unawake Minnie was captured by Xehanort in a truly unspeakable variant Loop, and separated into a Heartless and Nobody duo as part of his experiments. He used to have _nightmares_ about what he had done to the crazed scientist in retribution, and to Castle Oblivion in his rage. It was a minor miracle that Minnie Woke Up before Mickey _really_ started cracking under the strain of the Loops.

He sighed deeply. Still, that was in the past. He knew where to draw the line now, to keep himself from going mad with power, and he was learning to trust other people to handle their own problems. He would still help, but now he was learning when to let people help themselves. But then, that's chronic hero syndrome for you.

The clock struck three, jarring Mickey back to reality. He looked around his bench, to see if his friends had shown up.

Nobody was there.

Glumly, Mickey got up and was preparing to leave Radiant Garden (but not before leaving a few nasty surprises for Xehanort's forces in key positions), when his large round ears picked up somebody calling his name. Naturally, he turned to look.

What he saw coming towards him made his eyes go quite wide with a sudden hope.

"Mickey! There you are!" Aqua called, as she, Ventus, and Terra hurried down the path towards him. "You haven't forgotten about our meeting, right?"

"Meeting?" Mickey repeated, slowly starting to smile. "You mean you fellas remember?"

Terra nodded, and smiled right back. "That's right. Every single detail."

"Even the trophy room?"

" _Especially_ the trophy room."

Mickey laughed, as he and his friends embraced each other. While he still didn't know how this loop was going to go down, a lot of the stress he was feeling had melted away when they said that they remembered the last one.

They were Awake at last. It didn't matter what Xehanort did now. Somehow, everything was going to be okay.

Mickey knew it.

* * *

As the four reunited friends walked away towards the castle while eagerly sharing news and making grand plans for the future, they were blissfully unaware that they were being watched.

Just outside of Twilight Town, inside the room at the very top of his Mysterious Tower, Yen Sid smiled to himself as he looked through his scrying crystal at the scene playing out in Radiant Garden. "Well done, my young apprentice," he murmured to himself. "You have progressed far beyond my expectations, it seems."

Still smiling, he returned to his desk and unfurled a scroll. The contents were sparse, consisting of a simple list of names.

To be precise, the names of every single Keyblade wielder observed in a baseline Loop in Kingdom Hearts.

Yen Sid looked towards the bottom, where the names of Terra, Aqua, and Ventus were written, and placed a checkmark next to each of them. With that edit, only two names, one struck through with a very solid line, and one without such a line, did not possess a check mark.

The former Keyblade Master looked at the name without a mark. "Now, I believe it's your turn, my old friend. And not a moment too soon. It would be nice to have somebody to relate to in these Loops. Keeping such a secret leaves me weary in heart."

He rolled up the scroll, and set it aside before returning to his arcane studies. If someone were to look at the scroll from above, then they would see that the name in question was still legible.

_Master Eraqus._

* * *

11.5 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Naruto] / [Phineas and Ferb]

**Random Loot Loop!**

_In the coffer you find..._

__

• a tonic of clouds

__

• a cabbage

__

• a glorious bomb of arcane

__

• **an eldritch jet of the scientist**

__

• a magic book containing "Earth Specter"

__

_• a pile of 232 assorted coins of copper and silver_

Naruto just stared at the 'jet' that was floating over Konoha. Now, unlike non looping Konoha residents, he had actually seen a jet in the metal before, so he knew this wasn't the Land of the Sky attacking again.

But this wasn't a normal jet. It sort of looked what happened when one of those planes from McQueen's universe got busy with Cthulhu.

"Ha ha ha! I, Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, have finally done it! After so many loops, the Eldritch Jet of the Scientist is mine! I shall use it to destroy you all for the sins you all have no recollection of!!" a voice shouted from within the monster jet as it began to eerily glow.

"Is he still hung out about the time Kiba flirted with Vanessa?" Hinata asked her crush as the monstrous jet let loose a laser blast that seemed to be a fusion of Iron Man's UniBeam and Cyclops's optic blasts at the Inuzuka Compound.

"Yep."

"Do you think he's still hung over about the time that Choji ate his Dunkeberries?"

**ZAP**

"Yep."

"Do you think he's still a fan of those exercise videos Might Guy made that loop he was a television star?"

"BEHOLD MY GLORIOUS YOUTH!"

"Yep... so do you want to get him or should I?" Naruto questioned as Hinata shrugged.

"Go ahead." Naruto nodded before he began to form a giant Rasengan with a spiral within it.

"SPIRIT BOMB SPIRAL RASENGAN!" Naruto threw the thing right at Doofenshmirtz and his 'Eldritch Jet of the Scientist', which was promptly struck and sent flying into the sky.

"LOOKS LIKE DOOFENSHMIRTZ IS BLASTING OFF AGAIN!"

_Twinkle_

* * *

11.6 (Drakohahn): [Gundam SEED] / [Frozen]

Kira Awoke to find himself in a rather girly bed. It took only a moment after that to confirm that he was indeed female this loop. With a mental shrug, she sent out a Ping while waiting for her loop memories. A ping returned near instantly, so it didn't seem like the fellow looper was rather close. A moment after receiving the ping, the loop memories kicked in.

She was more than a bit shocked by the events she recalled as the memories flooded in. She was Kira of Arendelle, elder princess and current heir to the throne. For some unexplained reason, she was born with power over all things cold. Generally, she had only used that power for fun with her sister, Cagalli. However, during one such time, there was an accident and Cagalli took a blast of ice magic to the head. She told their parents, who then took them to the trolls to correct things. In her opinion... the trolls could have done it better. The memory replacement was so Cagalli wouldn't blame her, right? And which kind of fear were they talking about? Other people's fear of her power, her own fear of her powers... or her parents fear of her powers?

As she was contemplating this, she heard a knock on her bedroom door. Blinking out of her reverie, Kira frowned. It was awfully late for anyone to come talk to her. Though, the confusion quickly faded when she heard a familiar voice from the other side.

"Hey Kira, open up!" It was Cagalli. Once she knew that, Kira couldn't go open the door to let her in fast enough.

"So, are you feeling loopy?" Standard question to make sure he was talking to an Awake Cagalli.

"Yeah and I'm looking for an Anchor." There was the usual response. Kira was able to see her just fine in the little amount of light that the stars and moon provided for the room. First thing she noticed was just how odd it felt for Cagalli to be a redhead. "It's been awhile... Sis."

Kira rolled her eyes at the tone used in "Sis". At least she wasn't trying to claim that she was still the elder sister when they clearly weren't born twins this time. "I'm curious about your loop memories. Do you recall anything out of the ordinary happening?"

"What do you mean?" Cagalli looked at her sister in confusion. "Is there something I should be remembering?"

A moment of silence passed before Kira held up a hand and formed a snowball in it. Cagalli was left flabbergasted.

"W-what?! How come I don't recall you being able to do that?!"

"Because of an accident when we were younger and not Awake." The elder sister explained. "A blast of my magic hit you in the head as we were playing with it. Apparently, getting hit in certain places by ice magic will cause the affected person to freeze from the inside out. Also apparently, it's easier to heal when it was the head that was hit compared to when the heart is hit... Don't ask me how that works." Cagalli had opened her mouth to say something when Kira had said that last part. Taking a breath, the Anchor continued. "Anyway, they took you to see these little rock creatures they called Trolls. While healing your head, they decided to change your memories so you didn't know about my magic... because why not."

"Wait a minute!" The younger sister exclaimed. "Loop memories can be altered and/or falsified?!"

"It's not exactly a common occurrence. I mean, depending on the Loop, whether the memories you get are altered or not depends on when you Awaken. Other times, not so much," Kira stated with a shrug. "However, it's also not my first time encountering such a phenomenon. Which is why I was curious if you remembered what actually happened."

The currently redheaded Cagalli crossed her arms and frowned at the fact that her memories weren't what had they had done together. However, as she thought over which memories involved her and her sister, she pieced together the recollections most likely to be the altered ones. Once she had a rough estimate of which ones, she smirked.

"I only have one thing to say about this." She let the silence continue for a second to build up the tension. "Do you want to build a snowman?"

The return smile said more than words ever could.

* * *

11.7 (OathToOblivion): [Wreck-It Ralph] / [Mario] / [Legend of Zelda] / [Kirby] / [Ben 10] / [Codename: Kids Next Door] / [Gargoyles]

"Okay, this meeting of Looping Bad Guys Anonymous (AKA Looping BadAnon) will hereby come to order!" Wreck-It Ralph declared. "I'm Ralph, and I'll be your host for this Loop. Okay, we're going to do a role call real quick. Just note the fact that you're here, okay?" he asked, picking up a clipboard sized for his massive 8-bit hands.

"Okay... Bowser?"

"Gwa ha ha! As if I wouldn't be here!"

"Yeah yeah... Ganondorf?"

"Hmph. Of course I'm here!"

"Dedede?"

"Hey, does the penguin even count?" Bowser questioned, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the now-irate King of Dreamland.

"HOW MANY TIMES?! NOT A PENGUIN!"

"Then what are you anyway?" Marx snickered next to Dedede.

"Guys, focus. Okay, Marx is here. Vilgax?"

"Present."

"Benedict?"

"Would it kill you to use my title?"

"Yeah, okay, fine, "Father". Mr. Xanatos?"

"Present, of course."

"Vaati?"

"..." The silence echoed throughout Ralph's house in the Fix-It Felix Jr. cabinet. Ralph looked up from the checklist to where Vaati was supposed to be sitting. Emphasis on "supposed to" because the Wind Mage was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay, can someone tell me where Vaati is?"

* * *

_Meanwhile, in Sugar Rush..._

"GET BACK HERE, YOU SUGARY CRETIN! RETURN MY CAPE THIS INSTANT!"

"Why the fudge would I want to do that?!" Vanellope tossed back at the irate Wind Mage, zipping off in her kart the instant she got near it. Vaati steamed, enough that the sweets that made up Sugar Rush's level design started melting.

"HERE THIS, VANELLOPE VON SCHWEETZ! I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!" he yelled at the retreating princess/president of Sugar Rush.

"Wow, you really _are_ a Bad Guy with a line like that!" Vanellope's voice was faintly hear saying. Vaati gritted his teeth, immediately transforming into his Demon Eye form and racing after her.

* * *

11.8 (Bardic_Knowledge): [Gargoyles)

As the sun set on Xanatos Enterprises, Goliath felt himself come Awake. Being as careful as he could, he shattered the mystical stone that kept his unAwake self sleeping a thousand years and roared, as was tradition. Moments later, he sent out a ping and received six back. He smiled. Either there were guests, or there were enough natives Awake that at least four of them had to be his clan, so he glided down to the others as they shed their own stone and greeted them.

"The spell seems to have left me Loopy," he said, his standard, start-of-Loop greeting. "Are all of us really Awake?"

And, wonder of wonders, every one of them gave the return signal. The entire clan was Awake! That left the last ping, which belonged to either Elisa or Xanatos. And that question would be answered by Elisa's visit. Xanatos would either introduce an unAwake Elisa to them, as a gesture of good faith to the Gargoyle clan and as a way to smooth relations between her and his business (which had become quite a bit less shady in the Loops, relatively speaking), or the Awake Elisa would sneak up on them and join the conversation herself.

"It's been such a long time since we've all been Awake," said Hudson. "Who wants to go first on their last Fused Loop?"

"I had an interesting one," said Broadway. "I was a dragon, but I didn't breath fire. Instead, we used light - like lasers - for our breath weapons. The really cool part, kinda, was that the Dromoka Clan practiced the same kind of family-style we did in baseline. Every kid was raised by the whole community. It was kinda nice, really."

"Wait," said Brooklyn. "You were on Tarkir, too? I was in Kolaghan's Clan! It was kinda weird flying with four wings, but I flew so _fast_. Breathing lightning is gonna be fun to use, too."

Goliath raised an eyebrow as he looked between them. "And how is it that neither of you knew the other was there? Didn't you send out a ping?"

"I did, but I didn't feel one in response," answered Broadway.

"I might've been too caught up in a raid when I woke up to notice a ping," Brooklyn said, sheepishly. "And then I was so caught up in how fast I could fly I might've forgotten to do one anyways."

"Makes sense for you," teased Lexington. "I was in Sword Art Online. Joined up with Asuna's - that's the Anchor, by the way - Asuna's guild 'The Yggdrasil Warriors' as soon as I could. And, well..." Lexington blushed and twiddled his thumbs. "I kinda met someone."

Brooklyn cuffed him on the shoulder. "You little fox! Who?"

"Gobber."

Everyone paused to parse this. "Not the weaponsmith-slash-dragon dentist Gobber?" hazarded Bronx (who had learned to speak in a Loop as Scooby Doo).

"Yeah. We didn't really have a chance to go on a date or anything, but we got along great. I hope I can meet him again."

"It's nice to see that you have found someone," said Goliath, cautiously. "I must admit that I'm unsure as to the... height differences, though."

"It wasn't terrible, but then he was deaged to a teenager. And it's not like _we_ haven't learned shape-changing magic at this point, so I could easily grow as tall as I want."

Everyone nodded and murmured agreement.

* * *

11.9 (jxz and Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Snow White] / [Sleeping Beauty] / [Cinderella] / [Aladdin] / [The Little Mermaid] / [Beauty and the Beast] / [Pocahontas] / [Brave] / [Mulan] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [The Princess and the Frog] / [Tangled] / [Frozen] / [Peter Pan] / [Alice in Wonderland] / [Wreck-It Ralph] / [Sofia the First] / [Bar Loop]

"Order, Order!!" Snow White declared. At her side, Aurora and Cinderella were sitting in chairs, each one decorated with designs that suited the two princesses. "As the oldest looping Disney Princess, I salute you, and I welcome you to this Princess Summit."

"We're glad you could all come." Aurora said. "Now, we'll do something different as always. Cinderella?"

"Thanks, Aurora." The crystal shoe-wearing princess said. "Now, as we have some new princesses, we'll pass list, and talk about something you did after the last summit, or, in case you weren't there, something you have done that's not baseline. Princess Jasmine?"

"Here, and I trained with Gaara about how to use sand Jutsu." Jasmine said. "Now, when Jafar tries to send my castle to the top of the mountains, he's always blocked by sand walls."

"That's a good use of Sand Jutsu." Cinderella said. "Next, Princess Ariel."

From a bubble of water that seemed to float in the air, the mermaid appeared. "Here! Let me tell you, learning Waterbending is a bit hard, but when you master it, you can do things like this!" As she talked, she took a bit of the bubble and changed it into a perfect replica of her castle. Then, she froze it, and put it into her Pocket. "Melody will like this one."

"Oh, yeah, remind me to give her that gift I owe her for helping me with Gaston." Aurora said. "By the way, Princess Belle."

"Here, and I've been learning on transmorphic magic, and breaking spells." Belle said. "If I can't save Beast's flower, at least I can try to give him a good life."

"A good gesture of your part. Next, Princess Pocahontas."

"You know I don't like that title..." the Native American said.

"We know, but you're still a princess." Cinderella said. "Your father is the leader of the tribe, and you took his place in a lot of loops and in Baseline."

"I know..." Pocahontas sighed. "Anyway, I've been training with Merida here," She signaled at the Scottish girl at her side, polishing a crossbow. "to learn how to shoot arrows perfectly."

"She's getting good, at this way we'll soon pass to Crossbows and Giant Bows." Merida said.

"Well, at least we know what were you doing last loop." Jasmine said.

"Next, Princess Mulan."

"I'm not a princess, I don't know why I'm still referred as one." Mulan said.

"Ask Mushu, he told me he once sold the rights of your story to a princess corporation." Snow said. "We just roll with it because of the Hub."

"Yeah, I know- Wait, Mushu did what?"

"No matter now..." Cinderella said, trying to save the tiny dragon's life through a lot of loops. "Now, what have you done?"

Mulan relaxed a little. "As you know, I've been learning from swordmasters, and last loop I found myself in an interesting place." After saying that, she took a few multicolored stones from her Pocket. "With these, I can infuse my swords with different attributes, and they allow me to poison an enemy, freeze him, or steal a bit of his life force. Not that I'll use the last one, of course. The downside is that I need a number of these things to enchant a weapon, and they are only in that world."

"Interesting. Do you mind if I ask for some?" Kairi asked, sitting alongside the other 'Honorary' Princesses.

"Yeah, you can. But let's wait for a loop together, so I can know how many El Shards your Keyblade needs."

"Alright. Next, Princess Tiana."

"I've been learning a few things about voodoo." Tiana said. "You know, in case that the curse that Facilier does can't be broken by breaking his amulet... And in case Naveen is more of a prick in some Loops..." She finished, muttering.

"And your cooking?" Mulan asked.

"Great thing you asked; Here," she said, taking a big cake from her Pocket. "I cooked this last night, it's a Bayou Special MegaMix Cake, my Magnum Opus in desserts. If you want Gumbo, I have a great recipe I learnt a few loops ago from a master cooker. Come on, try!"

Each princess and honorary princess took a bite, and were amazed for the deliciousness of it. "Wow! This is really good!!" Belle said. "Mind if you give me the recipe later?"

"Not at all! I'll upload it to your PADD as soon as possible."

"I'd like a copy too, if you don't mind," Snow said. "Next should be Merida, but we've heard about what has she done-"

"Hey! I've done more things!"

"Finding ways to kill Mordu easily isn't new, you know." Cinderella declared, as the Scottish princess pouted. "Now, Princess Rapunzel."

"Here." The (now) brunette princess said. "Now, you're all wondering why I cut my hair." No one talked, but everyone wondered it. "Well, I learnt to use my healing magic with my own hands after a few loops where my parents had to put the flower in my body as a gel to save me. So, every time, after escaping the tower with Eugene, I cut my hair, and enjoy a simple day without my 'mother'."

"Interesting, and a good thing too. Princesses Anna and Elsa?"

"Please, each one separately." Elsa said. "We do different things, we told you that last time. Besides, I'm a _Queen_."

"Right." Snow made a note. "You _were_ a princess though, and you'll always be considered one of us. So, what did you do?"

"Well, I Replaced Jadis, from Narnia," Elsa said. "Not a big fan of what she did, even if it's a bit like what I did. So, I de-froze everything, except for my palace, and I made elections for a Prime Minister. Aslan won, and I became just a political figure without power."

"That's not as good as it sounds, for your information," Jasmine said. "But I'm sure all of us have been there." A few murmurs of agreement were heard.

"And you, Anna?" Snow asked.

"Not much, just making sure that my sister never freezes the kingdom, again."

"You do it once in Baseline..." the Snow Maiden muttered, while a few princesses chuckled.

"Alright, now, the Honorary Princesses." Snow White said.

"I think I'll go first." Wendy said. "I've been practicing about making Fairy Dust since that loop I replaced Tinker Bell."

"You're getting good at that, by the way. I think Peter wants you to teach Izzy to make her own Fairy Dust." The artisan fairy said.

"Hey, you can talk normally!" Kairi said.

"Well, I've exactly trying to learn how to make a miniature translator fairy-human. It works well, for a prototype." Tinker Bell said.

"Cool. Do you girls mind if I go next?" Alice asked. When the princesses agreed, she spoke. "I've decided to ask Discord for a few lessons on how to use Chaos Magic."

"Wait, what? How? Why?" Mulan asked.

"Do you want to know?" The "Princess" of Wonderland grinned, with a grin that reminded the others of the Cheshire Cat... Before disappearing like the cat, leaving only the eyes. After a few seconds, she reappeared, while the princesses all stood in silence, with only Vanellope clapping.

"Alright... Now, who's next?" Tiana asked.

"Oh, Me!" Sofia, the youngest princess, said. "I'm glad you invited me to this summit, I've only seen a few of you, and only whenever I need help from a princess."

"And we're still glad to meet you, Sofia." Cinderella said. "By the way, how is your princess training going?"

"Really good! Last loop, I looped in a world, where I had to practice being a princess, with a little cute fairy!"

"Huh?" Aurora said, smiling. "Do you know the three qualities you need to be a Grand Princess?"

"Of course! Do you?" Sofia asked, a glimmer in her eyes. Aurora nodded, and both of them chanted "Strong! Kind! Beautiful!" while holding little keys that looked like dresses.

"Well, that explains where Aurora was last loop. And how Maleficent was destroyed." Snow White said. "Now, I guess Kairi's next, then Vanellope, and then we can continue with-"

"Wait!" The glitch princess shouted. "What about you two?!" She pointed to Snow and Cinderella. "I mean, we get Aurora, but you two?"

"Oh, right. Well, I was with Kairi and Anastasia, even if she isn't technically a _Disney_ Princess, so I was hoping she explained more," Cinderella told them.

"Yeah, I was with them fighting Xehanort," Kairi said. "I promised Ven a calmed loop if I woke up while he was with Eraqus, and I'm usually a little kid, so I needed help."

"It's a good thing we were Awake for that, I needed to ventilate a few things... My stepmom annoys me a lot sometimes..." Cinderella said.

"I see..." Vanellope said. "But what about our great leader herself?"

"Yeah Snow, what have you been doing?" Jasmine asked.

"Well, I've been doing something special with the dwarfs. Do you wanna know?" Snow said, smiling playfully.

"Does it involve Minecraft?" Vanellope asked, for the shock of the princess, who was going to release a few Diamond Ores from her Pocket.

"... How did you know?"

"Eh, almost every time I see them, is 'Dig this, Dig that! Snow is making progress with her Diamond Ore Fabricator!', You know, things like that." Vanellope smiled, and winked, making the oldest Looping Princess speechless. "By the way, I stealth looped into your world last time." She finished, smiling and glitching all the way.

* * *

11.1-11.4: So the Wayfarer trio are Looping, and Yen Sid is Stealthing...

11.5: There was a Random Loot Generator thing a while back. This is from it.

11.6: (shrugs) Not much else I can say.

11.7: Ah, BadAnon... a good place to be yourself.

11.8: Yes, it's official canon (even outside the Loops) that Lexington prefers his own gender. So does Gobber of _How To Train Your Dragon_. Whether their friendship will go further is entirely up in the air.

11.9: Disney Princesses have some interesting discussions. (Note: This is edited from the original version to remove its mention of "multiversal network"; that's been replaced with uploading to PADDs on request. I also added one or two lines to clarify certain parts.)


	14. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twelve

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-10-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twelve**

12.1 (kingofsouls): [Frozen] / [Star Wars]

_The day of the coronation_

A knock made itself heard on Elsa's door. "Enter."

Slowly the door opened, revealing Kristoff. "Hey Elsa."

"Kristoff, what brings you to the castle this early in the Loop?"

"Well, you know those two minions the Duke of Weselton brings with him?"

"The ones with the moustaches?" Elsa asked. Kristoff nodded as Elsa thought on that. "What about them?"

"Well the last time I went to the Hub loop I learned that some of the people living there call those two guys Weselbiggs and Weselwedge."

"That... seems weird."

"4chan called them that."

"Ah. That explains it, but I doubt you came by this early to tell me a bit of trivia."

"Well you see, this loop they actually _are_ Biggs and Wedge."

Elsa was about to reply when the words died on her lips. "...that explains why we have a spaceship hidden in the mountains."

_That_ surprised Kristoff, the Anchor balking. "You have a spaceship?"

"Apparently yes."

* * *

12.2 (FTKnight): [Frozen]

Kristoff was used to odd sights from the loops, from Aliens to talking frogs. Still the sight of Elsa being carried off towards a Viking ship was a relatively new one on him.

"Hey Elsa, would you like some help?" He called.

"I'm good." Elsa called back. "Try to keep Anna out of trouble for me."

"Sure, Have fun." He responded slightly bemused. Several of those Vikings had looked vaguely familiar...

* * *

12.3 (Evilhumour with help from Purrs): [My Little Pony] / [The Nightmare Before Christmas] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 145.13.

Zecora smiled to herself as she prepared to welcome the anchor to Equestria. She had been planning this for a while now, and she wanted to see how he would take their version of his holiday. Clearing her throat, she directed Cheerilee and her students into their appropriately decorated town and began to sing to them all.

_"Colts and fillies of every age_

_Wouldn't you like to see something strange?"_

Nyx picked up the tone, flying in as her adult self and landed beside the singing zebra.

_"If you have some time to kill_

_See our town of Ponyville"_

From the house they were hiding beside, Diamond Tiara led several foals dressed as pumpkins in the next chant. The anchor's smile was growing by the moment.

_"This is Ponyville, this is Ponyville_

_Ponies laugh in the dead of night"_

Luna flew into the town from her moon, the greatest smile on her face as she basked in the adoration the citizens Ponyville were giving her.

_"This is Ponyville, everypony knows the drill_

_Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright_

_It's our town, everypony laugh_

_In this town of Ponyville"_

Vinyl trotted onto the scene, shaking her mane in her elaborate costume to the utter delight of the stallion beside them.

_"I am the one hiding under your bed_

_Teeth ground sharp and eyes glowing red"_

Flashing a wink, Vinyl joined their growing group as Lyra appeared in her human costume.

_"I am the one outside the windowpane_

_Fingers like snakes and spiders in my mane"_

All of the ponies gathered so far broke out in a joint song of _"This is Ponyville, this is Ponyville"_

Flying in as a pegasus, Sunset flashed her sharp fangs as she sang her part of their song.

_"Ponyville! Ponyville! Ponyville! Ponyville!_

_In this town we call home_

_Everypony hail to the librarian song"_

Ivory Scroll walked onto the scene with a fantastic costume that made it appear she had two faces on her head.

_"In this town, don't we love it now?_

_Everybody's waiting for the next surprise"_

Everyone, even their visitor and the non looping ponies, sung the next part with pride in their voices.

_"Round that corner, Pinkie hiding in the trash can_

_Something's waiting now to pounce, and how you'll..."_

Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy jumped out of the Carousel Boutique, singing loudly to the eternal delight of their friends. The first was wearing something quite risqué, the second was a quite realistic timberwolf, and the third was using her druid powers to make it seem as if she were melting.

_"Scream!_

_This is Ponyville_

_Red 'n' black, slimy green"_

Applejack leaned into the foals around Cheerilee, snarling softly to get them laughing in playful fright.

_"Aren't ya scared?"_

Flying in with their own weird magic, Discord and Silver Spoon caused a bit of draconequus magic to fall around them all.

_"Well, that's just fine_

_Say it once, say it twice_

_Take a chance and roll the dice_

_Ride with the moon in the dead of night._

Spike, changed into a skeleton form for this event sang his lines in a mighty tone:

_"Don't you feel the chill? Don't you feel the chill?"_

Berry Punch, a hoof around her daughter, fulfilled her part.

_"In our town of Ponyville!"_

Pinkie Pie, dressed to the nines, bounced her way to their visitor, her smile greater than the one painted on her face.

_"I am the clown with the tear-away face_

_Here in a flash and gone without a trace"_

A very large red ghoul pony showed off his pipes on the condition that no one would ever tape this.

_"I am the fear in the back of your brain_

_I am the wind blowing through your mane"_

An alicorn mare flew across the moon, doing what little singing she needed to do.

_"I am the shadow on the moon at night_

_Filling your dreams to the brim with fright"_

With that, Celestia, dressed as Nightmare Moon, flew off before her voice would crack.

Everyone followed the zebra alicorn with joy and wonder as she led them deeper into the town.

_"This is Ponyville, this is Ponyville_

_Ponyville! Ponyville! Ponyville! Ponyville!_

_Ponyville! Ponyville!"_

The three founders of the Cutie Mark Crusaders bounded onto the scene, their smiles meeting all of the other ponies' save their visitor.

_"Tender lumplings everywhere_

_Life's no fun without a good scare"_

The Empress of the Crystal Empire and her Royal consort, both dressed as corpses and their legs around each other, chimed in.

_"That's our part-time job, but we're not evil_

_In our town of Ponyville"_

Rainbow Dash unleashed her own singing as they neared the imposing tree in the center of the town.

_"In this town"_

Ivory did not miss her cue from the pony dressed up as the grim reaper, replying with

_"Don't we love it now?_

_Everybody's waiting for the next surprise"_

All of the present mane six started to sing together, side by side.

_"Twilight Sparkle might catch you reading a book_

_And scream like a banshee_

_Make you jump out of your skin_

_This is Ponyville, don't you feel the chill?_ _Won't you please make way for a very special mare?_

_Our mare Twilight is Queen of Golden Oaks_

_Everyone hail to the Bookworm Queen now!"_

Everyone broke out into song in perfect unison, heads pointed to the full moon above them. A pony exploded out from the foliage of the Golden Oaks Library, flying around in the air as the crow reached its climax.

_"This is Ponyville, this is Ponyville_

_Ponyville! Ponyville! Ponyville! Ponyville!"_

Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Bell sang as Twilight landed in front of the entire town, wings bent low before she stood up in front of their special guest.

_"In this town we call home_

_Everyone hail to the friendship song!"_

With that, there was a shout of joy and thunderous applause, none louder than from Pumpkin King himself.

* * *

12.4 (cipher100): [Gargoyles]

**The Awakening, part 1**

**Login name: ***************

**Password: ***************

**Access Yggdrasil Loop Protocol Status: [Designation: Gargoyles]**

**Access Complete...**

**Yggdrasil Loop Protocol**

**Designation: Gargoyles...Status....**

**Stability:...75.8%**

**Primary Anchor Candidates: 1. Goliath, 2. Elisa Moza, 3. David Xanatos**

**Input Anchor Candidate: 1**

**Anchor Stability: ...89.7%**

**Activate Loop Protocol: [Designation: Gargoyles] Y/N?**

**/Y**

**Activating**

**Activation... Complete**

"You are trespassing." Goliath growled at the enemy leader, whom he held by the wrist. Overcoming his shock and fear, Hakon the Viking leader, unsheathed his sword and swung, only for it to be caught in Goliath's other hand. This surprised Hakon even further, though he took solace in the trail of blood flowing from the monster's wound.

"Fight men, they are not invincible." Hakon yelled to his brethren. And with that the fighting continued. The Vikings clashed with the castle's infantry troops guarding the gates to the hold. It was a macabre scene, where glints of steel were followed by a splash of blood and cries of pain. All strewn together with sounds of metal on metal, and metal on flesh.

High up on the parapets the castle's archers let loose their notched arrows. Felling many of their enemies with precision and accuracy, not a shot was wasted with their practice and skill. The Vikings were utilizing their own form of long-range weaponry as well. Towering catapults and trebuchets loaded down with stones and boulders hammered at the castle's walls causing tremors and shockwaves throughout the structure. Their own archers were finding victims as well, either on the ground or up on the walls.

Throughout the battle both sides, either in awe or fear, were well aware of the tiebreakers in the sky. The creatures that were stone by day, flesh by night. The Gargoyles.

With agility and speed the Gargoyles swooped down upon their adversaries. Either to slash the Vikings with sharpened claws or to barrel into them and knock them down, making them easy prey for others. However, some of the less fortunate invaders had the horror to experience being picked up and taken to great heights, only to drop and plummet to the ground.

The battle lasted for many hours, but ended with the castle's guardians victorious and the Viking horde running to lick its wounds. After the battle the leader of this Gargoyle clan, Goliath could not help but ponder the familiarity of the situation. As if it had happened before.

* * *

Goliath was confused. Several hours had passed since the battle between the Vikings and the defenders of castle Wyvern, and since then Goliath had been thinking about what was going. For starters he had an intense feeling of Deja vu, coupled with the fact that he had memories that were not his and yet were. Significant portions of them were blurry as if they were a dream, but several were clear and vivid as if they were from yesterday.

He recalled a place named Manhattan, a massive city of metal and glass that touched the sky. There was another memory of a human woman called Elisa, a woman that filled his heart with joy and hope. And there was a man named Xanatos, the emotions accompanying that name were strange. There was anger and resentment but they were old and dull, the other feelings were brighter, newer, and they were of acceptance and respect.

There were other memories as well, memories of his clan, of strange enemies, of things he never imagined. But everything was inconsequential to what his new memories were telling him about the present, betrayal, regret, loss.

Pushing those thoughts aside he focused on what he was doing, tracking down the Vikings to prevent them from attacking the castle any further. He would deal with what his memories were telling him later. Besides, if there was any deceit, the castle was guarded by his brethren, he was certain they could defend it if anything were to happen.

"These tracks are fresh. Too light to be horses carrying armed men." Hudson, Goliath's new memories told him, said where he was crouched.

"They're not far off." Both took off in the direction of the tracks, only to find a small band of men leading the horses." No." Goliath said as his heart sank. Turning on his heel Goliath bolted with all of his speed, yelling over his shoulder for his companion to follow.

"Goliath. What is it?" Hudson asked with concern. He had never seen Goliath so worried.

"It was a trick. They were using the horses to lead us from the castle. We must hurry." Goliath knew somehow that it would be futile. He was proven correct when they saw the castle in the distance, the Viking horde already in position, with the sun peaking over the horizon. Already feeling the cursed transformation of flesh to stone, the last thing he heard before sleep overtook him was the defeated voice of Hudson.

"We are too late."

* * *

The sun had gone down but the battle was already over. Goliath and Hudson woke up to the sight of a ruined castle, still burning from Viking's siege. They decided to split up; Hudson went to discover how this had happened, while Goliath checked on the Clan. Only to discover that 'Brooklyn', 'Bronx', 'Lexington' and 'Broadway were the only ones to survive. After explaining what had happened they all took flight to find the Vikings and the prisoners that were taken during the assault, also to avenge their fallen brethren.

* * *

Finding their targets was fortunately easy. While the other Gargoyles went to free the captives and fight the common Viking soldiers, Goliath set off for their leader, he found him with the princess bound in ropes. The Captain of the Guard was there as well but he was not tied up like the princess. Did that mean?

"You are the betrayer." Goliath growled in anger at the one he thought was a friend. The Captain tried to explain but Goliath would not hear, he was angry because of the betrayal and because according to his memories he might have prevented it.

Giving in to what he was feeling, Goliath attacked both Hakon and the Captain.In the end Goliath was victorious, the Princess was safe and the other two had fallen off the cliff the fight had taken place on.

However, once the fight was over, Goliath's heart fell further than before. He listened to the Magus' explanation as to what happened, but only partly. For he was lost in the memories that he had discovered a few days ago, memories that had become far clearer than they were before. At first he thought it was just a dream. But he was certain that he was in the past. Whether by magic or by science he was not sure. What he did know was that his clan would reawaken again, and if he would want to be there with them then he would have to go through with what he did the first time.

"Magus. Before you leave may I ask you of something?" Seeing that he had their attention he continued. "Please cast your spell a second time."

As the stone crept over his body, Goliath's last words before he slept for one thousand years were.

"I will do better this time."

* * *

12.5 (kingofsouls): [Frozen] / [Xiaolin Showdown]

_The day of Elsa's coronation_

Kristoff gazed at the harbor, and was mildly confused to see several more ships approach than usual. What was more intriguing was the style of the ships: Many of them were the kind used in battle. Standing on the bow of the lead ship was a red haired, pasty skinned young man garbed in a black coat. He then revealed a bullhorn, and spoke into it.

"ATTENTION LOSERS OF ARENDELLE! I, JACK SPICER - EVIL BOY GENIUS - HAVE COME FOR ONE THING AND ONE THING ONLY! YOUR COMPLETE AND UTTER SURRENDER! AND THE HAND OF THE BEAUTIFUL SOON TO BE QUEEN OF THIS LAND SO THAT I MAY RULE THROUGH HER! JACK BOTS, ATTACK!"

Flying out of the hulls of the armada flew several groups of flying mechanoids that resembled a flying human torso with a head attached.

Kristoff smiled and simply pulled out a camera.

" _At least this guy is more open with his intentions than Hans._ "

* * *

"I went easy on you since you're a girl." moaned Jack Spicer atop a pile of scrapped and partially frozen Jack-bots.

What followed next was Elsa turning Jack into a Jack-cicle, Kristoff trying his hardest to stay professional as he recorded.

* * *

12.6 (LordCirce): [Lilo & Stitch]

Lilo glanced up as Nani lectured her about a lobster door. 'Note to self: Adopt lobsters next Loop. Possibly teach them to dance.'

Stitch crawled across the ceiling, pausing just long enough to wink down at her. She had felt the Ping, but it was always nice to check that Stitch was properly Awake. It could be pretty boring when he wasn't (which was a really odd thing to think about Stitch).

Lilo nodded as Nani finished up and turned to the paperwork, while Stitch crawled back in along the ceiling. Lilo pondered how she could introduce Stitch this time. Watching the dog lady freak out was pretty fun, but maybe they could do something different.

Lilo wandered into the back area, shouting a loud "Hello!" as she did. There was a brief scurrying, then Stitch popped up from in one of the cages.

"Ha-hai!" he growled out, flexing his claw. Lilo tilted her head.

"Did something happen to your vocal cords?"

Stitch shrugged. "Nostalgia."

Lilo nodded. "Right. Well, I've got a neat idea. Do you remember the regulations and everything from when you were Mr. Bubble's partner?"

* * *

Nani leaned back as the kennel owner discussed the different dogs they had.

"...all our dogs are adoptable." The lady smiled and nodded. A sharp cough cut them off, and they both turned to look at Lilo and... the dog?

It was blue, with an odd squished face and oddly shaped ears. But that wasn't the oddest thing, though it did lead her to doubt that it was actually a dog. The oddest thing was that it was standing on its hind legs, and was dressed in a miniature suit, complete with a pair of sunglasses perched on its nose. A small part of her mind commented that it looked like a miniature, furrier version of the social worker from early, but it was drowned out by concern as the kennel worker next to her fainted.

The dog tilted its head, looking concerned, before speaking. Its voice sounded oddly British. "Ahh, pity. I had hoped to thank her for tending to my injuries. Still, I can't stay still for long. As much as I hate to impose, I must ask for shelter. I am being tailed by a couple of rather nasty, if somewhat incompetent, men, and I need somewhere to lay low."

Nani's mouth opened and closed as she took in what the dog... agent... thing was saying. "What?"

* * *

Lilo giggled as she 'showed' Stitch her room. Given his obvious intelligence, Nani had insisted that he sleep down on the couch.

"So, you're being James Bond?"

"Shaken, not stirred." Stitch growled in his ordinary voice. Lilo giggled again before flopping on her bed.

"Hey Stitch, how long do you think it will take to convince Nani to let me get a hovercar again?"

* * *

12.7 (Ryuus2): [Kingdom Hearts] / [How To Train Your Dragon] / [Disney] / [Warhammer 40K] / [Sly Cooper] / [Avatar: Legend of Korra] / [My Little Pony] / [Disgaea]

**Kingdom Hearts Mash-up (better title pending)**

Hiccup woke up in an odd way. Nothing was on fire, there was no roaring or shouts of rage and pain, and he couldn't smell even a hint of smoke or fish. He was standing perfectly still staring up at a castle. Just that. Nothing else. It was the weirdest awakening he'd had in a century.

"Huh, we don't normally wake up here, a-hyuk," a familiar voice to his side said. He grinned and turned to meet the welcoming smiles of Goofy, Donald Duck, and Mickey Mouse. "Howdy Hiccup. You just Wake up too?" the dog-man asked.

"Yep. It's been a while since we've all gotten together like this," Hiccup said as he stretched to get the feeling back in his left leg; it always tingled when it came back after the loop reset. He looked up at the castle and surroundings he now recognized as Hollow Bastion from the first stretch of the Kingdom Hearts loops, then frowned as something hit him as off. "Hey, Mickey, what are you doing here? You don't normally show up until the end of this part, right?"

King Mickey Mouse, Keyblade Master and Disney Anchor, just grinned mischievously up at his fellow anchor. "It's a variant loop that pops up every now and then. Check your loop memories for the details."

Hiccup shrugged and did so. It was quite a bit to take in. Berk replaced Destiny Island this loop, except Riku was there as a Viking, and when the Heartless came Astrid was taken as a Princess of Heart and Hiccup became the new Keybearer. Then, while he, Donald, and Goofy were in Wonderland saving Alice, Maleficent went after Queen Minnie in Disney Castle, prompting Mickey to return from the World of Darkness early instead of trying to close the door to Kingdom Hearts from that end. Agrabah was kinda the same, if everyone was an anthropomorphic animal. Instead of Jasmine and Aladdin, they'd met Princess Carmelita and Sly the street ringtail. Everything else was mostly baseline for Kingdom Hearts, just with a lot more snark.

"Huh. Okay then. I'm guessing all the Princes and Princesses were replaced by loopers, then?" Mickey nods confirmation. "I wonder who replaced Aurora, Cinderella, Snow White, and Belle?" he asked his comrades.

"My memories tell me that it's Princesses Asami, Cadance, and Rozalin this time," Mickey said. "I have no idea who replaced Belle, but the Beast's human name was-"

Mickey was interrupted by nearby space ripping and tearing with a bestial roar, followed by the more familiar roar of a monstrous engine. A tank sized metal box covered in guns rolled through the kaleidoscopic tear in space. What Hiccup recognized as a Rhino troop transport rolled right up to them and parked. Out of the back climbed a giant wolf-man in grey Space Marine armor, flanked by two wolves half his height...making them as tall at the shoulder as Hiccup.

"-Prince Leman Russ," Mickey finished with aplomb.

"Well met, your majesty," Leman growled formally, sketching a bow that was equal parts graceful and deferant despite all the hair and encumbrance of his armor. "I trust we are all Awake?"

"Yep," Hiccup said. "All of us so far, anyways. Your group?"

"Myself, Freki, and Geri, of course," he said, gesturing to his lupine brothers. "Bjorn is replacing Cogsworth. He and Lumiere are in the Rhino. We awoke as soon as the Heartless absconded with Nyx. We would have been here sooner, but the traffic was terrible."

"Are you sure it wasn't your driving?" Donald quacked. Everyone snickered as the Primarch growled angrily at the smirking duck.

"For your information, I was not driving. Bjorn wouldn't let me," he grumbled the last part. He waved at the portal he used to get there. "I was talking about them."

Out of the still open warp portal, another group arrived on what most of the loopers there would call the strangest vehicle they had ever seen. A large blue and green flying carpet... with a steering wheel. Behind the wheel was a pink hippo in a turban with blue pants held up by a red sash. Behind him was a grey raccoon in a blue vest holding a crooked cane, a green turtle wearing a bowtie and a fez, and a tigress in purple pants and crop-top.

The next arrival was a glowing comet. A giant glowing hulk of ice and rock with a tail of fire, that was somehow capable of parallel parking between a tank and a carpet. The light quickly dimmed and one wall of the comet fell apart/melted and reformed into a set of stairs. Down the stairs came a very handsome young man in expensively tailored royal blue clothes, with a bearing fit for a prince. The only thing that ruined the very picture of every parent's dream son in law was the very impressive cleavage the "prince" was displaying.

Last to arrive was an ornate crystal carriage driven by two crystal stallions. Out of it stepped yet another young man, in red this time, who was equally as handsome and charming as the last. Except for the chiseled jaw and lack of cleavage, that is. He was also accompanied by two mice, one on either shoulder, wearing matching guard uniforms and light plate armor, with identical swords strapped to their sides. As they stepped towards the group, the carriage and horses slowly lost definition until they faded away completely, their creator no longer applying the focus needed to keep up the elaborate force-fields that comprised them.

Taking in the assembled loopers around him, Hiccup came to a quick decision. He switched to his favorite Night Fury keyblade, jumped on the Rhino, and cast a wandless Sonorus on himself. "My friends and fellow loopers, we have been called together here for a reason. Call it fate, or chance, or Yggdrasil wanting a show, but there is a reason. And that reason... is to prove we are men! And amazons," he added aside when Korra glared and Neyla hissed at him. "But mostly as men! Now what are we waiting for? Let's save our girls! Then rub it in their faces!"

**"Yeah!"**

* * *

12.8 (LordCirce): [Gravity Falls]

"Dipper, please let me get my vengeance on the Northwests! You hate them as much as I."

Dipper rolled his shoulders and sighed. "Dude, man, I don't hate them. I mean, yeah, the older ones, sure, but Pacifica is actually pretty cool." ' _If only because Mabel and I ran our perfected_ Get-Pacifica-To-Be-A-Decent-Person-Plan _at the beginning of the summer.'_ Dipper then pointed back over his shoulder. "Plus, my sister is having a lot of fun in there, and she would probably kill me if I let anything mess up this party."

The ghost sighed. "Very well boy. Then, before you banish my soul, may these tired lumber eyes, gaze upon the trees, one final time?"

Dipper rolled his eyes at the ghost's melodrama. ' _How did I ever fall for this?_ ' "Um, sure man, knock yourself out."

Dipper lifted up the silver mirror and aimed it out at the trees. The ghost, as always, began to laugh. Several seconds passed, and the ghost's laughter slowly faded, as did the burning glow around the mirror. Dipper yawned. "You finished with your last look?"

"How? How can you resist the fires of rage that burns within my soul?!" The mirror flared hot again, but Dipper used a quick flame-siphoning trick, courtesy of Harry Dresden, and escaped perfectly unburned.

"Hey, man, sorry, but this ain't exactly my first rodeo. I know how to handle any trick you can throw at me." ' _Though it took me about sixty Loops to be able to actually say that. Seriously, how did this particular ghost get so powerful?_ '

After a few seconds, the mirror cooled and the lumberjack sighed, long and loud. "Very well. You have truly bested me. I only ask, do not let the Northwests rest in peace. Carry on my legacy!"

"Nah, I don't think I can do that." ' _And loophole allowing him to come back and possess me is closed._ ' "But, I do have something I think you should see."

Dipper jumped off the stump where he had been standing and carefully made his way over to a small hillock that just overlooked the Northwest Mansion gates. Tilting his head, he signaled a thumbs up to Mabel and Pacifica, who were watching from one of the manor windows.

"What is this, boy? You wish to have my final sight be the mockery of the town!"

Dipper buffed his fingernails on his shirt. "Nah, just the start of tearing down the Northwests reputation." Right on cue, the gates of the mansion opened up. Dipper glanced at the ghost's face, and grinned at the mixture of shock and delight that filled it as the old lumberjack saw the townsfolk rushing up to the doors. One of the benefits of befriending Pacifica early was the ability to let everyone end this debacle happy without needlessly turning into wood. Well, the older Northwests wouldn't be happy, but who cared about them?

"...Thank you, Dipper. You have given my soul the justice it so dearly craved." So saying, the essence of the ghost vanished from the mirror. Dipper performed a few quick spells to check for any remnants, but it looked like the ghost was gone for good.

"Another job well done. Now, to go get a photo of Mr. Northwest's face when Soos sets up his W-neck stand..."

* * *

12.9 (LordCirce): [Gravity Falls]

"And look at my outfit! These colors, with these, I guess you could call them pants. And my hair!"

Mabel grinned widely. "I know, isn't it..."

"Awful!""Great!"

Mabel and Pacifica blinked, before glaring at each other. Dipper sighed as he rubbed his head. He was just glad this wasn't a Reversed Loop where he and Mabel were psychically connected. Having a direct line to either Creepy!Mabel or Sugar!Spaz!Mabel was never a good time.

Slowly, Mabel reached her hand out. "Wardrobe swap."

Pacifica slowly nodded. "Wardrobe swap. Your outfit is at least somewhat fashionable."

Mabel shuddered. "Don't remind me."

Dipper groaned again. "And how are we supposed to explain this to everybody?"

Pacifica shrugged. "Just blame it on your weird journal. Always seemed to work before."

* * *

12.10 (LordCirce): [Gravity Falls]

"Do you want to know how I figured out your whole time dealy?"

Dipper huffed as he rose to his mental feet. No matter what he tried, Bill always seemed to get summoned or just show up, leading to some sort of mental battle, often in Stan's mind. "Honestly, I just want to kick your butt so I can go home."

"Heh, you're funny kid. Explains why I like you so much. Anyway, since you asked so nicely..."

"I didn't ask..."

"... I'll tell you. It's because I can see it. This eye isn't for show, you know." Images began rapidly flashing through Bill's eye. "The history of this town, you and your twin, that meddling baby, I can see it all. You know what I can't see?"

Dipper groaned. "What?"

"ME! My past, my motives, my history. None of it! I can't see it at all. It just doesn't exist. I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM!"

Dipper stood, stunned, as Bill slumped from his outburst.

* * *

12.11 (LordCirce): [Gravity Falls]

"Mega Kitten Whisker Wave!"

Dipper twisted, leaping up so he could ride the wave of furry cuteness across the yard, rather than get bowled over by it like the gnomes. Back next to the shack, Mabel laughed maniacally as she tried out her newest toy, the Muni Magic Wand.

' _Note to self: Keep a better eye on Mabel in wild-magic Loops. Also, find a way to steal that charger._ ' Gravity Falls is weird enough without Mabel having the ability to spawn...

"Silly String Super Tornado!" *Splat*

Dipper slowly pulled his way free from where he had been silly stringed to a tree. ' _Definitely need to get that charger. Or find a way to nullify magic..._ '

* * *

12.12 (LordCirce; Hvulpes): [DC] / [Gravity Falls]

Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, took a deep breath of the dank Gotham air as he stepped out of the Batmobile. Behind him, Nightwing, Batgirl, and Robin all climbed out as well.

"We've narrowed down Bane's location to somewhere in the four blocks south of here." Batman turned to face his charges, smiling at their focus. "This is a reconnaissance patrol only. If you spot them, signal it in, and we will regroup. Understood?"

All three nodded. Batman nodded back, and turned to face the nearest building face. "Let's go."

The dark solemnity of the moment was shattered by a laughing shout. "GRAPPLING HOOK!" Batman, spun, his jaw dropping, as Batgirl, aka Mabel Gordon, flew up on her grappling line. Next to the Batmobile, Robin, aka Dipper Drake, had his head in his hands, while Nightwing, aka Dick Grayson, stood with the sort of stiffness that showed he was internally suppressing riotous laughter. Slowly, Batman turned back to the buildings. "Nightwing, follow her and keep her out of trouble. Robin, you're with me." One *thwip* and cape flutter later, Batman had vanished.

Dipper turned to look at Nightwing. "I'm so sorry."

Nightwing just gazed stoically back, before lifting up his grappling gun, and saying two solemn words.

"Grappling Hook."

* * *

As Batman watched Batgirl hug the animal in a batsuit which had knocked out Quinn and The Joker, he sighed as he resigned himself to his answer, "Yes Batgirl, Waddles can be... Batpig!"

* * *

12.13 (Harosata): [Phineas and Ferb] / [My Little Pony] - not compiled in _MLP Time Loops_.

Doofenshmirtz just had to laugh. Of course it was an evil laugh, victorious variant. "Finally, my Calling-All-Villain-Inator is complete, and you can't do anything, Perry the Platypus!"

He looked around. "You are awake, right, Perry? I mean, it's not like I tailored the speech whether you're Awake or not, but don't ask me for an explanation of the Multiverse."

Perry just blinked.

"Right, you're Awake." Doofenshmirtz cleared his throat. "Now, as you might be aware, there's more than our universe out there, and where there's universes, there's heroes, and when there's heroes, there's villains. And sure, that last time we had the Avenger's villains come over, it was one of the happiest days of my life."

The mad scientist frowned. "But then I found out those villains can't really be called villains. I mean, really, you got someone called the 'King of Evil' styling pony princesses, a Sith Lord who wants to play Dad-of-the Year, and all those movie villains who end up becoming heroes. Heck, even if you become a MLE, you're sharing the rank with two brain dead idiots! I mean, really, these people Safe Loops are considered more evil than naturally evil Loops. But my Calling-All-Villain-Inator will fix that!"

A spotlight shone down on what looked like a portal machine. "All I have to do is just scan a piece of literature or movie into this machine, and I can draw a villain out from that world. And the best part is, once we have a fun time together, it's going to cause that villain to loop, and they'll call me the 'cool guy who got me looping'. Now, I'll start with this Japanese comic book from the Hub called 'Arthur Pyuty-"

Doofenshmirtz quickly let go of the book as lightning struck. "Come on, I could provide a cure for the disease in there, and it wasn't like I was going to bring in a crazy version of her."

A small meteor crushed the Calling-All-Villain-Inator. "Seriously? Fine, if getting a villain to Loop in and stay as a villain is so bad, why don't you just run me over with a stampede of jackalopes?"

DING

Doofenshmirtz and Perry gazed over at the elevator. "See, it's not such a bad idea, though I guess I can't invite every bad guy I hear about."

Angel the Bunny simply tilted his fedora and walked towards him.

* * *

12.14 (LordCirce): [Atlantis: The Lost Empire]

Milo Thatch paused as he adjusted the chalkboard his presentation was drawn on, then suddenly spun around in a panic.

"Wha, huh? Where am... This is the boiler room. Why am I in the Smithsonian boiler room?" Milo rubbed his face as his other hand brushed his chest, only to find the crystal that had hung there was missing.

"Oh... Oh no... Kida!" Milo quickly dashed out of the room, missing the incoming telephone call to do something about the boilers.

* * *

Milo slumped into his apartment, stunned. It was all gone. Atlantis, all of it. It was like none of it had ever...

"Hello, Mr. Thatch."

Milo jumped at the familiar, throaty voice. He spun, spotting the statuesque blonde stepping out of the shadows. "Helga?"

Helga Sinclair stumbled slightly in shock. "How do you know my name?"

Milo wasn't paying attention. "If you're here, then that means... Mr. Whitmore... And Roarke and Atlantis and Kida!" Milo let out a loud whoop and promptly scooped up his cat, spinning into a frantic dance of joy. Helga watched with a mixture of suspicion, disbelief and amusement, before shrugging. She got paid either way. And if it turned out this Milo character was a nut, well, that was Whitmore's problem.

* * *

12.15 (Evilhumour): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Warhammer 40K] - not compiled in _MLP Time Loops_.

"Twilight!" Pinkie Pie shouted, running over to hug as two ponies followed her with big grins on her face. "I wanna introduce you to my sisters!"

"Hiya, I'm Maple Syrup!" the earth pony shouted, glistening in gems on her body.

"Hiya, I'm Glimmering Mind!" the other earth pony said with a grin from ear to ear.

"And together," all three of them leaning in for a hug. "WE ARE LOOPING PIE SISTERS!"

"Oh sweet Celestia no." Twilight muttered before fainting.

* * *

12.16 (LordCirce): [Kingdom Hearts]

Kairi stared blankly at Sora, who was practicing his dual-wielding. His form was excellent, and as Kairi was Awake, seeing him wielding giant keys wasn't unusual. No, the unusual thing was around his neck.

"Are those what I think they are?"

Sora spun around at the sound of her voice, grinning, as the necklace made of miniature keys spun around his neck. "May~be."

"And just what are you planning to do with them?" Kairi's eyebrows knitted together.

Sora's grin turned evil. "Munchkinning!"

* * *

12.17 (Harosata): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Sentinels of the Multiverse]

Doofenshmirtz was giddy with glee. A new Looper came into his office, and he was a villain. An unponified non-MLE villain who honestly wanted to take over the world. And he looked dashing to boot. It's too bad he couldn't use the Welcome-To-The-Multiverse-Inator to give the newcomer the speech, but nothing's ever perfect.

"Great! Now how about we both team up and-" Doofenshmirtz backed up as Baron Blade pulled out a gun. "Oh, every time I have a Fused Loop, this happens."

"How about I repurpose your inventions for my own use?" Baron Blade smirked. "With my genius, your inventions and the knowledge of these Loops, no man can stop me. Ha ha ha-"

Then he got a webbed foot to the face.

* * *

Legacy Woke u-

"CURSE YOU PERRY THE PLATYPUS!"

"Huh, looks like Baron Blade's Awake too." Legacy commented idly as he set out to save the day.

* * *

12.18 (Harosata): [Disney] / [Phineas and Ferb]

Mickey glared at Doctor Doofenshmirtz. "What have we learned today?"

"When experiencing the Mikasa Glitch, attempt to handle the situation in a calm and peaceful manner." The mad scientist deadpanned.

Mickey drawled on. "Aaaaand?"

"Do not use Shadow Clones, Mirrors Pools, body snatcher pods, duplication spells, or the cloning machine I made that one Halloween when you end up fighting yourselves."

* * *

12.19 (Awesomedude17): [Five Nights at Freddy's] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Part 1:

Foxy Awoke as a human, stuck in a slowly sinking dinghy. He looked across to see an actual person, rowing the boat.

"Something the matter, mate?"

"Nothin' Cap't." Foxy automatically responded. "Just annoyed."

"Same here. But we'll get the Pearl back. Promise you that." The Captain spoke.

"Lookie there, Cap't. A port!"

"Aye. And look..." The Captain pointed at what looked like dead pirates on display. The two gave their tributes right before they ported.

Foxy would enjoy spending time with the infamous _Captain_ Jack Sparrow as one of his trusted crew members.

* * *

12.20 (LordCirce): [The Emperor's New Groove]

Pacha sighed as he rode his cart back to his farm. 'Another day, another...'

He paused in his thought process as he caught sight of a sack in his cart that hadn't been there before. Rolling his eyes, Pacha pulled his cart to a halt and leaned back, pulling open the sack to allow an unconscious llama to spill out into the back of his cart. The llama blinked blearily and looked around.

"Wha, where am I?"

"Seriously, Kuzco, how does she keep getting you?"

The llama stared at him blankly for several long seconds, before throwing his hooves up and screaming. "I don't know! I kick her out, I send the guards after her, I use my super kung-fu skills to take her down," Kuzco deliberately ignored Pacha's disbelieving look, "and she still manages to hit me with the potion!"

Pacha sat back into the driver's seat and nodded. "Uh huh, and why don't you just carry the antidote in your Pocket?"

Kuzco snorted. "An emperor doesn't need pockets. That's why I have servants, to carry all my things around for me."

The silence stretched on for several seconds. "You never learned how, did you?"

"It's boring!" Kuzco flopped over the seat next to Pacha. "Blah blah focus your chi blah blah soul space. Too much explainy for my brainy."

Pacha just shook his head. "And yet none of your servants are here, huh?"

Kuzco glanced over slyly. "You're here."

Pacha just stared at him flatly.

Kuzco huffed. "Fine." He took a deep breath, then wilted and in a tiny voice asked, "please?"

Pacha laughed and grinned. "There we go!" He pulled a small bottle full of pink potion out of his sleeve and tossed it back to Kuzco.

"Yay!" Kuzco pulled the stopper out with his teeth and downed the elixir in one gulp. One puff of smoke later, a fully human Kuzco hopped up to sit on the bench next to Pacha. "So, what's the plan?"

Pacha shrugged. "Oh, you know, typical peasant stuff. Farming, weeding, scraping out a meager existence." He glanced sideways at Kuzco. "Carving anachronistic drawings in some blocks with the kids to confuse archaeologists."

Kuzco whooped. "Awesome. Hey, I can carve a mean kangaroo. Did you know, kangaroos won't let you ride them? So rude. I was there..." Kuzco's voice faded as the cart rumbled into the jungle.

* * *

(Mr. Egret): [Indiana Jones] / [The Emperor's New Groove]

A Few Decades Later...

"Dr. Jones! I think you should take a look at this!"

Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, professor of archaeology at Stanford University and Anchor of his universe, looked up from his (heavily annotated) map of Egypt to see his friend and colleague, Professor Marcus Brody, running over while waving around a newspaper. "What is it, Brody?" he asked, as he got up out of his chair to meet him.

"It's that archaeological dig in Peru," Brody replied, as he laid the newspaper on the table. "They've found a set of most unusual carvings near that village you found on one of your adventures."

Prof. Jones looked at the front page of the newspaper, which bore the headline "Impossible Incan Carvings Found! Archaeologists Baffled!" Underneath the giant typeface, a set of black and white photographs featuring the carvings in question were splashed across the page. Indy's brow furrowed as he examined the carvings. "Brody, this carving... isn't this a kangaroo?"

"Yes! It's extraordinary! Until now, there hasn't been any evidence at all that there was any contact between Australia and South America during the time period in which those carvings were made! This could revolutionize ancient history as we know it!"

Indiana thought for a few seconds. "Are you sure this isn't a prank? Like a couple of smart alecks sneaking into the ruins to vandalize them with graffiti?"

"Impossible. We checked the age of those carvings very meticulously. They were, in all likelihood made within the same century as the ruins themselves."

"I see," Indy replied, as he stood up. "I'll dig through some of my old case files, see if there's anything similar to those carvings that I may have missed. Hard to believe that Incan trans-Pacific travel had been overlooked for so long. Keep me posted if anything new develops."

Brody nodded, smiling. "Sure thing, Indy. I have to let the others know about this. I'll see you later."

Brody said goodbye to Indy, before walking out of his office and shutting the door firmly behind him. Indy looked at the photograph again, before noticing something else. In the bottom left corner of the kangaroo, there were some scratches that looked like words. Grabbing a magnifying glass, Indy took a closer look at them. "Wait a minute... this is English," he said to himself. He grabbed his glasses, put them one, and then started to read. "'Kuzco... was... here...'"

There was a brief pause before Indy broke into a grin. "Well played, Kuzco," he said, while chuckling. "Well played."

He had to buy that guy a drink the next time they met. Maybe several drinks.

* * *

12.1: But what _kind_ of spaceship is it? X-Wing, shuttle, or star cruiser?

12.2: Apparently she's used to this.

12.3: Welcome to Ponyville, Jack Skellington.

12.4: And so their first Loop begins...

12.5: Jack Spicer is an Anchor, incidentally.

12.6: Stitch does odd things.

12.7: Massive multiplayer crossover. Doesn't seem to have been continued.

12.8: Heading towards Pacifica's activation.

12.9: Reverse Falls.

12.10: The Mystery of Bill Cipher.

12.11: Inspiration drawn from _Star Vs. the Forces of Evil_.

12.12: ... I'm not entirely sure what to say here.

12.13: Some Inators work better than others.

12.14: Atlantis Awakens. Welcome to the Loops, Milo.

12.15: RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

12.16: Eeyeah.

12.17: Do I even want to know?

12.18: Doof's learned this at least three times. Maybe one of these times, it'll stick.

12.19: One of these days, this needs to be continued.

12.20: Well played, indeed.


	15. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirteen

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-04. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirteen**

13.1 (LordCirce): [The Incredibles]

**The Incredible Avengers (Part 1): Curing the Syndrome**

Bob yawned as he Awoke, and jerked slightly on the steering wheel of the car he was driving. Luckily, the road around him was empty, and he was able to correct himself, shaking his head to clear it.

"Okay, fancy old car. Unless I was super-nostalgic this Loop, that leaves me as starting out much earlier than normal." He grinned. "Let's make some changes."

* * *

Bob flexed as he sat back into his chair. He'd spotted Buddy's hair, so 3, 2, 1...

"Cool! Ready for takeoff!"

Bob snorted internally and faked a jump. "What? Who are you?"

Buddy waved his hands and struck a pose. "Well, I'm Incrediboy."

Bob gave him a flat look. "Uh huh. And does your mother know you're here, Buddy?"

"I'm not Buddy. I'm Incrediboy!"

Bob stifled a sigh. He had forgotten just how stubborn Buddy was at this point. "Okay, Incrediboy, but I would like to talk to Buddy for a moment. Could I do that?" He put on his best fatherly smile.

Buddy paused, then slowly nodded, pulling off the mask. "I'm still Incrediboy."

Bob nodded. "Okay. But again, does your mother know you're here?"

Buddy shook his head, and in a small voice, muttered, "No."

Bob sighed. "Look, Buddy, I would love to have Incrediboy backing me up, but you're still a kid. This isn't like a comic book, where I can take you out, fighting crime, while you're still in school. There are dangerous people out there, who wouldn't hesitate to hurt you, even though you're a kid."

"I'm not a kid! I'm ten!"

Bob had to bite back the laughter that Buddy's outburst provoked. "That's still not old enough for me to take you out. You would need to be eighteen, sixteen at the earliest, and only then with your mother's full consent and permission. Being a superhero doesn't mean that I can do whatever I want with no regard for the law, you know."

Buddy scowled, but finally nodded. "I guess."

"Besides, I wouldn't want to keep you limited as Incrediboy."

Buddy sat up. "What do you mean? You're the greatest hero ever!"

"And you could be even greater, but not if you're stuck in my shadow." Bob nodded, thinking to himself, 'And that is absolutely true. With all his gadgets, Syndrome makes an amazing hero, when I can get him there.'

"Stuck in your shadow?"

Bob shrugged. "If we start you out as Incrediboy, it will be extremely hard to get the public to see you as anyone else. You'll be stuck with the idea of being my sidekick forever, and that's no good." Bob glanced at the clock. He needed to head up to meet Helen soon. "Tell you what, I'm going to give you the number to my personal line. Tell your mother to call me tomorrow, and I will set up a time where we can meet up to plan your training. We can help set it up so that, if you really end up wanting to be a hero full-time, that you will have all the tools you need to accomplish it."

"I already have all the tools. I made them. Like these rocket boots." Buddy lifted up his feet, showing off the rocket boots strapped onto them.

"Awesome. Bring those along when we meet. Even if I can't take you out patrolling, you can still sell gadgets like these. I know a bunch of heroes that could use a quick way to get around, myself included."

Buddy's eyes widened. "Really?"

Bob nodded. "Yep. Now, do you want me to drop you off at home, or do you want to preserve your secret hideout?" A bit manipulative, maybe, Bob thought, as Buddy jumped out of the car and raced off, the card with Bob's number on it clutched in his hand, but hopefully this would get Buddy onto the right path.

* * *

Several weeks later, Bob stood in front of the press outside of the court, facing Oliver Sansweet in a neck brace. Bob took great pleasure in saving the ungrateful jerk's life again, and in stopping Bomb Voyage without Buddy getting in the way and causing the train to almost crash. Finding out that Helen was Awake this time around just made things even better.

"Mr. Sansweet didn't ask to be saved. Mr. Sansweet didn't want to be saved. And the injury received from Mr. Incredible's 'actions', so called, cause him daily pain."

Bob pushed past the press man, who was trying to hustle him away, and spoke up. "Well, I just have two questions then. Why have you attempted to ignore the Good Samaritan Laws which are in place specifically against this sort of action, and have been upheld nine times in cases regarding superheroes, and why does Mr. Sansweet still have a neck brace on when I know, for a fact, that Golden Cross healed him the day after the accident, free of charge, at my request and with Mr. Sansweet's permission?"

The panicked look on the face of Mr. Sansweet as the press turned on him like a pack of piranhas was sweet.

* * *

Foiling Mr. Sansweet's lawsuit didn't change the course of events, though it did slow them down. Public disapproval of superheroes still rose, especially after a large group of gritty anti-hero types started showing up. Bob and Helen still slipped quietly off, though Bob was much better about hiding his powers and holding his temper, meaning that he was still on job number two (in his defense, his first boss was a big, big jerk).

Bob groaned as he squeezed his way out of his small station wagon. Despite his pleas, his old car was still just a bit too noticeable, and cars just kept getting more and more compact, which didn't do his large frame any favors. Humming softly to himself, Bob strode in through the front door.

"Honey, I'm home!"

"You have a visitor." Helen called back from the living room. Bob followed her voice and grinned at the sight in front of him.

"Buddy!"

Buddy Pine turned from where he was showing Dash something on a small tablet, and grinned. "Bob! How are you doing? It's been a while since I've seen you guys."

Bob chuckled. "I've been pretty good. But I'll say right now, I'm still not coming to work for you."

"Psshhh," Buddy waved his hand. "I'm not here to convince you." He turned to glance over at where Violet was bent over some homework. "I was just trying to convince your lovely daughter to accept an internship with our company. She's obviously brilliant, and those force-fields of hers would be quite useful in a number of applications."

"Nothing dangerous, I'm sure."

Buddy waved his hand at Bob's playfully threatening tone. "No, I still remember your lessons." He grinned down at Jack-Jack a moment, who was currently trying to gnaw on one of Buddy's shoelaces, before Helen scooped him up. "Though, I know I said I wasn't here to convince you, but..."

Bob laughed as he walked through to the dining room, Buddy following. Bob grabbed some plates from the cupboard and began setting the table. "I told you, I'm perfectly happy helping out like I am right now."

Buddy waved his arms. "I know, I get it, save the world through better insurance and all that. This isn't a full job offer, more of, a consulting thing. The military has contracted Synthacore for yet another solution to the hero gap, and you providing some insight would be useful."

Bob scratched his chin. "I don't know. I mean, don't you know all my moves?"

Buddy groaned and covered his face. "I was ten. I figured 'punch them in the face' was all the strategy you needed."

Bob laughed and clapped Buddy on the shoulder, causing him to stagger a bit. "Sure, I'd be happy to answer a few questions. Just let me consult with Helen, because I know that she is going to want to be involved."

Buddy nodded. "Of course." He then stretched. "Well, I have to get going, I've got a meeting in Berlin tomorrow afternoon, so I have a plane to catch."

"You aren't staying for dinner?"

Buddy turned to shake his head at Helen. "Alas not, my fair lady, though my stomach will be forever lesser by my loss."

Helen smiled at Buddy's dramatic manner. He was still something of a glory hound, even when he wasn't a villain.

"Aww, you're leaving, Uncle Buddy!" Dash and Violet both walked in, before grabbing onto his arms. He laughed and swung them both around once, before pulling his arms free.

"Yeah, sorry kiddos, I've got work to do. I must Bring Wonder to the World!" He struck a dramatic pose as he quoted his company motto. Both of the kids giggled.

"Alright you two. Now, go get cleaned up for dinner." Both of them ran off with a minimum of complaint at Helen's urging, while Bob walked Buddy back towards the front door.

Buddy turned right before the door. "Seriously though, thanks for agreeing to this. This project is looking to be super ambitious, and it's been a hassle dealing with all of the different pieces. I mean, even the name is ridiculous. I'm seriously thinking of firing someone if I find out that the name Ultimate Logistical Tactical Response Oversight Network came from my side of the contract." Buddy shook his head again, before giving Bob a quick handshake and heading out the door.

Bob frowned as he closed the door after Buddy, the name of the project turning over in his head, before the pin dropped. He turned to glance at Helen, and saw that she had caught it too from where she had been listening by the kitchen door. Bob muttered the word they were both thinking.

"Ultron."

Helen sighed as she set the bowl of mashed potatoes on the table. "I'll go call Edna about the suits."

* * *

13.2 (LordCirce): [The Incredibles] / [Marvel]

**The Incredible Avengers (Part 2): The Dominoes are Set**

Helen smiled as she pulled up in front of Violet's school. She and Bob had mentored the kids in responsible and discreet power use, and they had reached the point where Dash was trusted enough to run to school from being dropped off by Violet's school. Neither Dash or Violet had Awakened this Loop, but it didn't matter to either of the older Parrs, as they loved them just the same.

"Ok, you two, now, we might be home a little bit late, which means that if I'm not here to pick you guys up, Violet, you will have to get a ride home with Nat, and Dash," she paused to glance at him, "for today only, you have permission to run home if I'm not here."

Dash let out a whoop and quickly started to fumble with his seatbelt in excitement. Violet nodded. "Got it, Mom."

Helen nodded back. "Good. Now, you both have your phones on you, right? We may need to keep in touch with you during the day."

"Got it." Dash called as he pulled open the door, crouching down on the other side to make sure he was out of sight, then sped off in a blur of motion.

"We've got it, Mom. Don't worry, you guys are just one town over." Violet leaned in for a quick hug through the driver side window, and then pulled away and turned, running up the steps towards the school. "Bye Mom!"

"Bye sweetie!" Helen waved, then sighed as she rolled up her window and discreetly stretched her arm a bit to pull Dash's door closed, as he had forgotten. She then took a deep breath and pulled away.

She reached up as she pulled onto the main street and pulled down the sun visor in front of her, tapping a small discreetly hidden button in the side of the panel, which led to the screen shifting to a view of Bob's face from the perspective of his phone.

"Hey Honey. Did you drop off the kids?"

Helen nodded. "Yes, dear, and I told them about heading home if we're...delayed. Did you get everything from Edna?"

Bob nodded, hoisting up a familiar folded jumpsuit. "Yep, she had them all prepped. I still think we should have done this sooner, just to be on the safe side."

"And then Edna would get on our cases about letting her designs sit in our closets."

Bob chuckled. "Yeah, I know. See you soon."

Helen nodded, then flipped the visor up, ending the conversation.

* * *

Violet let out a long breath as she made her way up the steps. Both her parents had been acting a bit weird about the meeting they were going to go have with Uncle Buddy about his latest project, and it was causing her to be a bit jumpy. Her jumpiness manifested itself when one of the classroom doors opened in front of her opened up, letting out a group of people surrounding a figure that made her heart leap painfully in her chest.

"...so I pulled out around him, and of course he can't drive worth beans, so he overcompensates and slides into the ditch. That left just me and the kit car in it, with him pushing at my tail, of course. So I... huh?" The tall, dark haired boy trailed off and glanced down the corridor.

"What is it, Tony?" One of the girls next to him leaned forward, laying her hand on his arm.

Tony shook his head, frowning, then smiled disarmingly. "Nothing, I just thought I saw something for a moment. Anyway, so this guy..." His voice faded as the group moved down the corridor.

Violet peered out from where she had hidden herself behind a row of lockers, heaving a sigh as she did so. That had been close.

"VI!" A throaty, faintly accented voice called out, causing Violet's eyes to widen, just before a red-headed blur slammed into her. The girl who had shouted for her spun around her in a dizzying move that left Violet spun about and somehow placed the redhead hugging her between her and the wall.

Violet sighed as a small smile tugged at her lips. "Hello, Nat." She pulled away and twisted, hugging Nat back with her free arm.

Nat, whose full name was Natasha but she never used it, was a childhood friend of Violet's. Nat's adoptive dad was in the Hero Relocation program just like Violet's parents, and they had ended up living in the same places both times that their families had to relocate, leading to them practically growing up together.

Both of them were unlikely friends, as they were a study in contrasts. Nat was kind of short, with red hair that hung in a loose wave across her shoulders. She was very athletic, and an avid gymnast, and while she could often be just as quiet as Violet, it was the sort of quiet that comes when you simply feel those around you aren't worth talking to. The primary exception was when she was around Violet.

"So, I saw you being all sneaky. Is there someone that you are stalking? A certain dark-haired someone, with the most gorgeous brown eyes, and that dashing cleft chin and..."

"Shut up." Violet elbowed Nat, who spun around the push and ended up on Violet's other side with her arm over Violet's shoulder. "It's just a stupid crush."

Nat just giggled.

* * *

Dash slowed to a stop in the bushes next to his school and glanced around. He hadn't spotted anyone, but his mom had continued to drill into his head the importance of being discreet. He didn't see the point, as no-one could catch him even if they did see him, but it was never fun being grounded, so he would do as he was told. He paused near one of the windows to check his reflection, and he patted down a bit of his hair that had gotten swept back by the wind of him running, before swaggering around to the door to the building.

He pushed open the side door with just the right amount of effort to make it swing in, but not to look like he was straining. In other words, the right amount of effort to look coolest. He grinned to himself, shrugged his shoulders like Lucius always did when he was being smooth, and strode into the school.

His perfect entrance was ruined when the spitball hit him right between the eyes. It took him a second to realize what the stinging, wet sensation meant, but then he saw the boy down the hallway lowering his straw and grinning. Dash frowned, before smirking, and with a quick glance to make sure the coast was clear, he blurred into motion. Down the hall, right up behind his shooter. A nudge to the back of the foot, then back down the hall to where he was standing, as the other boy flailed and fell over with a thud and a groan.

"You shouldn't be running in the hall." A soft voice came from the side and Dash groaned.

"Oh, shut up, Bruce. No-one saw, and Clint shot me first." The newly-labeled Clint sprung up from where he had been lying and ran over, much slower than Dash could manage.

"I could almost see you move that time. I swear, one of these days, I'm going to spin around and pow, knock you down right when you think you got me."

Dash smirked back at him. "Sure. You just keep telling yourself that." Clint just pushed the tinted glasses he always wore up on his nose, while next to them, Bruce let out a faint noise that was half of a chuckle and half of a sigh. Bruce was a hero's kid, like Dash, and he had known him for a while. Bruce was pretty shy, so he tended to just follow Dash around, which suited Dash just fine, because Bruce was also a nerd, so he could always help Dash out with his homework. Clint was just a normal kid that Dash had met on his first day at this school. He had seen Dash speeding off after school that first day, and had agreed to keep it a secret. Now, they were pranking buddies.

"Did you get the goods?" Dash asked, eagerly. Clint smirked.

"Yep. It's sitting in my lunch box, waiting for it. You want to do it before or after class?"

"After. If we do it later, we won't have to deal with her when she's mad, and we can set up an alibi." Both Clint and Dash turned to look at Bruce expectantly, who groaned, before nodding. Bruce was such a teacher's pet, that if he told them Dash and Clint were with him the whole time, all the teachers would believe him.

* * *

"So, how's little Bruce doing?" Violet ducked slightly as they stepped out of their classroom and headed for lunch. "I know he's been hanging around with Dash, but I don't think he's been rubbing off."

Nat yawned and stretched. "Well, Dash isn't rubbing off on him either. He's still so quiet. Dad and I are kind of worried that he's going to be following in your footsteps."

Violet huffed. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

Nat grinned. "Oh, you know. Quiet, hiding in corners, pining for forbidden romance in the back of a shining car." Nat held her hand over heart in a solemnly dramatic fashion, while Violet just rolled her eyes.

"Will you stop it? I told you, it's just a crush."

"Okay, okay. So, if we can't discuss the hunky car monkey, how about the hunky quarterback? I heard the team is all upset, because Steve was too sick to go to practice yesterday. Again. Honestly, he's built like a brick outhouse, but a feather knocks him over."

"Nat!" Violet frowned at her friend, who smiled back cheekily. "How do you find out all of this stuff? It's not like you hang around any of the gossip girls, considering you're pestering me all the time."

Nat grinned, bouncing on her heels as they stepped through the swinging doors into the cafeteria. "I'm just that sneaky."

* * *

Bob shifted, adjusting his tie as he and Helen strode into the lobby of Synthacore Industries. The receptionist, Glen, nodded to both of them and held out their guest passes. Buddy had offered to make them both permanent access cards, but Bob felt that would just encourage him to up the job offers.

"Ah, there you two are." Speaking of Buddy, the elevator they were heading to opened to reveal him standing there. "I was just about to go ask Glen if she had seen you two. Are you two ready to get busy?"

Bob snorted at the familiar, yet out-of-context comment, and Helen shot him a quelling look. Bob shook it off, and nodded to Buddy, who just grinned back. The three of them stepped into the elevator, which Bob was glad was built with larger bodies in mind, and Buddy pressed a button on one of the higher floors.

"So, the project itself is down in one of the basement levels, but for now, we are just going to be meeting in one of the conference rooms. I've brought in Frozone and Gazerbeam today, and Plasmabolt and Universal Man came in last week."

"Oh, how is Janet doing?" Helen smiled as she leaned forward. "I haven't seen her since the Bombshells anniversary party three years ago."

Buddy shrugged. "She seemed to be doing okay. She was a lot more help than U.M. He wasn't much help, just kept criticizing the project and its goals."

Bob nodded and jumped on the opportunity presented. "So, what exactly are the goals of the project. I mean, you told us it was designed to fill in the Super Gap, but not much more."

Buddy slapped his forehead. "Right, doi. Sorry, I've given the elevator story for this project so many times, I'm forgetting who I told about it and who I haven't. The basic idea is that the Network is designed to be an oversight system that can be used to coordinate robotic drones from a centralized location. The primary setup is for use in disaster relief, but it could eventually expand into other areas, such as police work."

The elevator chimed and the three of them stepped out and began walking down the hallway. "So, the thing that makes this system so special is that the drones aren't controlled individually. Instead, each of them have a limited intelligence, and the network itself can coordinate them to achieve objectives. The central location will just have to do things like assign a group of drones to put out that fire or clear that debris, and the drones will work together to accomplish the task." Buddy sighed and shrugged. "The biggest problem right now is that the drones and network are dumb, with a capital D. So, we're bringing in heroes to discuss various disaster scenarios and go over how you would react. What methods you would use to put out a fire, how you would prioritize different tasks, stuff like that. We already talked to some groups like firefighters and rescue workers, but unfortunately, a lot of the advice they gave contradicted other groups. So, I figured, Supers were on the front lines doing it all for so long, so we would be best served by getting you guys to come in and share how you did it."

Bob nodded, grinning despite himself. Buddy's energy and enthusiasm were contagious, despite Bob's misgivings about the system itself. "Sounds like a swell idea."

"Yep, and now it's time for us to make it Super!" Buddy laughed at his own joke as he led them into the conference room.

* * *

13.3 (LordCirce): [The Incredibles] / [Marvel]

**The Incredible Avengers (Part 3): The Strings are Cut**

In a shadowed room, a figure stood, staring down at a flickering computer screen. Hands typed, carefully and deliberately, windows opening and closing as the figure sought out its prize.

"There you are. You thought you could hide, but I've got you in the end. Revenge... will be mine!"

Dark laughter filled the room as numbers scrolled across the screen in front of the figure.

* * *

BAHNA-BAH-BHANA-BWAN! BAHNA-BAH-BHANA-NAH-BWOM! "VICTORY! IN THE OUTCAST! KINGS! FALL!"

"Woohoo!" Nat cheered at the lanky, blonde kid, wailing away on his electric guitar next to the school. Her and Violet had heard the impromptu rock concert begin, and Nat had dragged Violet over to watch before the teachers arrived to break it up.

"Ugh, I don't know how you can stand this music." Violet muttered. "Is it even music? None of the lyrics even make sense."

"WHAT?" Nat shouted over the banging chords the guitarist was now playing.

Violet rolled her eyes. "I said, HOW CAN YOU STAND THIS MUSIC?" Of course, at the exact moment that she shouted, the figure paused in his playing to take a breath. Everyone who had gathered in the courtyard turned to stare at Violet, who turned bright crimson and almost went invisible out of reflex. She immediately grabbed Nat's arm and dragged her towards the nearest door.

"I still love you Thor!" Nat shouted as she was dragged away. Violet pulled her through into the school, and down two different corridors, before sinking down to slump on the base of one of the school staircases.

"Great, just great, now I'm going to be even more of a social outcast than I already was."

Nat grinned at Violet. "Don't worry. At least Tony wasn't out there."

Violet just sighed, before leaning her head against the wall. "Whatever."

Nat looked like she was about to say something else, when she suddenly stopped and tilted her head. Violet looked up at her friend as she slowly leaned back towards the nearby corner, and began creeping down towards.

"What are you...?"

Nat held out her hand to stop Violet's question and pressed one of her fingers to her lips. Violet complied, getting up and following Nat to the corner of the intersection.

"...excuse is not going to last forever. It's pretty obvious to anyone that something ain't right. Honestly, you should just quit the team if you're having this much trouble."

"I can't do that to the guys. I'll get this under control, it just takes practice. So, will you help me after school?"

"I..." the first voice trailed off as the two speaking figures came walking around the corner. It took Violet a second to recognize them. One was a fairly skinny black kid, wearing a super puffy sweater and a pair of loose khaki pants. The other was a tall, broad white kid with messy blonde hair, who Violet suddenly recognized as Steve the Sickly Quarterback. She vaguely recognized the other kid from her chemistry class, Samuel or something like that. Both of the boys had stopped talking upon seeing the girls standing there, and now all four were looking at each other awkwardly. Or, at least, Violet felt awkward, and Steve looked awkward. Samuel was just looking at the two of them suspiciously, and Nat was grinning broadly at Steve.

Samuel broke the silence. "What are you two doing? Were you..." His questioning was broken off when Steve started the most vigorous, and most fake-sounding, fit of coughing Violet had ever heard. All three of the others stared at him as he sounded like he was valiantly trying to hack up a lung, before his coughs slowly died off. Slowly, Samuel brought his hand up to his face and began to massage his forehead.

"Never mind. Just, never mind."

Nat grinned even wider, and Violet quickly yanked her back and up the stairs before she could get Violet into any more embarrassing situations. Plus, they were going to be late for the Yearbook Committee Meeting.

* * *

"Eagle One, this is Alpha Blur, I am in position, over."

"Alpha Blur, this is Eagle One, I have eyes on target. Target is moving towards the drop zone on schedule, over."

"You two are standing right next to each other."

"Shhh!"/"Quiet!" Dash and Clint both shushed Bruce as he stared at the two of them as moved around in an empty second floor classroom. Clint was staring out one of the windows on the classroom, while Dash was crouched next to the door of the classroom, with a paper sack clutched in his hands. The target they were watching was the mean Miss Bulltrunch, their math teacher. She took great pleasure in flunking students and embarrassing those who weren't paying attention (or who were paying too much attention, or who looked a bit too happy, etc.), and Clint and Dash had decided to get some good, old-fashioned payback. Inside the sack was a moldy tomato that Clint had been saving up all week. The plan was that Clint would watch for Miss Bulltrunch to be heading to the spot along the side of the school where she took her morning and afternoon smoking breaks. He would wait until the right moment, then signal Dash to run out, down the corridor to the window they had left cracked open, where he would dump out the tomato and then rush back down the corridor to the classroom they were set up in, where Clint would have been waving to several kids down on the playground. That way, they would have a foolproof alibi if they were suspected (which they probably would be).

"And... go!" Clint waved his arm as he finished counting off the seconds since Miss Bulltrunch had turned the corner at the edge of the building.

Dash took off running, around the corner and down the corridor, only to pause and back pedal as he spotted the janitor standing next to the open window, mopping. The janitor hadn't noticed him, but there was no way he would be able to dump the tomato out fast enough to not be seen. He sped back around the corner to head into the classroom and *CRASH*

Dash fell over backwards as he collided with Bruce, who had been walking out of the classroom after Dash to try and watch his run. Dash groaned a little as he sat up, shaking his head, then glanced over at Bruce, who was staring down at his shirt. Dash blinked.

Rancid tomato guts were coating Bruce's chest and arms from where the tomato had burst out of the bag on impact. Bruce slowly turned to look at Dash, but he seemed to be looking through him instead of at him.

"...this was my favorite shirt."

Dash's eyes met Clint's, who was peering over the desks in the room at his two fallen friends. Both of their eyes widened in worry at Bruce's words, which were echoed a second later in a much louder tone.

**"That was my favorite shirt!"**

"Uh-oh." Dash scrambled to his feet and sprinted away, skidding a little at the nearest corner as he tried to maintain his balance. Behind him, Bruce raced after him with a cry of frustration, seeming to swell up in rage as he slammed into a trash can and changed directions, following Dash down the long corridor, and leaving a nice dent in the side of the metal container.

Clint peered out from around the edge of the classroom door. "Oh, that's not good."

* * *

"...so, to summarize, first priority, securing a perimeter, second priority, making sure there are no civilians in the perimeter, and third, dealing with the bad guys inside of the perimeter." Buddy glanced around the table, and all of the gathered heroes nodded. Buddy clapped his hands. "Great. Now, I think this is actually a good stopping point for now. This should give us some good directions to take with the programming algorithms, and we can hopefully test those some more and then see about bringing you all back with any questions we have. The last few things I wanted to do was give you a tour of the operation center, show you a few of the drones so you can see for yourself what we are working with, and then Mirage has baked up some of her cinnamon cookies for each of you."

Bob grinned at the mention of Buddy's assistant and, in this Loop, wife. They apparently met in college, where Mirage had been studying chemical engineering, and Buddy had been studying both mechanical engineering and computer programming. Buddy had gone on to earn several more degrees, while Mirage had stopped at one and had instead taken over the general running of Buddy's company, while he dealt with the big ideas. She had become a dear friend, though Bob still didn't know her name this Loop, as she had apparently dropped her birth name in favor of her new chosen name.

Lucius laughed while clapping Bob on the shoulder. "Well, I ain't going to say no to those." Bob nodded in agreement, and Helen just shook her head, muttering a soft "Boys".

The groups quickly made their way down to the elevator, engaging in a bit of small talk. Lucius was regaling Buddy with a tale about his recent trip to the Bahamas with his wife, something about mutant laser-sharks. Helen was tapping away on her phone, no doubt getting updates from the kids. Bob slid over next to Gazerbeam.

"So, Simon, how's life been treating you?"

"Good, pretty good, but I actually go by Scott now."

Bob nodded. "Got it. Super Relocation Act?"

Scott nodded. "Yep."

Bob paused as a thought occurred to him, then cleared his throat. "Right, well, it isn't easy being an _EX_ -hero. There's a lot of baggage to leave behind."

"A lot of good times too." Scott sighed. "Still, I have got a pretty good job now. I'm working as a lawyer, actually, specializing in criminal prosecution. I may not be able to help bring them in, but I can still work to keep criminals off the streets."

"Good for you." Bob clapped Scott on the shoulder, causing Scott to wince. Internally, Bob sighed, as it didn't seem like Scott had reacted to Bob's hint, so he probably wasn't Awake. He had hoped maybe Scott had simply missed their first ping or something, given the only other Awake Looper they had found, but it seemed like it was just a coincidence.

The elevator dinged as the group exited into the basement level. They made their way down yet another corridor, this one lined with metal, and into the control room. A large bank of monitors took up one side of the room and a set of windows overlooking a large hangar like room took up the other, with several smaller monitoring stations arrayed around the room in a series of semi-circles. Several of the stations were occupied, with a thin man in a military uniform and bearing a large grey mustache standing over them, barking orders over their shoulders. The man looked up as the group entered.

"Oh, General, I didn't know you would all be here. Setting up for the demonstration tomorrow?" Buddy strode forward, his face a pinched mix between friendly and irritated.

"Yep. Just making sure all of the resources we need will be up and fully functional."

Buddy nodded, before turning back towards the group. "Everyone, this is General Ross, he is the military liaison with our project. There is going to be a small-scale demonstration tomorrow for some of the Congressmen backing the project, and a couple of the private investors, to give them a sense of what we are accomplishing here. We hope to use your input during the demonstration."

"Yep, should be quite a show." Ross nodded, before turning back towards the monitor bank. Behind him, Buddy frowned, leaning sideways to get a clear view of the screen of one of the techs, and his mouth dropped.

"Who authorized the usage of 50 drones for this test? This is supposed to be a small scale, internal demonstration."

Ross snorted. "I did. Washington is waffling about this project, so we need a good, strong demonstration, and I can't do that with three measly floating beach balls and a single human drone."

Buddy glowered, his tone dark. "Even still, the network itself isn't ready for that sort of..." Buddy trailed off as he pushed the technician aside and began scrolling through the code on the machine. "What happened to the safeguards? There should be limits here and here..."

"We know you haven't got all of the levels worked out yet, so we'll put all of the drones on a single level. We can shut some down for fine level work. My personal science liaison assures me that it should work."

Buddy looked up, his mouth falling open. "Your personal science liaison? Is he the hack who ripped apart half of the code in here to set up your demonstration?"

Ross grit his teeth and snapped back. "Henry Pym is a highly trusted scientist and a true patriot. He has..."

"HENRY PYM? You let Henry Bloody Pym into my systems, to mess with my code! That man couldn't code his way out of a paper sack. You're as likely to have a coordinated collision between every drone rather than a..." Buddy's furious rant and the typing he had been doing slowed to a halt as he stared at the screen in shock. "This can't..."

"WARNING, WARNING, EMERGENCY DETECTED"

Down in the hangar, lights came on, illuminating several rows of robotic drones. There were several round orbs, laying in short rows near the glass, with rows of humanoid robots farther back, and then several large spider-like tanks that reminded Bob of the Omnidroids lined up against the back wall. As the group watched, all of the drones in the hanger began to stir, with lights flickering on and joints whirring. Several of the orbs rose into the air, pivoting slowly in place. Back in the control room, the large bank of monitors flickered, then lit up a brilliant red, illuminating two words.

ULTRON ONLINE

* * *

Violet sighed as she stepped out into the sunshine in front of the school, yawning slightly. She really enjoyed being on the Yearbook Committee, but Mrs. Harper, their liaison, was one of the most boring teachers in the school, and she had spent almost the entire meeting droning on about dignity in Yearbook Photos, as if the Yearbook staff had any control over the photos themselves.

"Well, that was an hour of my life I'll never get back." Nat snarked behind her as she followed Violet out the door. She took a quick step forward, then slid into a cartwheel down the front step banister, sticking the landing on the sidewalk at the bottom. Violet clapped and whistled.

"Bravo, bravo." Her voice was slightly mocking, but Nat simply smiled and waved, bowing to an invisible audience. Violet slowly made her way down, laughing at Nat's antics.

*BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP*

Violet jumped as her phone started wailing in her pocket the moment she reached the bottom of the stairs, and she quickly pulled it out, her heart freezing as she spotted the familiar logo on the front screen. Her dad's logo.

"What's that noise?" Nat skipped over, peering over her shoulder. "Hey, isn't that...?"

"It's a distress call. It means Mom and Dad are caught in something dangerous." Violet's mind was awhirl with panic. What could possibly have happened? Was there some explosion at the company? Did a villain attack? Her body started trembling, just as, in a blur, Dash came skidding into the front of the school, leaving a pair of skid marks in the grass. His phone was clutched in his hand, the same alarm and logo blaring on it.

"Violet, Violet, did you see?"

"Uh huh." Violet answered, her mind still reeling. She dazedly noticed that there was a message attached to the alert. She quickly pulled it open, and read it.

'V. Robots may be attacking the city. Dad and I will be trying to stop them. Take Dash and find a safe place to fortify.'

"Robots?!" Dash's voice was excited as he bounced in place. "Cool!"

"No, not cool!" Violet snapped, pushing her panic to one side. "Mom and Dad wouldn't use the signal unless it was a real emergency. This is dangerous, and Mom told us to hide."

"I don't want to hide. This is my chance to do something awesome. Something heroic." Dash's face was set into a stubborn scowl.

Nat, who had been reading the message over Violet's shoulder, reached over. "There's more if you scroll down. 'If you don't hear from us in an hour, contact Nick.' Does she mean...?"

"Me."

* * *

Nick Fury stood next to a rather beat-up car as he smiled, or rather smirked, at the three kids. They all spun around to face the source of the voice, and Nat immediately raced forward with a cry of "Daddy!", throwing her arms around Nick and hugging him tight. He returned the hug, but his eyes were fixed on Violet and Dash. They followed Nat over.

"Mr. Fury, what does this mean?" Violet gestured helplessly at her phone, which was still displaying the obnoxious alarm.

Nick sighed. "It means that something your parents and I were afraid of has, in fact, happened." Nick had Awoken to this Loop several years after it began, as the retired hero Private Eye. He had got in contact with the Parrs, who had helped him in raising his adopted daughter and son. He had been rather bemused to find himself as the father to the Black Widow and the Hulk, but he had come to separate the two kids he had raised here from the heroes he knew them as elsewhere. There were similarities, to be sure, but also differences. Nick glanced back at his car, where Bruce and his friend, this world's version of Clint Barton, were currently buckled in. He had been picking them and Dash up from detention, at the request of Clint's mother and Helen, when Dash had gotten the alert and sped away. Turning back to fully face Violet and Dash, he knelt down.

"Your parents are great heroes, and I know that they will be..." His reassurance died in his throat as both of the alerts died at the same moment. Both Dash and Violet stared down at their phones in shock.

"The distress beacons...they shouldn't cut off like that unless..."

Nick cut Violet off. "Unless they were being jammed in some way. As I said, your parents are great heroes, and I know that they will be fine. For now, we need to get you to safety."

"And what if they're not fine. I mean, they're retired, they're out of shape. If something surprised them, they could..."

Nick gave a sharp whistle, causing both of the Parr children to jump, while Natasha simply pulled her fingers out of her ears, having recognized what her dad was about to do. "If something did happen to them, then I will do what I promised and keep you safe." He paused, internally grinning, as it wasn't often that he found a way to use this line in a valid context. "And then, I swear, if necessary I will help you Avenge them."

* * *

13.4 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Robin Hood] / [Beauty and the Beast] / [Lion King] / [Cinderella] / [The Little Mermaid] / [Hercules] / [The Princess and the Frog] / [Mulan]

In the Tragic Kingdom, the land where nightmares came true, and happy endings were nothing but a cruel lie, a rumor was spreading. From the shattered cliffs and precipices of Hyena Rock to the trenches and grottoes of the Damnable Depths, from the smog-choked streets of Old London Town to the soaring pagodas of Hun-controlled China, a rumor was spreading. The rulers of the Tragic Kingdom, the Apostates, did everything in their power to silence the rumor, but no matter how many heads the Queen of Hearts chopped off, or how many souls were unjustly sent to Tartarus by Hades, the rumor refused to die. The people would meet in secret to discuss new developments in the rumors. No matter what wild exaggerations or official disinformation was bandied about, there was one generally agreed-upon part of the rumors.

The Twisted Princess were gathering in one place. All of them. Big names such as the Beast's Thrall and the Cheshire Girl, local legends like the Outlaw Maid and the Last Lioness, and even a few newcomers such as the Frog Shaman and the Glitching Warrior; they were all moving towards one point: The Castle of Fantasia Lost. Once upon a time, when there was still wonder in the world, it was known as Cinderella's Castle.

Why they were gathering there, of all places was a mystery, and open to wild speculation. Some claimed that a grand Tournament was being held by powers unknown, in which the Twisted Princesses would fight to the death for the title of Princess Apostate, and join the ranks of their dark rulers. Others insisted that the Princesses all knew each other, and met in secret to exchange information, towards a singular unknown purpose. A rare few held onto the belief that they were convening as part of a single grand ritual, meant to break the grip of Darkness and Evil on the land.

It was a shame that not many people listened to this last group, since they were more correct than even they would have guessed.

* * *

Maid Marian, the Outlaw Maid, Awoke as she prowled through the crumbling balustrades of the Castle of Fantasia Lost. She nearly dropped the bow she was carrying, but kept a firm grip on it, nocking an arrow and looking around suspiciously. "Heavens. This place really went downhill when I was gone," she mused. "It's too bad that Robin's gone; I could use his company right about now."

She heard footsteps coming up behind her, and whirled around, aiming the arrow right at the interloper's head. "Who's there? Show yourself!" she demanded, as she pulled the bow back.

"At ease, Maid Marian. I am a friend."

Maid Marian lowered the bow in surprise. "Beast? Is that you? Are you Awake?"

Beast inclined his head, the noose around his neck swinging a little in the breeze. "Indeed. This place has taken a toll on both the Unawake Belle and myself, but we adapted as best we can."

Maid Marian looked around confusedly. "Speaking of Belle, where is she? Normally, you two are inseparable..."

She heard a polite cough and turned to find a pale Belle in a ragged version of her ball gown standing behind her. "Oh, hello Belle. I didn't hear you," Maid Marian said.

Belle nodded politely and opened her mouth to speak, only for nothing to come out. After a moment of surprise, she turned and gave Beast a deadpan look. Beast stared back confusedly, before suddenly slapping his forehead in realization. "Blast! I knew I forgot to do something. Hold on a moment, Belle."

He concentrated, and his eyes glowed a baleful yellow. _"Princess Belle, as your Benefactor, I grant you permission to speak."_

Belle's eyes briefly flashed yellow, and she sighed. "That's a relief. Beast, didn't I tell you to undo that command the instant we came to the castle?"

Beast fiddled nervously with his noose. "I was about to do so, before we encountered the Maid Marian. To be honest, I was not expecting to see her here."

Maid Marian tilted her head quizzically. "How come?"

Beast withdrew a claw from his cloak, holding a battered old letter. "We had received this letter, bearing a seal we did not recognize, instructing us to come to the Castle of Fantasia Lost, and to bring a large diamond with us when we did so. There was no mention of us meeting any other of the Twisted Princesses in the process."

Maid Marian's eyes widened in surprise, as memories came flooding back to her, and she pulled out a similar letter. "Ah! Now I remember! I had received a similar letter sent to us via arrow, telling me to bring a diamond to the Castle of Fantasia Lost!"

She then pulled out the diamond in question. "Apparently, I had a real rough time swiping this from Richard Lion-Heart's Tomb. The Merry Men had to destroy one of King John's strongholds just to buy me enough time to escape the country undetected! I hope they're all right..."

Belle pulled out a diamond similar to Maid Marian's in cut. "We didn't have to go to quite as much trouble. It turned out that Beast had been collecting an exorbitant amount of tribute from the nobles and peasantry around his castle, and sending the transformed servants to rough them up if they didn't pay. We just needed to take this from the Royal Treasury."

"Do you suppose the same person wrote these letters to lure us all here?" Maid Marian asked, as the three started walking towards what remained of the Throne Room. "This is starting to smell like a trap."

"Yes, it does seem a bit contrived," Belle agreed. "Still, we're all been around more than a few times, so we could probably fight our way out if it comes to that."

She smiled a little. "Besides, I'm curious. Who would go to all of this trouble, given the appalling state of the land right now? If the person or people behind this has a good reason for summoning us, we should at least listen to them."

* * *

The trio walked into the ruined Throne Room to see that nearly every Twisted Princess in the Tragic Kingdom had answered the summons of the letters along with their consorts, and most of them had Awoken over the trip. They were chatting with each other, and generally catching up on their progress in the Loops, while the few Unawake Twisted Princesses looked at the others suspiciously. There was a sense of anticipation, like an audience seating themselves and talking amongst themselves before a concert began.

Maid Marian saw Nala talking to Timon and Pumbaa, and said her goodbyes to Beast and Belle, before going over to talk to her. "Hello Nala. It's been a while, hasn't it?"

Nala looked up and smiled at her fellow nonhuman Princess. "Marian! Sorry I didn't see you coming in; I would have come over and said hello. Any idea who gave us these letters?"

"Sadly, no," Maid Marian replied. "You got one too, I take it?"

"Yep!" Timon piped up, holding up the letter in question. "We lucked out, and found a diamond mine while hiding out from those stinkin' hyenas, so that's our side of the bargain kept."

"Where's the diamond now?" Maid Marian asked curiously. "Are you keeping it in a subspace pocket?"

Pumbaa opened his mouth, and stuck out his tongue, revealing the diamond in question. "I'm keepin' it thor sathekeepin for now," he lisped. "Thure ith thricky talking with it, though."

Maid Marian giggled demurely. "Don't worry, Mr. Pumbaa. I don't think you'll have to keep it there for long. Look!"

She pointed towards where the Thrones were situated, where something very strange indeed was happening. A tall, angular door with a crown design appeared in front of the King's Throne, and a large pumpkin had sprouted out of the ground in front of the Queen's Throne. The Twisted Princesses, both Awake and Unawake, waited to see what would happen next.

First, the pumpkin abruptly burst open, and Cinderella, here known as the Raggedy Princesses, stepped out as elegantly as one could step out from the remains from a pumpkin. After curtsying to everyone present, she set about cleaning pumpkin goo off her dress as best she could, occasionally fussing with the strings that kept her patchwork body together. "Thank you for gathering here, everyone," she said in a raspy voice. "Before you ask, no I didn't write the letters. That would be the doing of my guest. She'll be along any moment now."

As soon as the words left her mouth, several Princesses flinched back as a bright light began to seep from the cracks between the door and the frame. It slowly eased open, and a figure nearly everyone present recognized one way or another stepped out of the corridor that laid beyond and stood before them all, proud and unafraid.

Minnie Mouse had seen better days. Her face was pale and drawn, there were noticeable bags under her eyes, and her hair hung down limply, like curtains. She was dressed in the ragged remains of a red dress that was only barely recognizable as Mickey's apprentice robes. Her gloves were ripped in places, and she wasn't even bothering with shoes anymore. A faded, battered copy of Yen Sid's hat sat on her head, with only the faintest traces of the mighty magical power it once held showing through to those Princesses that could detect such things. In short, she presented the picture of a woman who had been on the run all of her life, and was rapidly approaching the end of her rope.

Except for her eyes.

Despite all of the terrible things her Unawake self had suffered, despite hiding from the Apostates for goodness only knew how long, despite the perversion of everything both she and her love stood for, her eyes were filled with a steady, resolute determination. If she had shed any tears, they had long since dried, and now the only thing that the Princesses could see was the steely gaze of someone who would see justice done.

There was a noticeable murmuring among the Princesses that quickly died down when Minnie raised her hands.

"Thank you all for coming, everyone. I suppose you're all wondering why I called you here today," she began.

"Does it have something to do with these diamonds you told us to bring in your letters?" Ariel asked, after raising her dinglehopper-hand.

"Exactly, Ariel," Minnie answered. "As you are no doubt aware, everyone's respective stories have been completely and utterly derailed, with the villains triumphing and becoming the Apostates, and the various and sundry heroes either dead, or missing."

The Princesses looked around each other sadly. They had all lost someone, whether they were Awake or not.

Minnie pulled the brim of her hat over her eyes. "There's a good reason for the changes, as I had discovered a few years ago. It's Chernabog."

Another bout of murmuring started up among the Princesses at the name. They all knew Chernabog, and not in a good way. If he was playing a major role in a Loop, things were bound to get worse before they got better.

Minnie nodded. "Yes, I thought that might get your attention. Chernabog's making another attempt to take over the Magic Kingdom, and he's actually being clever about it, this time. He's trying to completely ruin the stories on which the Kingdom is based, to make it similar enough to his prison on Bald Mountain for him to leave. He's even cut a deal with Hades to make sure that any hero that dies does not get brought back to life."

"I knew that jerk was up to something," Megara grumbled, as she fiddled with the string that was keeping the Eye of the Fates firmly sealed in her socket. Hercules, being a zombie, couldn't speak, but he sympathetically patted her hand.

"However," Minnie continued, "he wasn't quite a thorough as he would have liked. Remember the Last Stand?"

The Princesses nodded, or answered in the affirmative. The Last Stand was an event that had happened several years prior to the Rise of the Apostates. According to the legend, Mickey Mouse had fought against Chernabog's physical form, in a titanic battle that took on a metaphorical aspect as the struggle between Good and Evil. Unfortunately, Chernabog had won, incinerating Mickey in a raging inferno of hellfire that reduced every single inch of land within ten miles of Bald Mountain to ashes. The legend stated that before he perished, Mickey swore that he would return, and set things right, no matter how long it took.

"Well, I figured out what Mickey's last words meant. Before he went out to fact Chernabog, he prepared a soul jar. No matter what happened to his body, as long as it remained safe, he would not be trapped in the Underworld."

"And where is this soul jar, if I may be so bold?" Tiana asked, as he idly played with the set of Tarot cards she had "acquired" from the late Dr. Facilier.

Minnie reached up and took of the hat, holding it up before the assembled Princesses. "Right here! He turned this Loop's version of the Sorcerer's Hat into a soul jar, since it was the only thing he had that could survive Chernabog's assault, and remain undetected by the Apostates for so long. That's why there's so little magical power coming off of this hat: it's all tied keeping my Mickey's soul on this plane!"

"And don't tell me," Mushu said sarcastically from his perch on Mulan's shoulder. "You had us bring the diamonds as part of a ritual to bring him back from the dead, so he can lead us to victory against the Apostates, right?"

Minnie smiled for the first time. "Exactly! See, he Woke Up while he was still bound to the hat, and we came up with a plan to fix all of this. We needed your help to make it happen, which is why I went with the letters asking you all to come here instead of simply taking the diamonds myself."

She indicated the floor in front of her. "Incidentally, could everyone please bring their diamonds, and just pile them up right here? I'd like to get the ritual started as soon as possible."

The Princesses headed over to the indicated spot, and placed their diamonds down. Some laid them down carefully, while others artlessly tossed them onto the pile. The diamonds were as varied as the Princesses that brought them. Some were carved with expert precision by the most accomplished jewelers in the Kingdom, while others were as rough and uncut as they were the day they were mined. Some were even encrusted in stone after having been roughly ripped out of the cave walls in which they were found.

Minnie nodded in approval at the resulting pile, then carefully laid the hat upon it. "Okay. Let's get to it," she muttered, pulling out her Holy Symbol of Yggdrasil. Holding it out in front of her, she closed her eyes and began to pray.

As she chanted her prayers to the World Tree, the more magically inclined Princesses felt something about the atmosphere change. While the Throne Room was normally a sad and foreboding place, like a long-abandoned churchyard, there was something else now. A soft light began to form around the pile of diamonds and the hat, as they floated into the air. Beams of sunlight reminiscent of the coming dawn shined through the broken windows, as Minnie's prayer increased in forcefulness and passion. Several of the less reverent Princesses pulled out video cameras, smartphones, and other recording devices and began filming the spectacle for later viewing.

Maid Marian leaned over towards Nala and whispered, "Is it just me, or can you hear singing?"

"I hear it too," Nala whispered back. "It sounds like the singers in that Broadway musical version of our home Loop."

"Huh. I think it sounds like that choir that Friar Tuck directed once, only more in tune. Maybe everyone hears something different?"

The chanting reached its crescendo, and the diamonds were now shining like stars, surrounding the hat in a rapidly spinning ring, while magic crackled on the air. Minnie opened her eyes, which were now glowing white, and held her holy symbol high. "Mickey Mouse, though you had departed from the land of the living, you have yet to travel to the World Below. And so, in Yggdrasil's name, I bid you return to your friends and loved ones that you may fulfill the promise you made so many years ago! TRUE RESURRECTION!"

The light became almost blinding in intensity, and the singing everyone could hear swelled triumphantly, before the diamonds shattered, and were reduced to dust. When the light returned to normal levels, everyone in the Throne Room beheld the effects of Minnie's spell.

Mickey Mouse, in full sorcerer's garb, was standing there in the middle of the room, brushing diamond dust off of his robes. The Sorcerer's Hat, restored to its former glory, sat proudly on his head. "Man, that's a relief!" he said. "That hat was kinda stuffy."

He looked up just in time to get swept up in Minnie's embrace, and covered in kisses. There was a large amount of applause, whistling, and even a few "aww"s from the audience. Eventually, Mickey was able to disentangle himself from Minnie, and smiled rather dazedly. "It's good to see you too, Minnie. The plan worked, I take it?"

"Like a charm, Mickey! We're all ready to get started!"

"Great! Thanks, Minnie!''

Mickey turned to the gathered Princesses. "Okay, everyone! I'm sure Minnie filled everyone in on what's been going on, so I'll keep it short and sweet. We're going to go to Tartarus, rescue our friends, overthrow the Apostates, and end this nightmare once and for all. Now, I'm not gonna lie to you: it won't be easy by any stretch of the imagination. There's a good chance we might not even make it through the Loop in one piece. If you want to sit this one out and look after your friends and family, then I won't stop you. Still, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could lend a hand, and I'll be certain to make it up to you once the Loop's over and done with. So, fellas, what do you say?"

If the great roar of approval that went up from the crowd was any indication, they didn't mind the danger one iota. Mickey grinned, and held his wife close. It was good to be back.

* * *

Many years later, in the newly restored Magic Kingdom, the citizens would remember the day Mickey was resurrected as the Day of Hope, the day when the Apostates began to fall, and the rightful kings and queens reclaimed their thrones and began putting everything back to rights again. Many miracles were said to have happened on that day, from the shattering of Queen Grimhilde's Looking-Glass and the Great Tartarus Jailbreak, to the shadows of the citizens of Old London Town returning from Neverland to their rightful owners, and the Cave of Wonders returning to its former splendor. Nobody knows for sure if the mere act of his resurrection brought about these miracles, or he simply did them during his later travels to bring hope to the people and rally them across the Apostates, but there was one thing that everyone could agree upon when it came to hope returning to the Kingdom: It was all started by a mouse.

* * *

13.5 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Gurren Lagann]

Sora just stared at the sight before him, a average visit to the 100 Acre Wood would be one for the books.

"Well, I guess we're going to have to drill to the heavens today," The oddest fusion yet commented in the same dull tone he normally had, but with the glasses and words of someone completely different.

This, was the loop of Kamina Eeyore.

* * *

13.6 (Mr. Egret): [Disney]

"Hey, Mickey!"

Mickey looked up from his newspaper at the sound of his brother's voice coming from the attic. "What is it, Os?"

"I found something weird in this old photo album! Can you take a look?"

Setting aside the newspaper, Mickey got up out of his armchair, and walked over to the ladder leading up to the attic. Ever since Oswald and Ortensia had moved into Mickey and Minnie's house out in Toontown, Oswald had been poking around in the attic, digging up pieces of the Unawake Mickey's past. Every so often, he would find something interesting that even Mickey had forgotten he had.

The attic looked like many other attics of its kind in Toontown: lots of boxes, cases and chests, all scattered among piles of old clothes to form a nearly impenetrable maze for all but the attic's owner. Thanks to Minnie and Ortensia, it was significantly less dusty than most other attics, and it was well-lit by numerous lamps hanging from the ceiling.

Mickey eventually found Oswald sitting cross-legged next to an open trunk, a large photo album laying open in front of him. Mickey instantly recognized some of the figures depicted in the photographs within the album. "I see you found the ol' family album," he remarked casually, sitting down next to Oswald.

"From the looks of it, yeah," Oswald replied. "Though to be honest, I don't recognize any of these people."

"I'm not surprised," Mickey said, as he looked at the photograph. "I don't think they existed when I first met you, and they tend to come and go, anyway."

He reached over, and removed one of the photographs from the album, holding it up for Oswald to see. "In fact, aside from you, I think these are the most consistent blood relatives I've had over the Loops."

Oswald looked at the photograph with interest. It was one of those Polaroid ones, with the grainy color, and it showed Mickey and a female mouse he didn't recognize sitting at a park bench, watching and laughing as two young mice were playing fetch with Pluto. "Okay, I sorta recognize the two boys down in front... Morty and Ferdie Fieldmouse, right?"

Mickey nodded. "Yep! They're my nephews. Good kids, the both of them, but a competitive streak like you wouldn't believe. They'll never back down from a challenge from each other, but they always stick up for each other, too."

Oswald smirked. "Guess it runs in the family."

Mickey laughed. "Yeah, I guess so!"

Oswald then pointed at the female mouse in the photo. "And let me guess: this is their mom?"

Mickey smiled, though a bit more wistfully than before. "That's right. That, Oswald, is Amelia Felicity Fieldmouse. My sister."

Oswald's eyebrows shot up. "Really? I didn't know you had a sister. What's she like?"

Mickey closed his eyes to think, and remember. "Well, it varies from Loop to Loop. Most of the time, she's actually pretty good company, even if she's a bit of a "soccer mom." Sometimes, she's actually a lot older than me, and essentially uses me for free babysitting. And sometimes..."

Mickey's sentence trailed off, and he heaved a sigh, as if reliving some painful memories. Oswald sympathetically patted him on the back. "It's bad, I take it?"

"Yeah," Mickey said quietly. "Luckily, Minnie and I usually wind up winning custody, so at least we can give the twins a decent upbringing, if it comes to that."

Oswald nodded. "I see. Well, if you run into that variant again, and I'm in the Loop, just let me know, and I'll see what I can do to help."

Mickey smiled again. "Thank, Os."

"Anytime, bro."

Oswald considered the photograph for a few seconds. "Though now that I think about it... have you considered trying to get them Looping?"

Mickey started in surprise. "Wait, what?"

"I'm serious! Think about it: you got me to start Looping after spending a couple of years helping me and Ortensia rebuild the Wasteland, and you've probably known them for a lot longer. Heck, I'm surprised that they aren't already Looping!"

Mickey sighed and rubbed his head. "That's the thing, Os. Despite everything, I've never really been able to form a real close bond with Amelia, even during a baseline run. She prefers her nice, normal lifestyle as a journalist, while I'm always getting myself into some grand adventure, even when I'm not even trying! Besides, it could get... awkward if we get a Loop where the twins are my biological sons or something."

Oswald gave him a deadpan look. "Mickey. We've had loops where _Goofy_ was your biological son, and you've coped just fine."

Mickey stuck out his tongue. "Bleah. Don't remind me. Okay, so you've got a point. Still, I think this is going to take a lot of work if we're gonna make this happen."

Oswald grinned, and clapped Mickey on the shoulder. "Hey, we're Loopers! If there's one thing we've got, it's time!"

Just then, a growling sound echoed throughout the attic, and Oswald looked at his stomach sheepishly. "But first, let's get something to eat," he added. "I'm famished!"

Mickey looked at his watch. "Yeah, it's about time for lunch anyway. Hey, bring that album; there's a few other members of the Mouse family I'd like to show you."

The two brothers got up from their position on the floor, and started making their way out of the labyrinthine attic, while eagerly discussing their future plans.

* * *

13.1-13.3: A very interesting story that was regrettably never continued, since the author has since left the Loops. However, it was too good not to archive. I like to think it would have had a happy ending afterward.

13.4: Gives new meaning to "The Magic Comes Back".

13.5: Classic. (smiles)

13.6: Ah, family...


	16. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Fourteen

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-04. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Fourteen**

14.1 (LordCirce): [Wreck-It Ralph]

"I need that medal. It's mine! It's important to me!" Ralph suppressed a gag at how childish he sounded. Honestly, if he'd done even a bit more research, he would have realized that there were a dozen games where he could have gotten a medal. Heck, if he pressed Tapper a bit more, there was a medal in an old display case behind his bar Ralph could have borrowed. Still, he couldn't really regret his choices, because if he hadn't done it, he would have never met the little rascal in front of him right now.

"Well, unless you've got a race car hidden in the fat folds of your neck, I can't help you."

Ralph paused, donning a confused look, as he scratched behind his ear. "Wait, you mean..." he pulled on his Pocket and, in a somewhat impressive display of slight of hand, pulled a copy of the race car he and Vanellope built in the baseline out from behind his head, "something like this racecar? Cause man, it's been given me an itch being stuck in there."

The mixture of shock, joy, hope, with just a touch of disgust, that flittered across her face was simply adorable. Ralph still wasn't tired of pulling this gag on an Unawake Vanellope. Now, he just had to explain to Calhoun how he had smashed the Cybug to bits, make sure she and Felix still hooked up, break Turbo's legs, and they should be set for the Loop. Easy peasy.

* * *

14.2 (MrEgret): [DC] / [Disney]

Dick Grayson, currently acting Batman, looked at the scene unfolding in the middle of Robinson Park with a mixture of awe and barely suppressed laughter. "Babs, are you getting this?" he whispered.

"You mean the catfight going on between Poison Ivy and Donald's girlfriend?" Barbara Gordon asked rhetorically, while monitoring the fight in question from the cozy confines of the Tower. "Yeah, it's coming through perfectly."

"Donald's moving into position on the other side of the clearing. When we break this up, I'm going to congratulate him on his choice of girlfriend. Not many people that can take on a Gotham rogue with their exact same powers and more years of experience with them, and still hold their own."

It was true. In this Loop, Daisy was one of Pamela Isley's assistants, and tried to rescue her from Dr. Woodrue's experiments when she inadvertently stumbled across them late one night in the labs. For her trouble, she was knocked out and captured, and Woodrue decided to make her the new test subject for his plant-human hybridization process after Isley made her escape and began her career as Poison Ivy. Luckily, she was rescued by the Unawake Donald, in his identity as the Duck Avenger, when he broke into the warehouse where she was being held while following up on a lead. It seemed that she had developed an attraction to the Duck Avenger and his secret identity similar to that one version of Harley falling for Bruce, which was quite unfortunate since she had also gained powers similar to those of Poison Ivy. Luckily, Donald was able to steer this obsession towards more positive ends, and she wound up becoming one of Gotham's more powerful - if inexperienced and temperamental - protectors.

Which led us to tonight. Poison Ivy had kidnapped several of the richest men currently spending time in Gotham, as part of a scheme to hypnotize them, and gain access to billions of dollars from their respective conglomerates. She was planning on using the money to fund more of her schemes, as well as to buy up several large swaths of rainforest around the world and make them unavailable to land developers. Bruce was currently away on Justice League business, and almost every other member of the Bat-family was on patrol in different parts of the City. Donald's uncle, Scrooge McDuck, was one of the kidnapped industry titans, so Donald was working together with Grayson as the Duck Avenger to bust the hostages out. Scrooge's kidnapping also kicked off a chain of rumors that got distorted with the telling, until Daisy heard it in her civilian identity as Donald being the kidnapping victim. Naturally, she sprung into action, and followed the trails of pheromones being emitted by Ivy and her hench-plants to Robinson Park. She demanded to know where her boyfriend was, getting into a shouting match with Ivy that devolved into a brawl when Ivy and Daisy discovered that they perfectly countered each other's powers. With Ivy's attention tied up elsewhere, it was child's play for Grayson and Donald to dispatch the few thugs Ivy had mind-whammied into working for her, and free the trapped hostages.

That just left taking care of Ivy, and getting Daisy to calm down.

"I'm in position, Dick," Donald muttered over the radio headset built into his costume. "How are we gonna do this? Smoke grenades, then get in close?"

"We also need to suppress the plant life surrounding them, or else we'll get creamed once Ivy realizes we're here. Defoliant bombs, then gas masks before we move in."

Donald fished out his air filter from his subspace pocket, and snapped it into place on his beak. "Okay. Whenever you're ready."

"Annnnnd now."

* * *

Daisy Awoke right before Ivy lunged at her face, nails outstretched like claws. Thinking quickly, she stepped to the side, dodging the blow, before elbowing her in the back of the neck. Right before she could punch her to the ground, a vine shot up out of the dirt, wrapped itself around her arm, and yanked her off-balance. Out of the corner of her eyes, Daisy could see several large green plant things slowly start to move forward. Ivy smirked. "Well, I have to say, for a weed, you are quite persistent. This will make yanking you out by the roots all the swee-"

At that point, several muffled bangs rippled through the clearing and a sickly grey smoke began to fill the area. The plant things shuddered and started backing away from the smoke, while the vine holing Daisy's arm down quickly rotted away. Though she couldn't see it, Daisy briefly looked mildly queasy, before her body started naturally producing antitoxins to counter whatever was in that smoke. Ivy looked around her angrily, completely forgetting about Daisy for the time being, right before a younger-looking Batman swooped out of nowhere, and kicked her in the face.

Daisy then let out a muffled shriek, as she felt someone shove an air filter in her face, before a familiar voice whispered in her ear, "Quick! Strap this on, and follow me!"

"Donald! What on earth--"

"No time to explain! We gotta get you out of here before that defoliant really starts taking a toll on you!"

Daisy nodded reluctantly, properly attached the filter, and followed Donald towards the edge of the clearing under the cover of the smoke. "What's going on?" she asked once they were in the clear.

"Long story. Short version is, you're currently Good Poison Ivy, and Dick Grayson and I are foiling Real Poison Ivy's latest scheme, a kidnapping, with your Unawake self's help," Donald explained, while briskly checking the extent of her injuries. "Oh, and until we're alone, it's Duck Avenger."

It was a testament to the general weirdness of the Loops that Daisy didn't even bother questioning this singularly unusual explanation. "Okay, I suppose Loop memories will explain everything else afterwards. I'll try to keep those plant things occupied so you can help Dick out. Are there any hostages I should keep an eye out for?"

"No, we freed them all; they're outside with the cops. We're just tying up loose ends now."

"Gotcha. Go kick her butt, darling."

"With pleasure!"

With that, Donald leaped back into the fray, while Daisy reached out with her new powers, and ordered the plant things to back off. She smiled as Ivy snarled in frustration at her suddenly uncooperative minions right before Batman and the Duck Avenger punched her in the jaw at the same time. _This is way more fun than gardening back in Duckburg,_ she thought to herself.

* * *

14.3 (Awesomedude17): [Gargoyles] / [Marvel]

Beast looked at Goliath, the one who had defeated him during a Death Battle loop.

"I must admit, I should've fought smarter than how I did."

"True. But you did manage to make a squid intelligent. I suppose that counts for something."

"Maybe I'll make it a cat next time. Mainly an affectionate one."

"You try."

"How about next time we face each other, we simply have a battle of wits and intelligence."

Goliath smiled.

"It would be a pleasure."

* * *

14.4 (LordCirce; Sonic Raynboom): [Five Nights at Freddy's] / [Wreck-It Ralph]

Freddy Fazbear strode down an empty hallway, a vacant grin on his face as his servos whirred. One step, two step, one step, two step. The tiles of the restrooms slid past on the side, and Freddy began to play a small tune.

A flicker of light caught his attention. Freddy turned to look into the restroom. There was a brief clatter, then something spun out to him from the darkness.

It was the head of Foxy.

"~Time to play, old Freddy.~" A lilting, playful voice sounded from the restroom, as Chica strode into view. Blue lights were flickering across her frame, like pixilated lightning, flashing down her limbs and across her eyes. "~Are you afraid of the dark?~"

Something stirred in Freddy, some strange sensation that caused him to take a step backwards, and then another, before moving in a full retreat, away from the other possessed animatronic.

* * *

Vanellope smirked as she bounced around in the system of the crazed bird. At first she had been kind of freaked out by the whole scenario, but there were a few advantages to her glitchiness, and invading systems just happened to be one.

"Try and stuff me in a suit, will ya? Well, I'll just be taking yours then."

Her laughter was more than a little crazy as she followed after Freddy, pumping Chica's arms and legs.

* * *

(Sonic Raynboom)

"Vanellope," Ralph said, keeping an eye on the animatronics, "get away from them and get over here."

Meanwhile, Mike tried his method. "Here, Vanellope! Here, Vanellope, Vanellope! I have candy!"

Ralph stared at Mike. "She's not a dog."

"I'm not good with kids, okay!?"

"You work at a kids restaurant."

"I don't deal with the kids, I deal with the murderous animatronics! The last time I had to deal with kids, it--"

~ _You promised never to speak of that Loop!_ ~ Bonnie shouted.

"I wasn't-- wait, you're Awake?!" Mike replied.

~ _Yes. All of us are. She suggested it._ ~

Vanellope was laughing. "You should have seen your faces! Oh man, that was hilarious!"

* * *

14.5 (LordCirce): [Wreck-It Ralph] / [Gravity Falls]

Ralph carefully lifted the CD out of the case and slotted it into his computer. Once he had seen the cover, he knew he had to take a chance and buy it.

*When the cherry petals of magic romance academy are in bloom, anthyding can hadplen*

"Bleh! That is horrible."

Ralph bit back a laugh as the screen changed to a picture of a Japanese classroom, and Vanellope showed up, dressed up as a typical Japanese school girl. The look of utter disgust on her face gave good indication that she was Awake, and the blue sparks of her glitching, which quickly replaced her uniform with her familiar hoodie, confirmed it.

"Aw, but don't you want to attend Magic Romance Academy?"

"Ha ha, very funny Ralph." Vanellope scowled, flicking again as she turned cel-shaded and lost her flat look. "Man, this thing is cramped."

Ralph shrugged. "Sorry, my Unawake self isn't exactly rich enough for a top of the line computer."

"Eh, it's okay. I've dealt with worse." She glanced around. "So, what exactly is there to do this Loop?"

"Well," Ralph said, "I happen to know that there is an arcade downtown, and according to the Anchor, Dipper, the program you're replacing can move through the wires to most any computer."

"Dipper? What sort of name is Dipper?" Vanellope snorted.

"Hey, Dipper's a pretty cool kid."

"Uh-huh" Vanellope gave an exaggerated nod, "Sure. Anyway, and what will you be doing?"

Ralph took a deep breath. "Well, if you must know, I'm actually... a handyman."

"Pffft!" Vanellope burst out laughing. "Hahaha, you're a handyman. I mean, yeah, you got the _hands_ for it, but, you! Hahaha! What, are you working cleaning up a demolition shop?"

Ralph rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, it's funny. It's actually a Mystery Shack, and I'll have you know, I've had no complaints about my handy... about my work."

Vanellope slowly brought her laughter under control, hiccuping slightly. She then gave him a sly look. "You're using one of the Hammers, aren't you?"

"It was a gift. I mean, Felix has like, twenty of them, and I figured, yeah, I can hold on to it, and I mean, it would be kind of rude to hold onto it and not use it, and you're not buying any of this, are you?"

"Nope," Vanellope said with a bit of an extra pop.

Ralph chuckled. "Yeah, well, whatever, you guttersnipe. Go crash into some kids playing Monster Truck Speedster Seven."

"OOO, that sounds like fun!" Vanellope bounced up and down in place, before throwing off a quick salute. "Laterz." She then vanished in a blur of blue light, which sped out and down one of the wires.

Ralph stretched, still chuckling to himself, and rose, ducking at the last moment to avoid smashing his head into the ceiling again. After making sure he was clear, he sighed, turned around, and promptly tripped over the chair he had been sitting in, crushing it against the floor with a crash.

The door to his room opened, and Abuelita poked her head in. "I'll get you a new chair, okay?"

* * *

14.6 (RowanEx): [Tomorrowland]

Frank Walker blinked as he was back at the time where a certain girl went to his house and asked if he knew about the pin.

"What's your name? Who gave you that pin?" Frank asked.

"I'm Casey," she replied, "a girl named Athena gave me this pin, and I want to go where this pin showed me!"

Frank blinked as a feeling that he knew this girl swept over his body. He instantly asked the next question.

"Do you want to go to Tomorrowland then?"

He felt guilt after asking that. She quickly nodded in delight.

He then looked around and checked the cameras. He felt like AA units, Advanced Androids, were about to attack his house, so he immediately ordered a lockdown to his house and prepared himself, while keeping Casey busy.

He hoped that Nix didn't notice his actions...

* * *

He wasn't so sure if the déjà vus were actual memories or he was just daydreaming. If it was, then something was wrong with him. How did he even daydream it on the bus to the fair in the first place?

He temporarily dismissed this situation as they arrived in the Eiffel Tower, carrying the Edison. After instructing Casey on how to knock the guard out, he took his time explaining the Plus Ultra to Casey, who then shut her mouth as they went aboard an antique spaceship.

* * *

As they arrived in Tomorrowland, he didn't gave the explosive to Athena, who was an AA, as he knew. He also made sure that the [huge sphere thing] was to be destroyed, so when he arrived up there and had let Casey control, he activated the explosive, knocked Nix, and lowered them before the explosive, well, exploded.

* * *

As a year passed, he closed his eyes to commemorate his victory. However... he opened his eyes to find himself back at his house, which was supposed to be destroyed in the first place. What was going on!?

* * *

14.7 (RowanEx): [Tomorrowland]

Casey woke up and nearly got thrown from her motorcycle, and checked her bearings. The last thing she remembered was she was in Tomorrowland, but why is she on the way to the NASA Launch Platform? Casey shrugged it off and continued whatever she was doing.

* * *

Casey was also confused on why her dad didn't know about Tomorrowland, as well as her brother.

 _Oh well,_ Casey thought, _The future sure will be different...?_

* * *

Frank was about to finish an invention of a time reset indication and try to get himself out of the Loop, until he noticed the meter that tells the probability of the end of the world drop from 100% to 95%. Frank rechecked, and smiled. His joy was slightly interrupted with a knock on the door. He opened the door to find a drenched and extremely exhausted Casey Newton.

"How are we back here?" Casey asked, "and I managed not to get spotted this time."

Frank facepalmed and had let her enter the house.

* * *

"What do you mean time machines weren't made yet?" Casey questioned, "that must've been the answer to everything that has happened!"

"I tried once," Frank replied, "and I saw myself back here."

Casey didn't answer for a minute and looked at the monitor, then back to Frank.

"Destroy the source?" Casey offered.

Frank smiled a bit. "Get more time in Tomorrowland."

* * *

"You know, the last time I remembered about destroying it is with Athena when she was about to self destruct," Casey commented.

"You might have missed a few ways how I destroyed it," Frank replied, "one of them which I didn't help create it at all."

"How could you tell you helped created it?" Casey asked.

Here we go...

* * *

"Finished," said Casey, "and we got Nix dead by a shrapnel from the sphere. Huh. And we saved Athena."

"Although, I have an opportunity for both us now," Frank commented. "We're going to try and stop these loops."

* * *

14.8 (Evilhumour): [Warhammer 40K] / [The Princess and the Frog]

Prince Ciaphas of **Maldonia!!!** looked at Amberley, who looked back at him and scratched her head. Despite breaking the curse fairly late and thus dealing with being frogs in the strange bayou, they managed to keep their cool with the sights not being that odd.

This, however, _was_ an unusual sight. Both Khorne and Slaanesh seemed to be enjoying each others presence, with Khorne playing wonderfully on the horn and Slaanesh dancing _appropriately_ in hir dress around the overly plated gator with a great smirk on hir face. Tzeentch had Woke up at long last as the Shadow Man, and made peace with Nurgle, who was replacing Slaanesh's father and the mayor of New Orleans.

"You know," Amberley said slowly, blinking as she took a step backwards. "It _does_ make sense; debauchery for Slaanesh, skulls for Khorne, deals for Tzeentch and the bayou for Nurgle."

"Yes," Ciaphas rubbed his chin, trying to judge the situation. "So how do we proceed?"

"Hm?" Amberley blinked, looking up from her recorder. "Did you say something?"

Chuckling, Ciaphas shook his head as he enjoyed the music that the Chaos God was playing.

* * *

14.9 (Jcogginsa): [Gargoyles] / [Atlantis: The Lost Empire]

With a customary roar, Goliath awoke from his centuries long slumber as the loop began. It was usually a toss up whether or not he awoke in the past of present. Such was the nature of things. He did not like it, but it could not be helped.

Looking around, he could see that this was no Baseline loop. The castle was not on a skyscraper, but rather a massive airship, a blimp if he recalled correctly. Off to the side stood a elderly man whom he recognized as an aged Xanatos. Quickly, he sent off a ping, to which he got a single reply and a smirk. His comrades were not awake, and Xanatos was.

He greeted them cordially "Greetings. I am Preston Xanatos. You have a lot to discover."

* * *

Some time later, Goliath spoke to Xanatos in private.

"Xanatos."

"Goliath. You're looking well."

"Enough pleasantries. I want to know what changes this variant has wrought to the past. You are never uninformed."

"Too true. First things first, this is no variant. This is a fused loop."

Xanatos handed Goliath a dossier from his desk, and the gargoyle read

"Milo Thatch?"

"The anchor. I heard through the grapevine that he started looping recently. To my knowledge, he hasn't received the introduction to the Multiverse speech yet, nor has he learned to ping."

Goliath noticed something off about that "If that's the case, how did you learn of this? Surely whoever met him the first time would have told him."

"Stealth looper." Xanatos replied "One of the Star Trek loopers actually. I promised not to reveal his identity, so long as he gives me intel whenever we meet up. Obviously I can't reveal who it is."

"Commander Riker." Goliath said immediately.

Xanatos looked annoyed for a moment, then replied "That was a guess."

"But true all the same." Goliath responded. "In any event, I will explain things to Thatch. He deserves to know."

"Assuming he's awake." Xanatos responded, before retrieving two VHS tapes from his pocket. He tossed them over to Goliath. "Those would be the baseline. I suggest familiarizing yourself with them before confronting Thatch about the loops. Oh, and be sure to cover Linked Loops. I suspect his loop may be linked to ours."

"Why?"

"Just some never realized plans from the Hub."

* * *

As it happened, Milo was Awake, though he was understandably a bit frightened of Goliath at first, they soon hit it off. Within a few days, The journey to Atlantis was underway. Xanatos had fired Rourke, and hired Goliath and his clan on in his stead. The rest of the group, being mercenaries, rolled with the punches admirably.

The Leviathan was handled by Goliath (Magic was oh so useful at times) and soon enough they were at Atlantis.

Whereupon Milo was immediately embraced by Kida.

"K-Kida? What's going on, uh, I mean who are you?" Milo sputtered.

"Milo, you will not believe what has happened!"

"Let me guess, a few days ago you woke up years ago?"

Kida looked surprised "How did you know?"

"It's a long story." Milo answered "You see-"

"Wait." Kida said "My father must hear about this as well."

* * *

Much to Goliath's surprise, Kida was not the only new looper. King Nedakh remembered the past as well, though far less of it given his unfortunate situation in Baseline.

"Time loops. Fascinating" Nedakh muttered to himself.

"What I don't understand is, how did two loopers awaken at once, so early? It's very rare." Goliath said.

"Maybe it is because of the Heart." Kida guessed "Its power is great. Maybe it could create these loopers."

"No." Goliath said "The heart's power may be great, but it is not that great."

Goliath was no fool, and even had he been, he could not have remained one when spending an eternity with David Xanatos. And so, thanks to the idea Kida's hypothesis put in his mind, he developed hypothesis of his own.

"But perhaps there could be another answer. There is another loop, where the anchor is not a person, but an object of great power. That object is connected to the souls of three loopers, and through it they loop. Perhaps the Heart of Atlantis is itself Looping, and through it, so too are you."

"Is there anyway of knowing the truth?" Nedakh asked.

"Only the admins could tell us. " Goliath answered.

* * *

14.9 continued (LordCirce): [Gargoyles] / [Atlantis: The Lost Empire] / [Admin Shenanigans]

"Hmm, yes, it would probably be best if we explain this, hmm."

The entire group jumped at the unexpected voice, and turned to find a large serpent made of colored light floating in the air behind them. It undulated, as though floating in water, and several streamers of light bled off of its scales. The edges of its mouth turned up in an unmistakable smile.

"Hello. My names are many, but I am known best as simply The Rainbow Serpent, and I have taken up duty as the Admin of this Universe. Janus was doing an admirable job, but he has been spread too thin lately, so I stepped in here."

The tail of the Serpent darted forward to tap Milo on the nose. "First, Milo Thatch here is indeed the Anchor for this Loop. Kidagakash Nedakh would have been an ideal candidate, if not for the complications arising from the Soul Bond the Heart of Atlantis possesses with the Royal Family. Milo only possessed a connection equivalent to the average citizen, and so avoided those complications. At first."

The Serpent twisted, coiling up into a long spiral. "The problem is that the effects of repeated exposure were not accounted for. The Heart of Atlantis, as a repository of Atlantean Soul Energy, is semi-sentient, and over time, a temporal reverberation began to form due to the partial soul engram that..." The Serpent trailed off. "The full technical explanation will cause more questions than it answers, so, in short, the Heart of Atlantis began to 'remember' Milo Thatch, and became a pseudo-Looper in act, if not in truth."

"Luckily, this condition was caught early, unlike many issues facing Yggdrasil, and so we were able to take steps to limit the issues, and to develop a proper fix. The simple solution of prohibiting Milo Thatch from coming to Atlantis and coming in contact with the Heart was deemed... unsuitable," the thunderous expression on Milo's face confirmed that idea, "and so it was decided that we would work to initiate the Heart as a full Looper. This was, in fact, accomplished during the last Loop, which none of those native to this Universe will likely remember, as it was only seventeen milliseconds long."

Milo looked confused. "Why?"

The Serpent twitched its tail to gesture towards Kida and King Nedakh. "Due to the Soul Bond between the Heart of Atlantis and the Atlantean Royal Family, both Kidagakash and Kashekim were experiencing the temporal echoes influencing the Heart, and had to also be initiated as Full Loopers."

Milo had a look of dawning comprehension. "So that is why...?" The Serpent nodded at his unfinished question.

Kida placed her hand on Milo's shoulder. "What is it, beloved?"

Milo turned to look at her. "It was over the last several Loops. I thought it was simply an odd variant, but several times, the Unawake version of you had visions about the future. Some of the time, it was actually a future that didn't happen, or rather, a future that had happened in a different Loop. I thought it might have been a sign that you were Looping, but you didn't actually remember the past, just saw potential futures."

"That was indeed the effect of the echoes. In order to fully stabilize the three new Loopers, we choose to use a somewhat risky method. We purposefully manipulated one of the iterations of this Universe to force all Loopers in it to Awaken exactly before the end of the Loop, initiating our new Loopers at that time. This would grant these Loopers full memories of your baseline, rather than the fragments created by the temporal echoes, and minimized the risk of accidentally turning the entire populace of Atlantis into Loopers, which could have caused a cascading failure that would have potentially erased this universe from existence due to overload."

All of the group looked green at the thought, so the Serpent quickly pressed on. "That is no longer a problem as the Heart is now properly fitted into the Loops, so it will not inadvertently create Loopers. Also, while your status as Loopers was triggered by the Heart, it is now not dependent on it, so you may Loop separately, though probability predictors suggest that you will Loop together rather often."

At that moment, Vinny peered into the royal chamber where they were meeting, a ceramic bottle clutched in one hand. "Hey Milo, do you think you could ask what is in this..." Vinny trailed off as he took in the sight of a glowing serpent of light hanging in the middle of the room. "On second thought, never mind. Probably shouldn't be drinking it anyway." He then pulled out and closed the door.

* * *

14.10 (jxz): [Channel Awesome] / [Frozen]

"... And that's my idea for Frozen 2." The Nostalgia Critic finished. "Now, before you make a big ice golem and send me to Arendelle-"

He couldn't end his words, as Elsa made the mentioned golem and sent him to Rapunzel's kingdom, via aerial punch. She turned to see Anna and Kristoph, both just arriving, mouths gaping open.

"You should have heard him. That guy's mad!"

"I did." Olaf said. "He has a few good ideas."

"THANK Youuuuuuuuuu....." The voice of the NC came from the sky.

* * *

14.11 (LordCirce): [Star Wars] / [Disney]

"Oi, pipsqueak, yur in my seat!"

Yoda blinked and looked up from the fizzing drink he was nursing at the owner of the voice. It was a large bulldog, who seemed vaguely familiar. Had he been in one of Mickey's stories?

"Knew it was your seat, I did not. Not have taken it, I would have."

The large dog, ' _Pete_ ' Yoda's mind supplied, looked confused. "What's with the weird jibbery jabbery?"

"Know what you mean, I do not. Speaking clearly, I am." Yoda suppressed a smile and maintained a politely curious look on his face.

Somehow, Pete still realized he was being mocked. "Yer' making fun of me, aren't ya? Why I oughta..."

"Is there a problem here, fellas?" Yoda and Pete both looked over to see Mickey in his suit and bowtie, raising an eyebrow at both of them.

Pete grinned. "Nah, no problems here. I was just, uh," he glanced around the House of Mouse, then spotted the open dance floor, "I was just challenging my friend here to a little dance-off, yeah, that's right. A little frivolous fun."

Mickey blinked and glanced at Yoda, who was now rising to his feet, leaning on his cane. "Um, I don't know if that..."

Yoda smiled at him. "Sound like fun, that does."

Pete chuckled maliciously behind him.

* * *

Mickey glanced between the two of competitors. "Alright now, are you both sure you still want to do this?"

Yoda simply nodded, while Pete waved his arm. "Yeah, yeah, let's get on with it. We're not getting any younger." He guffawed at his joke.

Mickey sighed, then nodded to the band, which struck up a lively tune.

Pete grinned, before flexing his arms and launching into fist pumping routine that led to him spinning around, kicking up his feet, and ended with a halfway decent moonwalk impression. He then struck a pose, sneering over at Yoda. "Beat that."

Yoda bobbed his head to the beat. "Impressive, that was. However, my turn, it now is."

He paused for only a moment, as the music fell to a lull for a moment, then burst into motion. In a single, smooth gesture, he hurled his cane upward, spinning it end over end. As it flew up, Yoda spun down, spinning into a breakdance routine that left half the club cheering, and led to Pete's jaw hitting the floor as well. Yoda finished his rotation and pushed up onto one hand into a stall, just in time to catch his cane on his foot, balancing it for a moment. The crowd began to applaud, as Yoda pushed off, knocking his cane skyward again, and performed a quick double backflip, before landing in the exact position where he had started, his cane falling into his grip a moment later.

"Served, you just got."

Off to the side, Mickey shrugged. "I tried to warn him."

* * *

14.12 (LordCirce): [The Emperor's New Groove]

Kuzco sneezed as he wandered down the staircase to the Royal Record Room. "Note to self, get someone, preferably Yzma, to come down here and sweep up all the dust." He pushed open the door, and wandered between the shelves to where a flickering light from a lamp was visible.

Pacha was sitting at a small table, surrounded by several scrolls and stone tablets, feverishly mumbling to himself as he traced his fingers over...whatever it was he was doing.

"Sooo, I don't know if you noticed, but the sun has gone down, come up, and gone down again, all during the time that you've been down here. Not that I mind you, doing whatever you're doing, but if you don't head home soon, Chicha is going to get worried, and that could end up being bad for my health."

Pacha looked up at Kuzco, staring blankly at him for several seconds, before muttering, "it's true," in a sad, defeated voice.

Kuzco blinked. "Uh, yeah, I know it's true. I said it, so it is true by definition."

Pacha pointed at the tablet in front of him. "It's true. It's all there. My third cousin, Gujou, has a brother, Kemik." He pointed out a line on the tablet, which Kuzco vaguely recognized as a census record. Pacha then pulled over a scroll and pointed out the names on it. "Kemik is married to Lobaha." He pulled forward another scroll, this one showing a family tree. "Lobaha's father remarried, and his new wife's son had a daughter named Fe. On Fe's mother's side, if you trace up, and go out two generations, you find..." Pacha pointed wordlessly at the name carved into set of tablets he was now pointing at. Kuzco leaned forward, then began coughing in shock.

"Yzma!?" he choked out, between coughs.

Pacha nodded solemnly. "Yzma... is my third cousin's brother's wife's step-niece's great-aunt. Twice Removed. In truth."

Kuzco turned to look at Pacha then laid his hand on his shoulder. "I am so... so sorry."

* * *

14.13 (Thanatos's Scribe): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Sly Cooper] / [Toy Story]

Sora grinned as he watched Andy head upstairs with Buzz and Woody in hand, giving the two living toys a wave before they disappeared from sight. It was pretty rare for Sora to have a Loop where he was able to visit the 'Toy World', but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

"Hey, where am I?" He heard a muffled voice cry out. Looking around, Sora saw an unopened purple present sitting inconspicuously under the tree, the present barely in sight. A Ping was his only warning before the present's front burst open, and a purple anthropomorphic hippopotamus landed on his feet.

"Hah!," The hippo exclaimed, his goggles gleaming in the light as he raised his fist up and declared, "No prison can hold _The Murray!_ " However, as Sora heard footsteps approach that could only be Andy's mom, he dashed out and dragged the hippo, who could only be a Looper, out from the open and behind a cabinet just before Andy's mother came out from the kitchen.

"What are you-" The hippo began to say, only to stop as Sora sent out a Ping. The two watched in bated breath as the mother walked past the cabinet, and collectively let out a sigh of relief once she was out of sight.

"That was close," Sora said as he wiped his brow, before turning to the Looper and said, "The name's Sora, and it's nice to meet another Looper I haven't met before!"

"Sora, huh?" 'The Murray' murmured, rubbing his chin in thought, "Now where has the Murray heard that name before?" After a few seconds passed, 'The Murray' snapped his fingers and stated, "Oh, yeah! You must've been the one who helped Sly get his Keycane!"

"You know Sly?" Sora said, then grinned, "That must mean that you're Murray! Sly told me about you when I last saw him."

"Well, the Murray is pleased to meet you," Murray said in reply with a grin just as big, before his face contorted in confusion. "However," Murray wondered, "The Murray is uncertain as to how he ended up in that box..."

"Really?" Sora chirped in surprise, "I was hoping that you had an idea."

"I have no solid idea, though the Murray has one theory..." Murray said, his voice trailing off in thought. However, their wondering was soon answered as the radio began to play a song that immediately had Sora chuckling and Murray groaning at the reference:

_Iiii want a hippopotamus for Christmas,_

_Only a hippopotamus will doooooo~..._

* * *

14.14 (Mr. Egret; wildrook): [Disney] / [Attack on Titan]

Mickey looked up at the monstrosity that was about to destroy Wall Maria, and sighed in exasperation. "Donald, tell me I'm not seeing this."

Donald shaded his eyes with his hand, while adjusting his 3-D Maneuver Gear to fit better around his waist. "Hate to say it, Mickey, but I think this is actually happening."

Peering over Wall Maria was a sixty-meter tall Goofy, who was smiling cheerfully at everyone, and not fully understanding why the humans were screaming and running away. "Gawrsh," he mused to himself, in a voice that made the mountains tremble, "did I forget to put on deodorant today or something?"

He rested his hands on top of the Wall, unintentionally destroying a sentry tower in the process, and leaned down to take a close look. "And why is everything so tiny?"

Mickey and Donald looked at each other. "So, who wants to break it to Max that his father's a Titan Shifter?" Mickey asked, as they prepared to swing into battle.

"I think he'll work it out on his own. It's rather obvious who the Colossal Titan is."

"True. Okay, who's turn is it to do the battle cry?"

"Mine, I think."

"Okay, Donald. Take it away!"

As they leaped away from the rooftop, and began their counterattack on the invading Titans, the following could be heard, in a loud but garbled voice.

_"Seid ihr das Essen? Nein, wir sind der Jäger! WAAAAAK WAK WAK WAK WAK!"_

Eren then cringed. "I knew Levi's Liquid Religion trades with Goofy would come back to haunt us..." he muttered.

* * *

14.15 (Pixel the Square): [Gravity Falls] / [Welcome to Night Vale]

Mabel was sitting on her bed playing with Waddles when Dipper kicked the door down, radio in hand.

"Mabel! You need to listen to this!"

Mabel set Waddles down on the ground and she looked at her brother.

"What's the prob-prob bro-bro?"

"There's something wrong here."

"But I know that. I've seen like everything you have!"

"No, this is something more serious. Here, just listen."

Dipper plugged the radio in and tuned it. After the initial static, Mabel could hear the strange broadcast.

"... Secret Police are now reporting that the offending beasts were not pteranodons after all."

Dipper turned the radio off and waved his hand at Mabel.

"See what I mean? Even the stuff that happens here isn't this weird. "Secret Police?" Earlier it was talking about a portal that was letting them into our time. Where's the signal coming from?"

Dipper began pacing with his hand on his chin, while Mabel, who was on her back, shrugged her shoulders.

"I don't know, maybe the new radio station that appeared last week."

"Yeah, that could be- WAIT, WHAT?!"

Dipper stopped pacing, his widened eyes directed at Mabel.

"Yeah, you didn't notice? It's right over by where Gideon's tent used to be."

She said, pointing out the window with her thumb. Dipper's face became serious as he grabbed a flashlight and the journal.

"Come on Mabel, we're checking out that radio station!"

Dipper was already almost out the door as Mabel rolled off the bed and onto the floor.

**THUD!**

Mabel threw her arms up as she pulled herself up.

"I'm okay!"

* * *

At the radio station, Dipper and Mabel found they couldn't open the door. Dipper kept leaning back, throwing all his weight against it to try and open it.

"Come on... You stupid door... OPEN!!!"

He grunted with effort as the door refused to move. A teenage girl who looked to be about the age of Wendy approaches the door. She shook her head at Dipper's futile attempts. She produced her knife, cut her finger, and placed the cut to the door. The door opened, allowing her in.

"It's a bloodstone door. You need to offer blood to get in."

She went inside without another door, leaving Dipper and Mabel very confused.

"Something's not right with this radio station. A blood offering?"

"I don't know. Maybe we shouldn't go inside..."

Dipper was already through the door.

"Come on Dipper!"

Mabel let out an exasperated sigh and followed. Dipper would probably need her help at some point.

They looked around until they found the recording booth, which had an "ON AIR" sign above it, though it wasn't on. They walked inside, and found a man who was neither tall nor short, neither fat nor skinny. He was wearing a smile. Wait, was that a smile? Dipper couldn't tell. The man, who looked at the children with intrigue, started talking into a microphone.

"During the break, it seems that two children have found their way into the recording booth. I do not know where they came from, but I do know they are definitely not from City Council. They do not stare at me soullessly while saying nothing."

Dipper was taken off guard for but a moment before yelling at the man.

"Are you the one sending out the broadcast? What's going on?"

"What's going on is that I'm doing my duty as a radio professional and giving the citizens of our little berg the news."

Mabel recovered after another pause.

"Yo, what's up with this place?"

"My recording booth?"

Dipper rubbed his eyes.

"No, why are you here, in Gravity Falls?"

"I do not know. I came into work as I always do, and it was here. Perhaps this is one of the 'fused loops' where two universes are mixed. I'd have to ask Carlos about it. He's a scientist, he knows these things. Too bad he's in the desert otherworld..."

"Hi Cecil... There's apparently no desert otherworld here. Only this very scientifically town. It's almost as scientifically interesting as Night Vale."

Cecil let out an adorable squeal.

"Carlos! You're here! Oh how I've missed you. How's your science been going?"

"Great! I've been running tests and I've been using all my scientific instruments."

Dipper looked surprised and turned to Carlos.

"Wait, you've been doing tests here?"

A smile grew on his face.

"Finally, someone to talk to about Gravity Falls! What have you learned so far?"

"Sorry, but I'll need to go over the results of my tests before I know anything for sure."

Mabel had been frozen ever since Carlos walked in. Everything about him was perfect. His hair, his teeth, his face... She wasn't sure what to do. She tried talking.

"Hi Mabel, I'm Carlos... Can I touch your hair?"

"Excuse me, I'm sure you meant 'Hi Carlos, I'm Mabel.' It's still good to meet you though."

Cecil became aggravated and started pushing Dipper and Mabel out of the booth after Mabel made her comment. He started talking forcefully after clearing his throat.

"I'm sorry listeners, but this ends today's broadcast. Stay tuned next for an epiphany followed by a terrible realization."

"Hey wait! Who am I supposed to talk to about Gravity Falls?"

With one more push of effort, Dipper and Mabel were outside the booth. The door slammed in their face and they heard the lock click. Inside the booth, Cecil cleared his throat as he sat back down.

"That was... Sweet Cecil... Was that a custom in Night Vale?"

"No... I was... afraid. I didn't want to lose you."

"Oh Cecil, you're the only one for me."

"Ahh, thanks Carlos."

Cecil resumed talking to the microphone.

"I apologize for that *ahem* unprofessionalism. Good night Gravity Falls, good night."

* * *

14.16 (Pixel the Square): [Over the Garden Wall] / [Pinocchio]

Greg had just placed the leaves on Wirt and was laying down. Jiminy popped out of Greg's teapot.

"Jiminy, I need help. I need to be a good leader, but I don't know how."

"Well Greg," Jiminy said, standing upon his shoulders, "it's times like these you got to look to the sky."

Jiminy looked up towards a particularly bright star.

"Sometimes, you just got to wish upon a star..."

*When you wish upon a star starts playing, only to be cut off*

"Oh yeah!" Greg shouted and laughed. He took a deep breath and started to speak.

"Star, oh star, up in the sky, guide my dreams with light that shines. Help me know just what to do to get Wirt home and also me, too. And if you don't, I don't care. I'll pull down your underwear!"

"You know Greg, I don't-"

*Forward Cherubs starts playing*

"Well what do you know? I guess that works too..."

* * *

14.17 (ToaMataMui5000): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Five Night at Freddy's]

Sora awoke in both senses to find himself within a Station Of Awakening. He sent out a ping, getting none back in response. Sighing, he looked down to the stained glass platform, raising his eyebrow at the ridiculousness of the design.

The primary background color was yellow, with twelve red circles lining the inside curve, making it look like a pepperoni pizza. Each _"pepperoni"_ showed a small portrait, consisting of Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy, Toy Freddy, Toy Bonnie, Toy Chica, Mangle, Shadow Freddy, Shadow Bonnie, Balloon Boy, and the Puppet. In the center, Golden Freddy and Springtrap circled each other. "Seriously? What the smurf, Yggdrasil?"

Sora's train-of-thought was interrupted by a corridor of darkness opening. He immediately summoned a keyblade and took a fighting stance, finding a black-cloaked, humanoid form staring him down. "Who's there?" The young man demanded to know. The figure responded by throwing back its hood, revealing the head of a very familiar bear animatronic.

"It's me."

"Oh, hey Freddy. What's up? Nice to see you got a voice box this loop."

"Are you ready for Freddy?"

"Uh, what?" Sora watched as the bear mascot summoned a keyblade of his own. It had a motif of both a dragon and a... "OH SWEET LORD!" Sora threw up in his mouth, four times over on behalf of himself, Roxas, Xion, and Ventus. "WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT THING!"

"I want you inside of me. It's the only way we can enjoy our night of debauchery."

"We?" Sora gasped in horror as thirteen more corridors of darkness appeared, followed by all thirteen other animatronics entering, bearing similar disturbing keyblades. "Oh sweet grandfather Disney and father Nomura, please save me.." He pointlessly prayed.

"Engage the Sora, motherfucker!" All fourteen mascots chorused before launching forward.

* * *

Several dozen loops later, a clearly disturbed Sora awoke in the security room of Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. He clamped his eyes shut and took deep breathes, only to receive a tap on the shoulder. He screamed in terror and punched whoever was next to him. The Puppet crumbled to the ground in response. Freddy, in his withered state, stepped into the room, only to jump back in terror as Sora whipped a keyblade towards him. "DON'T! EVEN! TRY!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Calm down, Sora!" Phone Guy urgently spoke from his respective device. "These two are awake. They ain't gonna hurt you." It took the young man several minute of heavy breathing through his teeth before he calmed down enough to disband his weapon.

"Sorry..." Sora apologized between gasps. "I had... a really bad fused loop... with you guys recently... and brain bleach... hasn't done enough to help..."

_'Let me guess; Five Nights At Fuckboys?'_

Sora nodded in response as he helped the Puppet back to its feet. "All fourteen twisted versions of you guys at once." Freddy's eyes widened at the horror he was told. He walked over and began patting Sora's back in pity.

"Sweet father Cawthon!" Phone Guy was flabbergasted. "I feel terrible for you, kid."

"It's fine. It wasn't any of your faults." Sora feigned a smile.

 _'No need to hide it. Trust us. We all bloody hate those variants too.'_ Freddy thought for a second before flipping his sign again. _'I think we have some sea-salt popsicles in the kitchen that you can have, so long as they aren't expired.'_

"Thanks Freddy. You really do try."

* * *

14.18 (RowanEx): [Tomorrowland] / [InFamous Second Son]

Delsin and the group found two civilians try to make sense of the situation and went to them. The pair stared at Delsin for a few moments.

"I get the feeling that we're not in Tomorrowland," remarked the girl, "where are we?"

"You're in Seattle," Delsin replied, "you're both not from here are you?"

"Yeah, we don't belong here," replied the man, "I'm Frank Walker. My memories tell me that..."

"You're my dad from Washington," interrupted Fetch, "although, this might be one of those time loops where something is not like the usual, or not."

Casey, the girl, looked up towards the Space Needle. "Is that really the Space Needle? I've never visited the Space Needle before."

"Are you both Conduits?" Fetch asked back.

"...what?"

All of the Loopers groaned. They had no idea what is going on, or how to explain the theme repeats. Considerably, the Tomorrowland Loopers had built themselves Jetpacks from random places in Seattle which impressed Eugene, so they still got up to see the view.

* * *

For the remaining days of their Loop, Fetch's group was set up along with Frank's group as they tried to make a plausible conclusion about their time repeats only to get a blank. Casey had something else though.

"How come we don't have Conduits from our place while they don't have Tomorrowland?" Casey looked at the panel where they tried to solve it. "Maybe we're from another world Tomorrowland exists?"

"That's something," Eugene replied, "besides the unusual from what Zeke Dunbar was doing, it might have been the best conclusion we have."

Hadn't she heard that name from a video game, though?

"Did you ask why he was like that?" Casey asked, and Fetch nodded.

"Lot of random words," Fetch responded, "nothing out of interest."

Frank's face lit up, interrupting the conversation. "If we could meet once more, since these time repeating loops are random, maybe we could understand it better."

"Yeah..." Delsin looked outside to see robots. "Aaaaand the DUP is here."

As the Conduits set out to fight, Casey and Frank looked at their work. It has been just questions that they still couldn't resolve. They're not going to give up easily.

That is, if they could finish it in time. Their time loop duration are two years, but Fetch's group had a time loop duration of two months.

* * *

_The Next Loop..._

Frank found himself back at his house, one hour before Casey arrived. A thought then went over his head.

"What if she was right?" Frank considered. "That Seattle wasn't the Seattle we have? It could make sense..."

Frank was interrupted by a doorbell and opened it to find Casey holding a blueprint of a bag. Frank took it and looked at Casey.

"Really? A bag that can access the fifth dimension?"

* * *

14.1: Ralph, you troll...

14.2: I have no comment.

14.3: So Goliath and Hank McCoy/Beast of the X-Men are friends.

14.4: And Vanellope gets to troll Ralph back.

14.5: Felix's hammer comes in handy.

14.6: The first Awakening for this Loop.

14.7: And the story continues.

14.8: That was interesting.

14.9: He's not kidding about plans to link these universes, by the way.

14.9 continued: Explanations ensue.

14.10: The Nostalgia Critic, as a character, is actually Looping.

14.11: And so is Yoda.

14.12: Pacha needs hugs.

14.13: Heehee.

14.14: On that Day, Mankind Received a Goofy Reminder...

14.15: If I knew more about Night Vale, I could comment more effectively on this one.

14.16: (raises eyebrow) Oh-kaaaaay...

14.17: Some variants, you just gotta hate.

14.18: Still not a setting I'm too familiar with.


	17. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Fifteen

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-10. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Fifteen**

15.1 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_\--Reality--_

Riley Anderson.

11 years old, born in Minnesota.

Favorite Sport: Hockey.

Family Nickname: Monkey

Riley sat in the car, approaching their new home in San Francisco. Mom was reading the map, directing the little family towards an uncertain future in their new home.

Yet for Riley it wasn't exactly uncertain.

She swore that she had already lived through this. It was either that or she was overthinking things.

"Riley, look at that!" Riley eyed what her mother noticed: A collection of giant dinosaurs.

She smiled as the family slowed down and prepared to visit. At the very least, the familiarity felt nice.

_\--Meanwhile, at Headquarters--_

Havoc was an apt description of how Joy's last week had been. The most primary concern of hers was keeping Riley happy, that much was true, but this situation overrode that harder than a landslide crashing down a mountain.

Mostly because of the panic Fear was endlessly screaming, running to and fro as Riley's emotions tried to make sense of the crisis that they faced. He was screaming on and on to the point where Joy didn't really mind Anger punching him to make him stop, even if it only bought a few seconds of silent calm.

"Fear, I know the whole being afraid thing is yours, but aren't you being a little bit...dramatic?"

Fear stopped in the middle of his raving to face Joy, the emotion and Ringleader of Riley's emotions standing calm. "Joy, we are in the middle of a catastrophe!? How can you be so calm about Riley's life turning upside down?"

"It's not so bad Fear, honest! It could be an adventure!"

Fear grabbed Joy in panic, taking her to the control Panel. With a push of a button, several memories came from Long Term Memory. "Joy I am not sure if you noticed - OF COURSE YOU NOTICED YOU WERE THERE - but Riley's memories aren't working right! It was fine a week ago but now everything isn't working right, and we should panic!"

To prove his point he recalled a memory, the golden orb coming down from Long Term Memory and showing the memory inside: Riley in full hockey gear, standing in a park with her team, grinning in unison. Her parents stood off to the side, their joy in their daughter evident. Joy just scoffed as she walked over to Fear. "Fear, there's nothing off about that memory. Riley had a good time. Heck, we got pretty far. Quarterfinals, am I right?"

"Joy, that's not what I'm panicking about." He replayed the memory, and froze it on a rather jarring piece of evidence: The Golden Gate Bridge standing tall in the distance. "How can Riley have a memory of being with a hockey team in San Francisco! We've never been to San Francisco!"

"Fear makes a pretty good point." mused Anger behind his paper.

"See, even Anger agrees with me. And don't get me started with the Core Memories and the Islands."

With a push of its button, Fear opened up the holder for the Core Memories - the very essence of Riley. In them stood several of them, many of the orbs a mix of different colors.

Joy's (new) favourite was a golden orb mixed with blue, Riley embracing her parents in a tearful hug as Mom and Dad returned it. Joy could almost feel the raw power of that single moment.

Fear didn't see it that way. "The core memories changed as well, Joy. Her entire personality could have changed! These are the end times, Joy!" Fear bellowed, shaking Joy as he begun to panic like he had never panicked before - a great feat to accomplish for a man who was the embodiment of fear itself. "The end times I tell you! The end times!"

"Uh... Anger? Could you...?"

With a single punch, Fear smashed into the glass windows of Headquarters, slumping off into unconsciousness. Brushing herself off, Joy smiled at Anger, the emotion walking back to his couch. "Thank you."

"Fear has a point, Joy." Disgust, having been looking out of the windows and at the Islands of Personality - the strongest parts of Riley's personality given form within the mindscape - called over Joy as she gave a look of indifference towards the Islands. "Core Memories don't change overnight. I mean, can you even get another memory to replace a Core Memory? I hope so, because those new Islands are clashing with each others color schemes."

Joy mused, walking back and forth as Sadness leafed through a mind manual. "I don't think so. Nothing in the manuals say anything about Core Memories just... changing overnight, or Core Memories of two different emotional colors. What do we do Joy?"

Joy said nothing as she paced, thinking and thinking about what was happening. For some reason, the others were unable to remember what had happened in the past year and expressed concern about the sudden change.

Yet Joy had not. Why?

Before she knew it, Joy found herself surrounded by her fellow emotions, Fear awoken from his impromptu slumber. They eyed Joy with expectant eyes, eager for her to lead. It was if they were lost sheep, and Joy their shepherd who always knew where to go.

"Joy? What do we do?"

Joy uttered the words she was always afraid to say:

"I... I don't know."

* * *

15.2 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

\--Reality--

Riley heard the news again that day. How her father had once again gotten a new job, and how they were once again moving to San Fransisco for that job.

Somehow, someway, Riley was back in her old home, just in time to move to her new one. Again.

Something was definitely strange. She slowly swept her gaze over her room, once filled with her possessions, now barren and save for her laptop.

On impulse, Riley flipped it open and turned it on. She was thankful Dad hadn't disconnected the wifi yet, just in case it was still needed. Which, in her opinion, it most certainly was.

After all, she needed to do some research.

\--Headquarters--

Anger muttered irritably as he sat on his couch eyeing the other Emotions as they processed the changes that had overcome Riley before they knew what was happening.

Currently, Fear and Disgust gazed at the Islands of Personality in confusion, taking in the... altered view. Sure, the five initial Islands, Goofball, Hockey, Friendship, Honesty and Family were all there, but they were vastly overshadowed by the array of much larger and more detailed Islands that loomed before them.

While the two cautious Emotions were relatively okay with the situation for the moment, Joy was an entirely different story. The peppy Emotion had taken one look at the scenery before bolting for the Core Memories. While the fact that the original five golden Memories she was responsible for were faded and cloudy was enough to whip her into a frenzy, it was the sight of the mottled colors of the far more prominent and influential Memories that had induced the mother of all panic attacks, causing her to rush to a far corner of Headquarters where she was currently hyperventilating while muttering about finding her happy place. Sadness stood vigil, concern for Joy obviously mounting within the blue Emotion.

Overall, the Emotions knew something was seriously off about their situation, but Riley was normal, the Islands, odd as they were, were working perfectly, and for whatever reason Fear couldn't truly find it in himself to get Riley to panic. Hence, the real question was if there was a problem in the first place.

"You know, those islands look kind of tacky..."

"You think they're safe? They look kind of crowded. Do you think there's a chance of cross-contamination?"

"How can the Islands cross-contaminate?"

"I don't know, actually. I just hope things won't get any worse."

"I don't see how they could look any worse. Heck, I'm freaking out just as much as you usually do."

"I do not freak out that much." Disgust scoffed, giving him that look. "Okay, so maybe I do freak out a lot, but come on, it's my job! I need to keep Riley safe, you of all people should know what that's like!"

"Then be afraid then! Look at this mess!" The green entity waved her arms frantically. "Doesn't any of this ring any alarm bells with you!?

"I'm trying Disgust, but I-I-!" Fear fumbled frantically for a second before groaning and slapping a hand to his face. "I just can't. I know I should be afraid, but I'm not. I'm more afraid about not being afraid." Fear gasped, implications finally reaching him. "Oh no. What if I'm sick? What if I'm crazy? What if I'm sick and crazy!? What's going to happen to Riley!?! I can't keep Riley safe if I'm sick and crazy!"

Anger rolled his eyes as he shuffled his paper. "We're emotions, genius. We don't get sick."

"You don't know that for sure!"

Anger huffed as he balled up his newspaper (BREAKING NEWS: TIME IN TURMOIL! WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!?), deciding enough was enough. "Alright, enough is enough. You two arguing isn't going to get us anywhere any time fast."

Disgust was the first to gag. "Anger, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the Islands are different and Riley isn't acting weird. Isn't that a good time for you to do your job?"

"Look, you want proof everything's alright? It's standing right in front of you." Anger jabbed a fuzzy finger forwards.

Fear flinched as he glanced left and right frantically before staring at his shorter counterpart in confusion. "M-m-me?"

"No, doofus, the other purple coward. Of course you!" Anger barked irritably. "You're not panicking about the islands, you're not freaking out about how Riley's acting, and you know why? It's because deep down, you know that this is right and that this is how it should be! Am I wrong?"

"U-uh, well, I, uh..." Fear shuffled nervously as he was put on the spot.

"That's what I thought." Anger nodded gruffly. "Instead of making Riley worry about the changes inside of herself, you should be making her panic about how the world's changed around her instead."

Fear's pupils shrank to pinpricks as he processed that statement. He tried to dart for the console...

"Except!"

And was promptly brought to a halt by Anger grabbing the back of his collar and holding him in place.

"I'm not going to let you do that." The tough Emotion growled. "Panicking won't accomplish anything. What Riley needs most of all at the moment is a clear head, and that's what I'm going to give her."

"How come Joy's freaking out but you're taking this so calmly, huh?" Disgust cocked an eyebrow expectantly.

The red Emotion snorted as he cast a glance at the panicking Emotion. "That's easy: Tinkerbell over there can't handle the concept of Riley having a less than perfect day, much less the idea of her having any Core Memories that aren't glittery gold."

"Hey..." Sadness frowned as she tried (and failed, she couldn't help but note miserably) to comfort her hysterical friend. "That's not very nice..."

"You gonna tell me it ain't true?" Anger cocked an eyebrow expectantly.

Sadness hesitated before biting her lip and focusing on Joy again.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

"So how is this doing your job?" huffed Disgust.

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Anger got up and walked towards the console, keeping a close eye on Joy as he went in case she decided to do something rash. "Then let me explain. Just yesterday we were in San Francisco, and now we're back in Minnesota, ready to move to San Francisco again. And the only two who remember are Riley, and me."

"I figure that since it seems like we're in some sort of a science fiction movie, and a really bad one might I add, some research might be in order. Good thing Riley thought of it." Anger shuddered heavily.

After the... 'incident', he'd sworn off putting ideas in Riley's head. At least, not without a cool head and consent from the whole crew anyways. Something he wasn't going to get any time soon if Joy's frantic rocking back-and-forth was anything to go by.

"Anyway, what better place to start than the internet, using all of those stupid sci-fi movies dad made us watch instead of the cartoons we wanted as a point of reference?" Anger manned the console, pushing a button and summoning a Memory from Long Term Memory.

"Tripledent Gum! Will-!!"

Anger hastily let go of the joysticks as his eye twitched in impotent rage, a torrent of flames erupting from his skull. The last thing Riley needed at the moment was to put her fist through her computer's monitor in a burst of inexplicable fury.

'One of these days...' He thought murderously. 'I'm going to turn each and every one of those chortling doofuses into charcoal.'

* * *

15.3 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out] / [Harry Potter]

\--Headquarters--

Joy grinned as she opened her eyes. "Another bright new day." She leapt up to her feet, and danced over to the central console to check up on Riley's Core Memories, and to see if they had shifted or not. She hummed softly to herself as the column rose, before choking. The core memories were... yellow! And there were only six.

"Oh no, now this weird, deja vu thing is taking away the Core Memories!" Joy moaned as she paced around the central console. "Okay, think, Joy, think. Where could the Core Memories have gotten off to?" Joy peeked through her fingers at the rack of books off to one side. "Maybe I should skim through the manuals?" Joy shuddered. "Not that desperate yet."

That was how the other emotions found her a few moments later, pacing in circles in front of the center console.

"Already up and at it, eh?" Fear smiled, weakly. "Figured you'd be excited about this trip to school."

Joy jumped, then spun around, plastering a smile on. "Oh, yep. School. Super excited for school and... books." Joy grinned a bit wider.

Disgust huffed. "I just can't believe we have to ride a train. I mean, it better be cleaner than that alleyway that we bought our things in. That place was filthy, and I don't even want to think about all those things we had to buy for potions."

Joy blinked. 'Train? Alleyway? Potions?' Before she could properly ask, Fear jumped in, holding up a large chart.

"So, I've had to revamp our Potential Animal Attack Anxiety Scale with all of the new information from the books we read. Do you think Dragon should go between Bear and Shark attack, or Lion and Alligator?"

Joy opened her mouth, but Fear just kept on rambling. "I mean, I was thinking of putting it at the very top, but then we read about manticores, and I remembered that nature documentary with the alligator and the goat, and that time with the bee's nest on our head, and..."

"That's great, Fear." Joy cut him off. "Um, do you think you could excuse me for just a moment?" Without waiting for him to respond, Joy darted off, quickly ducking behind a set of shelves. Rapidly, Joy began scanning across the memories.

"Okay, let's see. We have a few childhood thoughts. A couple of school memories. Britain? We're living in Britain?" Joy ducked out to look out of the window. "Hockey Island's still there, so that's a relief. Friendship, Family, all the basics." Joy blinked as she realized something. "Wait, there's six. What's the island with the big cauldron supposed to be?" Glancing surreptitiously around, Joy snuck forward and poked at the unfamiliar memory on the Core Memory Stand.

-Riley was sitting on a chair in the living room, watching an older woman who was talking to her parents. The woman smiled, setting down the teacup she was drinking, and then pulling out a long thin stick, which she waved through the air sharply.

Immediately, the tea cup rose into the air, spinning around and rotating slowly. Another wave of the stick lead to all of the tea rising out of the cup and transforming into a flower, which floated over and settled into Riley's hands.

"Miss Anderson, you are a witch."-

The memory began to loop over, as Joy stared, mouth agape. 'What is going on?'

* * *

Joy had managed to gather her wits as she stepped forward to the console, where Fear was currently fretting over the controls. Glancing at the View Screen, Joy saw that they were getting out of the car and hauling a big trunk into a crowded train station.

Fear glanced up as she skipped up (total upheaval of her worldview wasn't going to keep Joy from bouncing on her feet) and let out a massive sigh of relief. "Oh, thank goodness you're back. Joy, I don't know if we can do this. I mean, McGonagall said that we have to walk through a solid wall to get through to the platform, and what if we walk into the wrong one? I've estimated that there are at least a dozen walls in there, and we could get the wrong one, and then we'll smack our nose and we'll miss the train and..."

"Fear!" Joy cut him off. "It will be ok. We are going to be fine." _'I hope.'_ "Now, we just have to follow Mom and Dad, and we'll make it to the platform."

"Right. Right." Fear nodded tiredly.

"There you are!" Joy turned as Anger stomped over. "Where have you been? Fear's been hogging the console, and we dropped the stupid trunk on our foot, so we're still getting some Pain-a-grams sent in, though they've downgraded to Sore Status by now."

Joy reached over to tap a couple of buttons. "I was just getting a few things together to help get Riley excited for this trip." Several memories popped up one after another. Memories of a family train ride out into the country, a play pretend game of being a magic princess when she was younger (featuring Bing Bong), and the meeting with McGonagall. The room seemed to light up a bit brighter as Riley's excitement built up.

Anger huffed. "Ok. Well, good. Glad you're back on the ball."

Joy nodded. "Yep. Now, I want you to take the wheel for a bit, help Riley get that trunk to the train. Think determined thoughts."

Anger smirked. "That trunk'll never know what hit it."

Joy grinned. "That's the spirit." Twirling, she darted over to Disgust, who was sitting back on the couch. "Disgust, we're going to need to be making new friends. I need you to be on the lookout for good potential."

Disgust sighed. "Alright. I just hope that we don't get stuck wearing those baggy robes all the time. So unfashionable."

"Fear, start thinking up the ways magic spells could go wrong. We don't know what magic can do, so we need to be prepared. And have you seen Sadness?"

Fear nodded as he started scribbling at a sheet. "Yeah, she's over there." He gestured towards the manual shelves.

Joy walked over, then winced. Sadness was standing in the chalk Circle of Sadness.

"Hey, Sadness."

Sadness glanced up, then slumped back down. "Hey."

Joy sighed, then drew herself up. She knew what she needed to do. "So, I'm going to be doing my best to keep Riley excited, but I know that she is going to end up missing home. So, I need you to start thinking about a good letter to write to home. Don't be afraid to let some sadness show."

Sadness looked up, eyes wide with disbelief. "Really?"

Joy nodded, determinedly. "Yep, really. If we're going to keep Riley happy, we have to let the sadness show a bit sometimes too." Then, reaching down, Joy quickly scuffed out the Circle of Sadness.

\--Reality--

Out on the Hogwarts Express, Harry, Ron, and Hermione observed the new girl.

"And you're sure she's not Awake?"

Harry nodded. "Positive. I mentioned time travel twice in my introduction, and it didn't so much as blip on her radar. So, either she is an excellent actor and Stealth Looper, or she isn't Awake."

Ron shrugged. "Eh, whatever. Want to go turn Draco into a monkey?"

Harry grinned. "I've got the crate for Borneo all ready to go."

* * *

15.4 (LordCirce): [Inside Out]

\--Headquarters--

Fear hummed to himself as he opened up the newspaper and sat back to monitor Riley's dreams. If there was one thing he was glad for, it was that even when time repeated with this whole, deja vu experience, Riley's dreams were almost always different. Even when Fear was the only one remembering, and none of Riley's special Core Memories showed up, the dreams were always just a little different. Kept things interesting, but not too interesting.

The first dream of the night started up, showing a happy pizza parlor, probably inspired by the horrible pizza they had eaten the night before.

"And cue dancing pizza slices." Fear chuckled.

Only it didn't happen. The pizza didn't get up and dance, the balls in the ball pit didn't turn into ice cream, and Rainbow Unicorn didn't come dancing in to join the band on stage. If Fear hadn't known for a fact that Riley was asleep, he might of thought he was seeing a normal memory.

Then the lights went out.

"Oh, here we go, it's going to be a nightmare. Great." Fear grumbled slightly as he pulled out a clipboard. "And they didn't even have the decency to send up a warning. I wonder if it's too late to wake up Joy."

Even as Fear surreptitiously began to stand up, an eerie tune began playing in the dream. Lightning flashed, and Fear gulped, as the brief light had made it seem like the animatronic figures on the stage had moved.

"PEEKABOO!" Suddenly, the face of the stuffed bear that was the mascot for the pizza place popped up in the middle of the View Screen, mouth wide and full of sharp teeth.

"AHHHH!" Fear screamed, slapping desperately at the abort button.

\--Reality--

Riley shot up and Awake with a jolt, her eyes wide, as the fearful nightmare dissipated from her mind. After several frantic moments, Riley slumped back onto her bed, groaning.

From now on, she was not going to eat any more broccoli pizza right before bed.

* * *

15.5 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

\--Headquarters--

Joy and Disgust circled the column that bore the Core Memories, the multicolored orbs glistening in the light of Headquarters. Around and around they went, like two sharks circling their helpless prey.

To say that Joy was in a state of panic was an understatement. "Okay Joy, calm down." she told herself. Her arms were thrust into the air, thus ruining her illusion of total control, but at this point Joy didn't care. "It's cool. It's totally cool. It's only the core memories that make up Riley's very fiber and being suddenly being turned into other Core Memories that. Aren't. Happy. But it's cool. Totally cool."

Joy wasn't a good liar. It was clear that she was having a panic attack that wasn't going to end soon.

Disgust in turn groaned, the sound mixed with her trademark gag, "Stop whining about the Core Memories Joy, they're fine!"

"But they're not happy!"

"Joy, are the Islands up and running, there is no problem with them."

Joy screeched to a halt, facing the windows that showcased the Islands. All of them – old and new – were fully functioning, proof that Joy's fears were unfounded.

At least, to everyone except Joy. "Disgust, they're not happy!"

"Joy, Riley is in the car moving back to San Francisco again. With all of our stuff in a moving van! And this wasn't the first time me and Riley were stuck doing this. We're doing the whole week of heck again like one of Dad's dumb sci-fi movies!"

It was true: Off to the side near the couch was a small mountain of memories stacked in a neat pile. Several of the memories contained functional duplicates of each other, with only small changes here and there. Anger sat there, reading The Mind Reader (RILEY REPEATING MOVE AGAIN. WE'RE NOT SURE WHY EITHER.), staying out of the scuffle with Disgust and Joy for now. With a scowl on his face.

"You know what that means right?"

"It means that Riley won't be happy?"

"It means that if this keeps up," Disgust then gasped in horror, having trouble coming to grips with what she was about to say, "it means the fashion trends won't change! Riley will be stuck wearing the same outfits every day for the rest of her life! You realize that this is an emergency now right? RIGHT!?"

Joy didn't know what to say to that, mostly because it was a little... out there.

* * *

15.6 (LordCirce): [Inside Out]

\--Reality--

Riley shuddered, crouching behind the barricade of desks that had been erected in the center of the darkened room. Beside her, several of the other kids crouched. Several of them were crying, and holding each other. For some reason, tears just wouldn't come to Riley's eyes.

'This is not right.'

* * *

\--Headquarters--

"THIS IS A DISASTER!" Fear was pulling what little hair he had out as he struggled at the console. It was all that he could do to keep from sending Riley off screaming to find some place to hide. The main issue with that course of action was that this was the only place to hide. And even then it might not last long.

Unbidden, the Recall Light activated, and memories of what had happened early popped up on the screen.

-Riley had been standing up to give a presentation to the class, when suddenly, one of her classmate's cell phones had started ringing. The teacher had glanced up, but before she could reprimand Sally, the owner of the cell phone, Thomas's cell phone had started to go off as well. Then Judy and Heather's. Riley's had been part of the next batch, and she pulled it out to find that it was Mom calling her.

Riley had glanced at the bewildered looking teacher, and then had hit Answer.

"Hello?"

"RILEY! Thank god you're safe." Her mom sounded frantic, and Riley's breath caught at the panic in her mother's voice. "Riley, listen, you cannot go outside. Stay inside, and... we'll come find you."-

"Turn that off!" Anger's voice was sharp, and Fear quickly turned off the Recalled Memory.

"It wasn't me. The subconscious is overflowing, and they keep shooting them back up here."

Anger growled. "Well, whatever. It ain't helping me in getting any of the others to respond."

Fear glanced back at the rest of Headquarters. Memories orbs were rolling around everywhere, most of them the purple hue of Fear or the green hue of Disgust. The purple outnumbered the green though, given the fact that Disgust had gone comatose after the... incident in the hallway.

Almost as if drawn by Fear's thoughts (and maybe an accidental panicked button press), the Recall Lamp lit up again.

-Riley was peering out of the door to her classroom. Her teacher had run off after receiving a phone call on the class phone, leaving the class sitting there. Shortly thereafter, the power had died, leading to several of the students screaming. Riley's mom hadn't told her what was making her so upset, and from what the rest of her classmates said, none of their parents had either.

After several moments of sitting in the dark, Riley had decided to peek out of the door. The hallway was darker than the classroom, on account of fewer windows. Riley had crept out slowly, while the rest of her classmates had peeked out behind her.

Then came the scream.

A teacher, one that Riley had only seen in passing, came dashing through one of the doors off to the side, screaming loudly. He spun, grabbing the door to try and close it, only for it to crash open and let... something through.

"Zombie." Riley's voice was barely a whisper, as she watched the zombie grab at the teacher. It seemed surreal, like a movie or something. Then the zombie bit down.-

*WHAM* Anger's fist smashed down on the console, knocking the Recalled Memory off. "WHAT DID I JUST SAY?"

Fear flinched back. "I'm sorry. I'm trying the best I can, but... I don't know what to do. I just know I'm never complaining about moving to San Francisco again."

Anger growled. "You can say that again." Anger and Fear were the only two who remembered things being different this time. Joy, as per usual, hadn't paid any attention to what they were saying, Sadness had moped in the corner, and Disgust had looked at them like they were crazy.

Fear glanced towards the couch. Now, Disgust was sitting there, staring off into the distance, her entire body shuddering. Sadness was sobbing back by the manuals, probably soaking them through. And Joy...

Joy was catatonic. She was just sitting, staring at the Core Memories, but not doing anything. Just rocking back and forth.

"Do... do you think that the whole 'deja vu' thing is why we didn't fall apart?" Fear was honestly wondering about that at this point. If anyone should be breaking down, it should be him, but he wasn't. Part of it was that it just didn't seem real, and part... part of him just felt braver.

"I just hope that the Deja Vu thing doesn't make any of this mess another Core Memory." Anger glowered at the screen, his fingers flexing and unflexing.

Fear paused, taking a deep breath, then stepped back from the controls. "I think... I think you need to take the wheel right now. I... Riley needs to be ready to fight, not try and run away."

Anger blinked, staring at Fear. By their nature, none of the emotions really liked to give up control at the console. For the most part, they deferred to Joy, mainly because that typically led to the best outcome for Riley, but they all still wanted to do their part, to help Riley along in their own way. Stepping back... took some courage.

"Alright. But keep an eye out. Never know where those zombies will jump out from." Anger stomped forward and grabbed the levers.

\--Reality--

Riley exhaled, and something in her chest seemed to firm up. She hadn't heard from Mom since that first call, and neither her or Dad were answering. She was worried, really worried, but, she glanced around the classroom, right now, worry wasn't what she needed. Her classmates were doing enough of that.

Gripping the hockey stick that she had in her hands, Riley let the burning anger she was filling swell up. When those zombies came, if they came, she would be ready to fight.

* * *

15.7 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

\--Reality--

Another day, another repeat.

Another repeat, another move to San Francisco.

Another move to San Fran, another first day of school.

Riley went through the motions, playing along with her parents as they bid her farewell on her (by Riley's count, twenty-first) first day of school.

And so Riley walked, a smile on her face as she thought about what to do this repeat. Whatever the case, Riley felt pretty good about herself.

Almost as if something put her sadness somewhere else... at least for now.

\--Headquarters--

The single door that led out of Headquarters, used only for Mind Workers, opened, and into Headquarters slinked Sadness.

Unfortunately for Sadness, Anger was standing there, waiting for her. "Hello Sadness."

"Hi Anger..."

"So, where were you?"

"...uh... I was..."

"Sadness, you went into Long Term Memory, didn't you?" Sadness sighed, Anger hitting the nail on the head as the red Emotion's head started to spark. "You know we're not supposed to go into Long Term Memory!"

"I know, but..."

"But what?"

"You wouldn't understand..."

Flames began to rise. "Try me."

"...I was visiting Bing Bong."

This calmed Anger down as the flames that were just beginning to form subsided. "That pink clod? All I need to know. Just don't do it again. You could get lost in in there and then we'd have to pull double duty to make up for it."

Sadness simply nodded in agreement as Anger went off to sit at his happy place - the couch.

"Hey Sadness, you're gonna miss the first day of school!"

Sadness smiled as Joy waved at her. The glowing emotion was (to Sadness's great relief) was a lot more open to having the other emotions man the console than the other two Joy's Sadness had met.

She was still hyperactive but eh, it was Joy. Not much could be done there.

* * *

15.8 (LordCirce/kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

Takeout Chinese food.

Idly Riley played with it, her chopsticks sending a piece of broccoli back and forth inside her box in a never ending game of back and forth. It seemed fitting, as no matter how many times the (evil) broccoli she played with moved inside the box, it was still the same piece of broccoli in the same box being played with by the same Riley that did the same action seconds ago.

The similarities to her situation were uncanny, and accurate.

"So, how was the first day of school?"

She's probing... again.

This was the thirty-fourth time Riley had relieved her life, and without fail Mom asked her that same question.

Time to dance the same old dance again...

\-- _Headquarters_ \--

Joy sat with her fellow emotions, watching through the view screen. "Say something happy." She urged. Disgust just scoffed, gently pushing a button on the console.

"It was... boring I guess."

"That's not happy."

"Uh, of course not." the fashionista scoffed. "I'm not you."

"Then let me let Riley be happy!"

Disgust rolled her eyes as Joy struggled to get out of the ropes that bound her to the chair she was in. Thanks to these repeats, Joy had become... well unhinged wasn't exactly the most polite thing to say to a colleague.

Then again Disgust wasn't always polite.

"Joy, do you want out of the chair?"

"Yes..."

"Then stop acting crazy!"

–-Reality, sometime later--

Riley sat in her sleeping bag with her trusty laptop, website after website of sci-fi trivia and time travel theory in her collection of tabs.

So far, all she had to show for it. All she had was retreads of what she had already spent several of these time repeats learning: for some reason time was repeating, and everything she tried ended with another repeat starting.

"Just... one answer. That's all I want," Under her breath, the words flowed out. "Just one answer."

A knock on the door jolted her from her thoughts. "Riley? Can I come in?"

"Sure Dad."

Through the doorway came her father, sitting down next to his daughter. His face was one that was tired from the long trials that he faced thanks to the move, but he smiled as "So, first full day in a new city. Pretty exciting, huh?"

"Yep."

"Something tells me you have something on your mind."

"Sure do."

"You want to talk about it?"

"It's... well... it's.... complicated."

Dad scooched closer to his daughter, the simple act eliciting a small smile from the 'young' girl. "Try me."

"Dad... I think I'm going crazy."

That surprised her dad, and he mused on exactly how to respond to that...

\--Dad's Headquarters--

Dad's anger looked at his men, each emotion looking at the other with a variety of mixed looks. The common theme of confusion was the only common element. "...How do we reply to that!?"

\--Reality--

Dad reached out and slid his arm across Riley's shoulders. "Hey, kiddo. I promise, I won't think you're crazy." He gave a small smile. "Well, any crazier than my monkey usually is."

"Dad, you remember that one movie? The one with the groundhog?"

\--Dad's Headquarters--

Dad's Fear looked up in alarm. "Sir, the joke didn't work."

Dad's Anger leaned forward. "Alright then. This is serious."

\--Reality--

Dad blinked, his smile fading slightly. "I remember."

Closing her laptop, Riley faced her father, clutching at her pant legs uncertainly. "It's... happening to me. And... I don't know why."

\--Dad's Headquarters--

"Uh... let's go to Defcon 3... we should we try a joke... again, sir?" Dad's Fear looked hesitant, as Anger was shaking his head.

"No. This is a Code Stoneface. Riley needs us to listen."

\--Reality--

"It's... scary being a time traveler, Dad. Scary being alone. No one else remembers, and no one believes me." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Sometimes it's normal. We move, and I go to school, tryout for the hockey team. Like nothing's wrong. Like..." She shuddered again, this one longer, "Like everything is normal except me..."

"Riley..." Dad squeezed her shoulder lightly, but she forged on.

"Dad.... I tried to run away back to Minnesota the first time. And then... this happened and I thought it was because I did, so I didn't run away but the repeats still happened...this is me being punished by something? Because I did one bad thing? I don't know, nothing makes sense because I fixed the bad thing by not running away but I'm still being punished and..." Riley broke down into sobs. "What did I do to deserve this?"

\--Dad's Headquarters--

Klaxons blared throughout Headquarters as Anger worked fast. "Sadness, Joy," he commanded. "Take the helm now!"

"SIR YES SIR!"

\--Reality--

"Riley..." Dad ran his hand through his hair, uttering a silent prayer for help. "I don't know... I don't know why this is happening to you. Why you are having to live time over and over. But I know that it isn't because of anything bad you did."

Riley looked up, blinking tearily. "What? But..."

Dad shifted to look her straight in the eyes. "Riley, you are my darling girl. You are always so happy and cheerful, and..." he shook his head, "and I know that... whatever this is... it isn't your fault."

"So... you believe me?"

Dad pulled her into a hug. "Of course I do, sweetie."

"Dad?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"There's more. I... You know how I said that sometimes it's normal?"

Dad nodded slowly, leaning back from the hug. "Yeah?"

"Well... sometimes... it's not. One time, there were zombies... everywhere. I don't... I don't know what happened to you, but... it was so scary and..." Riley cut off, wiping her eyes. "I'm glad it wasn't permanent.

"Another time, I was a guy. It was super strange. And then there was the time with the dancing hippo..." a laugh, one clearly forced, accompanied Riley's doubts. "I know it sounds crazy, like I'm crazy, but it's... it's... so...?"

"Overwhelming?"

Riley nodded tiredly. "Yeah, overwhelming."

Dad chuckled. "Yeah. Well, whatever happens, we'll get through it together." He turned and smiled down at her. "Tell ya what, how about this? Tomorrow, we go explore San Francisco, just you and me. You can show me all of the sights!"

"Da~ad."

"What? It'll be fun, having my own pretty little tour guide to show me around."

They both giggled, and then fell into a restful silence. Finally, Dad broke it, running his hand across Riley's bangs.

"And if you ever need someone to talk you, I'm here for you. Even if I don't remember next time, know that I will always love you and support you."

"...yeah. Thanks Dad."

Some things never changed. Riley smiled as she snuggled up against her Dad and drifted off.

* * *

15.9 (blazingen1): [Inside Out]

\--Reality--

Riley was scanning through the internet for any more information on the strange time repeats. This repeat, almost everything was normal, all except her dad. While he still acts like the beloved father she'd know all her life, this time, he was really... weird, and that was putting it nicely. In fact..

*Knock knock knock* "Oh Riiiileeeeyy..."

\--HeadQuarters--

Disgust and Sadness, the only two Emotions Awake this loop, were at the control panel. Joy was bound and gagged on a chair behind them, with Anger and Fear nearby.

"Oh no, not again," moaned Sadness.

"Ugh, seriously!? This is the third time this week!" exclaimed the annoyed and incredulous Disgust.

\--Reality--

"I'm both respecting your privacy by knocking but asserting my authority as your father by coming in anyways."

With that, the door smashed open revealing her dad with a battering ram.

_'Yup... very weird,'_ thought Riley.

* * *

15.10 (kingofsouls/Lord Circe/Blazingen1): [Inside Out] / [Phineas and Ferb]

\--Welcome--

_Headquarters_

The dimly lit Headquarters was tranquil and empty as Joy walked around. Riley was sleeping, thankfully a sound sleep, and it was just her on dream duty. She preferred it that way, the tranquility of the silence her reward for reaching the day's end. Thought the silence was not only comforting that night; it heralded confusion and apprehension.

Having just became aware of the repeats - which was hard to not notice when Riley was just playing in the park one second and sound asleep the next - Joy was thankful for Riley's current status as asleep. It gave Joy the chance to soak in the atmosphere.

The golden emotion eyed the Memories that stood in their shelves, the spectrum of colors, mostly purple and blue and most holding events she'd seen half a dozen times over, were evidence that Riley's repeating was still going on and causing her undue stress.

Thankfully Riley was a strong girl, able to soldier on despite the strange situation she was in.

The dream playing was a repeat, something about zombie rats and living pants. Without a doubt it was one of the weirdest combinations that Joy had personally monitored, but then again who could blame Dream Productions for wanting to experiment every now and again.

Joy was just about to check on the Core Memories, wanting to make sure they were the same as Riley remembered them the last time Joy had repeated with their person.

Just as she was about to open them, a single firm and irritated "Ahem" echoed throughout Headquarters, drawing Joy's attention towards its source. Standing at the top of the stairs leading to their sleeping quarters stood Anger, who was glaring down at her defiantly.

Cowering behind him was Fear who was shaking like a leaf as he tried his best to put on a brave face. He was failing monumentally, but at the very least he was getting out of his comfort zone and thus got an A for effort. At his sides stood Disgust and Sadness, the green Emotion glaring at her scathingly while the blue one just wrung her hands and stared at her with concern.

"And just what do you think you're doing?" Anger growled acidly.

"I'm checking on the Core Memories...?"

"GET HER!"

To Joy, there were very few things that she would not consider fun. Getting dogpiled was going on that list.

* * *

\--Reality, sometime later--

Riley awoke inside the car, the scenery blazing past her as Dad drove them towards their 'new' home, yet again. She quickly noticed the blanket that covered her, and realized that she had fallen asleep in the car.

' _Honestly_ ' thought Riley, _'Not the strangest thing to happen to me...'_

"Wow, Riley, you slept like a log."

"I _feel_ like a log..." As she spoke, Riley's eyes drifted to see where she was, trying to make since of the unusual situation she was in. Usually the repeat would start just before her Dad announced the move from Minnesota to San Fransisco, but this time she was already in the car and the move already underway.

Weird.

"Well, you were having a hard time staying awake." Mom remarked. "You went back to sleep as soon as we got going."

"Getting up at 5 tends to do that, right monkey?" Dad remarked.

"...oh, oh yeah. Totally."

"Well, at least we're almost there, right honey?"

"Oh you bet. All this driving is killing me."

Riley smiled. At least this time the car trip was mercifully short. Repeating that long car trip every repeat was up there on Riley's personal dislike list, just under broccoli and clowns.

Riley yawned, doing her best to completely wake up as she went over what she was planning to do this repeat - which mostly consisted of practicing her hockey skills and time travel research since anything else just seemed not as important. "So...when are we going to get to San Francisco?"

"San Francisco?" Dad chuckled, Riley raising an eyebrow in confusion. "I wish. Always did want to go there though."

"Wait, we're _not_ moving to San Francisco?"

Mom turned around, her warm smile comforting Riley just a little as she tried to make sense of this sudden reveal.

* * *

_Headquarters_

Fear did what Fear did best.

Screaming out loud at the highest pitch possible and then breaking into a run through Headquarters like a chicken with his head cut off. "THIS IS A CATASTROPHE!"

"Yea, no kidding." huffed Anger. He flicked his trusty paper (BREAKING NEWS: WE'RE NOT MOVING TO SAN FRANCISCO! UM...OKAY?), trying his best to ignore Fear's incessant screaming.

So far it wasn't working.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME? WE'RE NOT MOVING TO SAN FRANCISCO!? THIS IS BAD, VERY BAD! DOES ANYONE KNOW WHERE WE'RE EVEN GOING BECAUSE I DON'T! OH, RILEY IS IN DANGER, BIG BIG DANGER! TIDAL WAVES, MAD SCIENTISTS, METEORS, ZOMBIES, OR A ZOMBIE TIDAL WAVE CREATED BY A MAD SCIENTIST METEOR! DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THE INHERENT RISKS OF MOVING TO ANOTHER CITY! THE NATURAL ORDER HAS BEEN DISRUPTED! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO, I DON'T KNOW WHAT HORRORS AWAIT RILEY IF WE'RE MOVING SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

Anger groaned as he buried his hands into his head to try and block out the ranting. Disgust, on the other hand, simply reached underneath the console - which she was manning - and put on a pair of earmuffs, freed from the living fire alarm that called itself Fear. "Ah, much better." The poking of her shoulder drew her eyes to Sadness, who was also manning the console and trying her hardest to cover her ears from the apparently endless rant.

Fortunately Disgust learned to be prepared, and revealed a second pair of earmuffs, one that was a light sky blue that went well with Sadness's coloring and was just her size.

"Thanks, Disgust."

Disgust, having a hard time hearing exactly what was said, simply gave Sadness a thumbs up.

Anger on the other hand, had enough, and walked towards the console, and calling for a memory to be recalled. In seconds the summoned memory - golden in hue - landed from the ceiling and into his waiting hands. "Here we go."

He turned around, Fear running around in a rough outline of a figure eight. His ramblings continued, going on about something Anger cared nothing for.

With a shout, Anger let lose the memory orb, and it flew along its path straight and true, and hit Fear straight the mouth, the orb now a temporary muzzle. The sudden impact sent Fear tumbling into the ground, somehow entangling himself with his limbs as he rolled into a nearby wall.

With a sigh and a smile, Disgust removed the earmuffs. "Nice shot, Anger."

"At least I found a use for that dumb gum commercial."

Spitting out the Memory and quickly getting himself free, Fear marched over to the others, clearly enraged. "What was that for?"

"It was to keep you from shouting! Not only does it annoy me, but we really don't want..." there was a moan, and Anger's head began to spark. "...and it looks like you just woke up Joy! Greeeeeeat job."

"Yeah, way to go, Fear. Now we have to deal with psycho Joy now."

Fear tried his best to slink away. Of all the things he feared, psycho Joy was the newest one, and was pretty high up there on the list.

Groaning, Fear just walked off to his room, leaving Sadness, Anger, and Disgust to confront Psycho Joy. Upon entering, he walked to the desk in the far corner, where lay all of the emergency plans he had meticulously calculated. Littered throughout the room lay huge piles of papers sitting on the floor in neat stacks. Hanging on the walls were a variety of diagrams, crossed out plans, and tackboards with several yards worth of yarn connecting several places like a giant game of connect the dots.

It was chaotic perfection in the complex simplicity of it. Digging through the mishmash of papers on his desk, Fear riffled through them, and quickly found what he was looking for.

' _Here is is: List of things to do when moving to a new city, version 14._ ' He took the list, which was a fair size with several dozen items on the list, though not as long as his other lists. _"Don't worry Riley, I'm here for you, no matter where we go. I will keep you safe."_

* * *

_later_

Phineas and Ferb sat in front of the backyard's lone tree, the summer sun beating on them in celebration of the first day of summer being underway.

The sounds of moving trucks echoed out on the street, and from the sounds of it they were getting closer. "Hey Ferb, did you order anything today?"

Ferb shook his head.

"Let's check it out."

As soon as they stepped out of the backyard, the source of the sound was easy to identify: Two houses down from theirs were several moving trucks parked on the curb, alongside a station wagon.

"Wow, Ferb, a new family moving next to ours for the Loop! How serendipitous is that?" Phineas grinned, excitement rising as an infinite number of ideas began to form within his mind. Ferb simply gave him a stoic glance. "You're right Ferb, it has been a while since I said that last. Let's go say hi to our new neighbors!"

As they walked near, one of the movers got out of his truck and approached the driver's side of the station wagon. "Alright, Mr. Flanders, where do you want me to start unloading things to?"

"Flanders?" The man who had gotten out of the car looked confused. "We're not the Flanders, we're the Anderson family."

The delivery driver blinked, then checked his clipboard. "Anderson? Anderson, Anderson... oh, Anderson." The driver chuckled. "Yeah, your truck is in San Francisco."

"San Fran... San Fransisco! How... we were following you almost the entire way!"

The two men moved off behind the moving truck, and Phineas glanced at Ferb. "Huh, got any plans for tracking down moving trucks?" Ferb flipped through his notebook, shrugged, then gave a thumbs up. "Awesome. Well, I think I know what we're going to do today." The two brothers smiled at each other, as a faint choir sang in the background.

* * *

*Ding-Dong* Mrs. Anderson looked up from her cell phone, where she was currently on hold with the moving company. "Now who could that be?" She stood up from the table and walked over to the front door, opening it to find two young boys standing on her front porch.

"Hi! Welcome to the neighborhood. My name's Phineas and this is my brother Ferb. We were wondering..."

"Hello, thank you for holding. How may I assist you?"

Mrs. Anderson jumped as the representative began to speak on her phone. "Oh, hold on one second." She then put her hand over the phone and turned to the boys. "It's really nice to meet you two. My daughter is actually just in the back yard, if you want to go talk to her." She then turned back to the phone. "Yes, hi, I'm... yes, that's me. Yes, I was wondering how the trucks could get so messed up..."

Phineas and Ferb looked at each other and shrugged, before heading around to the back yard.

* * *

Riley was.... conflicted to say the least.

Moving to a new city - an actual new city this time - was only part of the issue. What frustrated her to no end was that her family's moving truck was not only displaced (an annoyingly consistent occurrence, given how much everything else tended to change), but it was in San Francisco this time.

San Francisco!

Of all the cruel ironic twists that could happen, the one time she didn't move to San Francisco was the one time the moving van got the location right, so to speak.

It was almost enough to make her scream!

And so Riley sat in the backyard, and simply sat in the backyard unsure of what to do or what to feel. She thought she had a general grasp of the repeats, how they worked, but it seemed that every other repeat threw something new at her, something unseen always had to happen, and it caused Riley to rethink how these repeats even worked.

The sound of the backyard gate opening pried her from her latest personal crisis, and Riley glanced up as a pair of boys entered. One had reddish hair and a rather oddly shaped head, while the other was taller with bright green hair.

"Hello. My name's Phineas, and this is my brother Ferb."

"Oh... uh, my name's Riley." Riley waved her hand half-heartedly.

"Cool." Phineas then pointed over his shoulder. "So, we heard your dad talking about how your moving truck is out in San Francisco, and we were wondering if you'd like to come with us to go track it down!"

_-Headquarters-_

"Um, they've got to be joking, right?" Disgust looked over at Anger, incredulously. "We're like, over a hundred miles away."

"KIDNAPPERS! CHILD KIDNAPPERS!" Fear flailed around in a panic. "I'll admit, when that fear has come up, I never pictured the kidnappers actually being children, but still, KIDNAPPERS!"

Anger scowled, before punching out and knocking Fear over the couch. "I don't know, but this is just like the Big Bad Runaway Idea all over again, and I, for one, am not going to stand for it." He began stomping towards the console.

Joy's eyes widened from where she was tied up. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait! Anger, they're just kids, you can't just explode at them!"

Anger spun to face her. "Oh, and I suppose you think we should dance off and play whatever, fluffy imagination games they're cooking up, huh?"

Sadness raised her arms feebly from where she was standing next to Joy. "Wait. I think... Joy is right. I mean, I don't think we should get angry at them, because that will probably just make them sad."

Anger glowered. "Oh, so now you're on Miss Sunshine's side?"

"I'm not on anyone's side... I think."

Voices raised as Anger and Joy continued to debate and were joined by Fear's renewed shouting and Disgust's scoffs at all of the noise. Unnoticed by all except Sadness, the buttons on the console began to flash a rainbow of colors.

\--Reality--

Before Riley could make up her mind about Phineas's bizarre invitation, a sudden spike of pain shot through her head, followed by a flash of gut clenching anger, then a spurt of fear. She moaned softly as she pressed her hand to her forehead, feeling kind of like she had just gotten a brain freeze.

"Are you alright?" Phineas asked, looked a little worried. Riley giggled at his face, before a couple of tears escaped her eyes.

"Just peachy." Her voice started as sarcastic, but slipped into a higher, sing-song pitch at the end. It was followed by her gritting her teeth, and then lifting her hand back to her head.

Phineas glanced at Ferb. "Seems like there's some sort of mental weirdness going on. Do you still have the Mind Machine from when we invaded Candace's head?"

Ferb gave a thumbs-up.

* * *

"...This can't be real..." laughed Riley as she shifted into an angry growl. In minutes Phineas and Ferb had lead her to their backyard, and had quickly set up... well a thing. The best way to describe the thing was a red sphere attached to a yellow box with blinking lights. Endless cords came from the box and lead to a trio of lawn chairs.

"Well why wouldn't it be?"

" _At least someone's happy._ " Riley mentally snarked.

Phineas and Ferb were finishing setting up the machine as another friend of theirs got ready to man the machine and keep it from blowing up or any other equally unpleasant outcome. "Hey, Baljeet, is everything ready?"

"Everything is fully functional, Phineas." Baljeet replied. "We are ready to go when you are."

"This is really elaborate for a game." The headache intensified, an intense spike of fear coupled with happiness reflexively drove a gentle hand to caress her aching head. "I'm not really in the mood, though."

"We're not playing. We used this to go into our sister's mind awhile ago."

Riley raised an eyebrow, disbelief surging through her. "Right..." Still, another headache stabbed through her head, and she quickly sank down onto one of the lawn chairs, barely noticing as Phineas and Ferb put something on her forehead and then jumped up into the other two.

"Hit it, Baljeet!"

Before Riley could protest, pretty bright colors assaulted her eyes.

* * *

_-Headquarters-_

"Wah!" Fear let out a yelp as he was once more propelled across the room by an punch by Anger, who was currently charging after Joy. In the middle of their big argument, Joy had managed to bunny-hop the chair she was in over and block Anger from getting to the console, which naturally led to him blowing his top. It had also helpfully burned through her bonds, letting her dart away before the others could dog-pile her again. This had led to the current game of cat-and-mouse, with Anger trying to grab her and her twirling away out of reach. Disgust sat on the sidelines, making snarky comments at both of them, while Fear ran around, still panicking over the craziness of everything.

It was like some dam had burst, and all of the tension and uncertainty they had been feeling about these repeating lives had exploded all at once, unleashing total chaos.

"COME BACK HERE, YOU..."

"No way! I'm not letting you dogpile me again."

"WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!"

"...um, guys?"

"How about kicking you out of the tower then?"

"No way. Riley still needs to have at least some Joy in her life."

"DOOM, DOOM I SAY! And possibly some gloom, too. DOOM!"

"Yeah, but knocking you down a few pegs will give me some joy."

"Guys?"

"Ugh, you're both so immature. And you're making a mess of the place."

"Hey, you guys started it. I was just checking on the Core Memories."

"Yeah, looking to swap them out, probably."

Joy actually pulled to a stop at that. "What? No, I..."

*SHREEEEEE* A piercing whistle sounded through Headquarters, causing the four squabbling Emotions to stop in place and all clap their hands over their ears. They turned towards the source of the sound to find Sadness, slowly lowering her fingers from her lips, and looking rather bashful.

"Um..." she then pointed towards the viewscreen. "I think something bad has happened."

The four followed her finger, and then gaped as one. The viewscreen, which should have shown what Riley was seeing, was blank, with a few odd static lines running across it. More so than that, the console in front of it was dark as well.

Their animosity forgotten, the scared emotions rushed to the darkened console.

"RILEY!!!"

* * *

_Long Term Memory_

The first thing Riley saw when all the pretty colors disappeared were the shelves. They rose several feet into the air, curving alongside its fellow shelves. And from the looks to it, there were thousands of them as far as the eye could see standing in silent vigil

The most startling aspect were the orbs. The shelves had an endless amount of them, each of varying colors. "Where... am I?"

"We're inside your mind!" It didn't take long for Riley to find Phineas, who was walking up to her alongside Ferb. "I gotta admit, this looks pretty different from Candace's mind."

Ferb shrugged. "Well, not all minds are created equal."

"That's true."

To say Riley was freaked out was an understatement, despite her forced smile that had emerged. "No way, this can't be real. I'm dreaming, right? This is one really big strange dream after eating too much broccoli."

"Well, these look like you." Phineas held an orb, a green one, and inside it was an image. Even as Riley watched, she saw it moving. It was her, at about age seven or so, at a long wooden table. She was eating a plate full of food, and she had just picked up a long piece of boiled spinach. She made a face, then dropped the piece of spinach under the table.

"I... I remember that. That was at my Grandparent's house, I was feeding my veggies to their dog." She blinked. "How can that be here? I mean..." Riley shook her head, which she idly noted was actually feeling a bit better.

Phineas shrugged, handing the memory to Riley as he mused, "I guess it's probably a memory. Candace's were stored as trees, but I think your way is much more efficient." He glanced at the maze of shelves. "Sort of. They're pretty to look at though."

Riley put the memory down in the gentlest way she could, and looked over the wide collection of orbs. They reminded her of snowglobes, only instead of snow it was her life, snipped into pieces and stored in an incoherent pattern. And so Riley browsed the shelves, not saying a single word as she gazed at moment's of her past.

A yellow orb that bore a memory of her at a street fair in San Francisco, enjoying the most delicious pretzel she had ever eaten.

A red orb, the Riley within screaming towards the heavens in anger alongside a blue orb of her consumed by the sadness of being trapped in the repeats.

A green orb of her groaning about the dress her mother insisted on having Riley wear to her first dance.

A purple orb with bits and pieces to her favorite scary movie: "Shoes of Doom".

A blue orb of her in her raincoat, assaulted by an unrelenting rainstorm.

A yellow orb that sat next to that blue orb, featuring Riley dancing from puddle to puddle without a care in the world.

She frowned as she picked up the next one. A red orb mixed with a dash of purple, the memory within one she wished was a forgotten memory.

The roar of a zombie just as it was struck by Riley's trusty hockey stick.

She hated that repeat.

"Hey Riley, did you find anything?" Phineas snuck up on Riley, eliciting a shout and dropping the hated memory.

"Uh... no! No no no no... everything's... great!" She grabbed the memory, forcing it back on the shelf from whence it came. "So... what now?"

"Well, what we need to do is find the source of the headaches," Phineas explained. Riley was starting to get the vibe that he knew a lot more than a kid his age should know. After all, she was in her own mind, all thanks to Phineas and Ferb. If that didn't scream 'genius', then Riley didn't know what did. "The headaches are probably located someplace that's close to your higher brain functions. We should probably head there next and see what's causing these headaches."

Though it was clear Riley was over her head (while somehow being inside of head: Riley decided to stop thinking about it before she got another headache trying to figure that one), Riley smiled, thankful that Phineas seemed to know what he was doing.

"Okay then. So, where do we go?"

"Well I wouldn't know exactly where that would be."

Crestfallen, Riley sighed.

"This is, after all, your mind."

Riley groaned, despair taking its toll as she slumped onto the ground, knocking several of the memories off of the shelves. "I've never been in my own head before! I don't know the first thing about how my own head works!"

"No problem, then. We'll just walk around and explore. Chances are, we'll stumble across it in the middle of a musical montage."

Riley couldn't help but grin from Phineas's awkwardly worded sentence. "Thanks Phineas."

"That's what friends are for, right?"

It then dawned on Riley that their trio had been reduced to a duo. "Um... Phineas? Where's Ferb?"

"Ahem." Riley and Phineas turned to see Ferb standing near the entrance to the row, followed by a large blue... blob. It had arms and legs, and reminded Riley of a slightly overripe blueberry. It was also talking.

"...so you say you need to find the source of the headaches, eh? Well, I don't know about..." it trailed off as it caught sight of Riley. "You... you're... you're her! I mean, you're you, but... what are you doing down here?"

Riley blinked. "I don't know where 'here' is. I mean, they said this was my mind, but that is ridic..."

"You need to be up in Headquarters, I think." The blob looked really confused. "Though, I don't think... I've never heard of... then again, what do I know? I'm just a Mind Worker." Shaking himself, he quickly gestured for them to follow. "Come on, we're pretty close to the Inspiration Lift, we can get you sent straight to the top." He then headed off.

"Well, you heard the man, er, blob," Phineas said brightly. "Let's go!"

_-Headquarters-_

"...ohnoohnoohno..." Fear's chant was a continuous drone in the background as the Emotion's crowded around the console. They had quickly confirmed that Riley wasn't dead, luckily, but she also wasn't asleep, or they would have been getting some sort of package up from Dream Productions. It was like she... just wasn't aware.

"I told you, kidnappers. Didn't I? Didn't I?" Fear was pacing and twitching behind them, mumbling to himself as he wrung his hands. Meanwhile, Anger kept pounding at the controls, while Joy was frantically paging through the manuals. Normally, she would turn to Sadness, but after her spurt of bravery in getting the others to pay attention, Sadness had broken down, and was now sobbing into a bucket that Disgust was holding.

"We broke Riley!" she sobbed.

Then Joy jumped to her feet. "Guys, we didn't break Riley, she's fine!"

"Okay then Joy, if she's fine, where is she, huh?" The purple emotion had a good point. Joy fumbled as she tried to answer that. "Ummm... umm..." She paged through the manual. "I think, maybe it's due to, ummm... what's a neuron supposed to be..." she sighed, shaking her head, "I'm not sure exactly, but I think this is just like the time Riley got heat stroke during that summer camp. When the screen went all fuzzy and she almost fainted, only she didn't faint this time."

"So then HOW do we get her BACK?" Anger growled, slapping the controls again.

Joy scooped up the manuals and quickly made her way around to the side of the Viewscreen. "Let's see, lucid dreaming, OBE, subconscious memory... okay, I think if I just... physical senses to sense of consciousness..." Joy quickly began poking around behind the screen. The other Emotions just watched, until a loud crackle sounded and Joy was propelled backwards, away from the screen. Then, with a flicker, the screen restarted, fuzzy with static at first, before growing into focus.

It was a white elevator, with the two boys, Phineas and Ferb standing to one side.

"Where is she?" Disgust looked at the screen, incredulously, absently patting the still hiccuping Sadness on the back.

"Kidnapped!" Fear let out, only to fall silent at a growl from Anger.

"Ow ow ow," muttered a still smokey Joy as she approached the now back-online control panel.

There was a faint ding from the Mind Worker Entrance into Headquarters, then, simultaneously, the doors to Headquarters and the doors of the elevator Riley was in opened.

Revealing the Emotions staring at themselves on the screen, though viewed from the side.

\---

Confusion was an apt way of putting how Riley had felt during the last ten minutes or so. She had apparently traveled inside her own mind, and was now entering what the blueberry man called 'Headquarters'. The doors to the lift opened, revealing a rather neat looking room, with more shelves covered with the memory spheres. Standing in the middle of the room, there was a fancy looking podium, covered in buttons. Five brightly colored figures stood around it, staring off to a screen on one side of the room.

The moment that Riley stepped into the room, all five of the figures turned to look at her, before promptly letting out a unified scream.

"AAAAHHHHHH!"

Riley jumped at the sudden burst of noise, letting out a loud scream of her own.

"Aaaaaaaahhh!"

"AAAAHHHHH!"

One of the figures, who was bright yellow, suddenly turned and gave the purple guy a push, shoving him away from the controls. "Fear, step back. You're scaring her."

Immediately as he stepped back, her heart rate did seem to settle a bit. Then the purple man began to speak.

"But... how... but... it's... it... but... how..." He turned, glancing between the screen and Riley. Riley did the same thing, and then let out a second yell of shock. "Whaaaa?" The image on the screen showed the screen, which showed a screen, which showed a screen...

Riley quickly spun away, feeling dizzy and just a bit nauseous. Behind her, she could hear the yellow woman speak again.

"Disgust, let go of that handle. Everyone, step back. We need to calm down, or Riley is just going to get more upset."

A gruff voice answered, sounding surly. "Oh, so I guess you're going to take the wheel again, huh? Just like always..."

"No," the lady responded. "Myself included. No one touches the console until we've sorted things out with Riley."

There was a bit of muttering, then Riley felt a hand gently touch her shoulder.

"Riley?"

Riley jumped, as the moment the hand touched her, she felt a shock go through her, culminating in a bubbling laugh. She spun around, tripping as she did so, and landed on her butt, staring up at the yellow lady, who had taken a step back.

"What the... what was that?" Riley shook her head. "No, wait. More importantly, who are you?"

The lady took a deep breath, then nodded. "Right..." She then smiled and stuck out her hand. "Hi Riley, my name is Joy."

Hesitantly, Riley reached out and grasped Joy's hand. Once again, the same shock slid through her, filling her stomach with butterflies and laughter. Joy didn't seem to notice, quickly pulling Riley up to her feet, and skipping, pulled her over to the others. She waved at a shorter, blue woman.

"This is Sadness." Riley stuck her hand out without thinking, and, looking a bit surprised, Sadness reached up and shook it. Another shock went through Riley, though this time, it was, well, sad. But, at the same time, there was a feeling of comfort, the sort of release of tension that you get after a good cry.

Joy was moving on, pointing to the green lady in the sparkling dress. "This is Disgust." Riley blinked at the name, which didn't seem to quite fit with the pretty woman, but stuck out her hand again anyway. Another jolt, this one twisting her stomach up oddly, with slight feelings of nausea, but also self-assuredness, or boldness, that caused Riley to stand a bit straighter.

"Then there's Anger." The short red man stuck out his hand, giving her hand a firm shake. This time, the jolt brought with it a sense of rage, but also excitement, the sort of rush that Riley felt when she was barreling across the ice in hockey. Her lip twitched up in a grin, which Anger matched.

"And finally, Fear." The taller purple man twitched slightly as he shook her hand, and Riley could feel her feelings of nervousness take a quick boost, but underneath that, she was startled by a massively strong feeling of protectiveness.

Riley stepped back, her head reeling slightly from the intense feelings she had just felt. The five figures crowded together slightly, and Joy spoke up again, gesturing with her arms. "We are your emotions."

Riley waved, awkwardly. "Um, hi, I guess. I'm Riley... but I guess you all know that." She laughed awkwardly, and the group of emotions mirrored her. She rubbed her arm. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but they all seemed to be jammed up into her throat. She opened her mouth several times, then closed it again.

The awkward silence was broken when Fear leaned over to Joy and whispered, "Do you think now would be a good time to talk about the whole deja-vu thing?"

Riley blinked. "Deja vu? You mean the time traveling?"

Unnoticed by the group, Phineas and Ferb looked at each other, eyes widening. "That's it!" Phineas stated boldly. Riley jumped and looked back at him, and the emotions peered around her as well.

"What's it?"

Phineas grinned. "I think I know what you're going through. We actually have a song to explain it!" He turned to look at Ferb. "Ferb, I'm going to need Introduction Song Number 5."

Ferb gave a thumbs up, then squeezed his eyes shut. With a pop, a music player appeared in the air in front of him, which Ferb caught. He then hit play, causing a gentle melody to begin playing. Phineas stepped forward, holding a microphone he had pulled out of somewhere, and the lights in Headquarters seemed to dim a little bit as he began to sing.

"~Have you ever thought tomorrow happened just yesterday?~"

"~Have you ever thought your life was moving in the same way?~"

Riley nodded quickly. "Yes, exactly!" Behind her, the Emotions murmured slightly with excitement.

Phineas grinned, and the music shifted into an upbeat tempo, the lights brightening.

"~Then you're Looping! Looping over and over, my friends!~"

"~Looping! And so summer will never end!~"

"~So many adventures! So much to do!~"

"~So many new people to meet, and it's all happening to you!~"

\-- _Reality_ \--

Candace frowned as she sat up in her bed. "Hold on, Stacy. My busting senses are tingling. Got to go." Hanging up, Candace raced to her window and leaned out. "Ah-ha! I knew it. You guys are... taking a nap." Candace stared down at her brothers, who were laying on some vaguely familiar lawn chairs in their backyard next to some girl she didn't recognize. From this angle, she couldn't see the Mind Machine, hidden by the tree branches. "Well, that's not bustable. Though I wonder what happened to Isabella?"

\-- _Headquarters_ \--

"~It's a wide Multiverse out there, hung on an interdimensional tree.~"

"~So many new things to share, and wondrous things to see.~"

The Emotions and Riley were sitting, eyes wide, as they listened to the musical story about why these time loops were happening. The Emotions were doubly confused, given the fact that several Mind Workers had shown up and joined in with the musical number, as had Rainbow Unicorn, who was doing a tango with a random zebra.

Then, the music changed, shifting to a more downbeat tempo. The lights cut out, and then a spotlight shone on Phineas.

"~But not every~y~y~thing is rosy. There's trouble i~i~i~in paradise.~"

"~Yggdrasi~il is broken, and so... we are... re~peat~ing our LI~I~I~IVES!~"

Silence reigned for several seconds, before the song came back, more upbeat than ever, and the lights flashed on to reveal a massive stage that had somehow spontaneously appeared in Headquarters. The stage barely fit, taking up most of the space in front of the Viewscreen, which was now displaying some psychedelic colors to match the song. A massive ensemble of Mind Workers and random other characters none of the Emotions or Riley recognized stood on the stage, dancing around, including what looked like a living old-timey bathing suit, a small white doll in a pink hood, and a floating baby head.

"~And now we're Looping! Our lives will begin again!~"

"~Looping! And doing it with a new friend!~"

"~We have so much to tell you! The Ping and the Pocket!~"

"~So much to build! A rollercoaster and rocket!~"

"~So much to do, and time moves so fast!~"

"~Though it will begin anew, let's make each moment last!~"

"~As we Loop with You!~"

The song finished with a grand flourish, with everyone pointing towards Riley.

Joy was the first to recover, and she quickly began applauding. Riley joined in, and the other Emotions soon followed, though Sadness' claps were rather half-hearted. Phineas jumped down, as the Mind Workers began breaking down the stage and carting it away.

"Thank you, thank you. So, do you have any questions?"

Riley exhaled. "So many, but... first, what was with the floating baby head?"

Phineas shrugged. "Honestly, we have no idea."

* * *

While the musical number was enlightening (and catchy, much to Disgust's frustration), Phineas and Ferb decided that explaining what wasn't explained in song was the next course of action.

What followed was an incredibly elaborate presentation that more or less explained everything. It helped that they were inside of Riley's mind, so they could get the materials they needed in an instant, rather than having to make them, which saved them "a couple minutes or three", according to Phineas. Given that holographic projectors, tiny animated figurines, and a dizzying array of flipcharts was involved, Riley wasn't sure she believed him.

After that, Riley sat with her emotions as Phineas and Ferb decided to just stand back and let the new Loopers sort the revelation out amongst themselves. Riley soon found herself sitting on a nearby couch, and noticed a newspaper lying on it. She picked it up, and stifled a snicker. The paper was labeled 'The Mind Reader', and in big bold letters was the headline "RILEY INSIDE RILEY'S MIND? POSSIBLE PARADOX DETECTED!"

The letters then quickly morphed into "BREAKING NEWS! WE'RE NOT CRAZY!".

To say it was surreal was an understatement.

And so the six sat down, and swapped the stories that they had to tell. By far, Riley's favorite was the one Joy had experienced without any of them, at a magical castle. But as the stories were swapped, Riley had one question she needed answered. "So, you all have been there since the very beginning..."

"You betcha!"

"So, what the heck was going on the first time we moved to San Francisco?"

Joy's smile dropped, and the other emotions glanced around uneasily.

"...it was my fault," Sadness spoke up from her seat, staring at the ground. "Something changed, and when I touched some of the memory spheres, they turned blue and wouldn't turn back."

"No, Sadness," Joy interrupted. "It wasn't your fault. It was mine." Joy turned to look at Riley. "All your life, I've done my best to make sure you were happy, even at the expense of pushing the other emotions away."

"...understatement of the year..." Anger muttered. Disgust elbowed him and gave him a pointed look, to which he just rolled his eyes.

Joy nodded. "So, when you were moving, you... well, I guess you should have felt sad, it was natural for you to, but I stood in the way, so I think it kind of built up in Sadness, and got let out when she touched the orbs. Of course, I panicked, especially when she touched some of the Core Memories, and, well, long story short, Sadness and I got sucked right out of Headquarters and down into Long Term Memory, over by Hockey Island."

Riley smiled a little at the mention of her favorite sport, and Phineas and Ferb, who were chatting with a couple of Mind Workers, glanced at each other after overhearing the word 'Hockey'.

"So, Fear, Disgust, and Anger were trying to hold down the fort while we were away, but... well, they didn't have any experience making you feel joy, and..." Joy trailed off, not sure how to bring up the next bit.

Anger let out a huff. "Then I had a really dumb idea. Ya see, what Joy didn't tell you was that all of your Core Memories got sucked out with them, so your Islands of Personality were all out of whack. That's why you couldn't play hockey or seem to connect with your friends. So, I had the _brilliant_ idea that, since all of your Core Memories were made in Minnesota, that you should head back there to make some more."

Riley's eyes widened a bit, as she remembered how she had thought about how much happier she had been in Minnesota and had seized on the idea that if she went back there, things would be better. "So you made me get the bus ticket?"

Anger scuffed his foot. "Well, not really, I mean, I gave you the idea, but then, it got stuck, and we got locked out. We couldn't make you feel anything, it was like you were emptying out." He then pointed back at Joy and Sadness. "That's when they showed back up, when you were on the bus. Sadness managed to pop the idea out, I still don't really get how, and then she pushed you to get back home."

Riley turned to look at Sadness, who was fiddling with her fingers. After a couple of seconds, she realized they were looking at her, and let out a small 'eep', before speaking. "I just kind of did it. I mean, I thought about what you were going through, and about how you needed support, and stuff. And that's what we do, most of the time, is support you, and help you to live a good life. And even if my parts aren't as nice as Joy's, I'm still here to try and help you." She waved her hand at the others. "We all are, no matter what. And we make mistakes, because we're still learning along with you, but... we do it out of love." Sadness gave a small smile, which Riley returned, and the group lapsed into a gentle silence.

With was then quickly broken by Joy.

"GROUP HUG!" Joy then jumped out of her seat like a rocket, and glomped her host before Riley could protest. The warm feeling was nice, almost in intoxicating, and Joy motioned to her fellow emotions. Sadness was the first to join, accepting Joy's invitation as the yellow emotion opened up a spot in the hug for her. One by one Fear, Disgust, and Anger followed, and the six embraced one another.

The same jolt she had felt before came, with a dizzying mix of emotions pulling every which way - joy, sadness, disgust, fear, and anger all hitting her at once, but under it all, a simple truth filled her.

Throughout the repeats, she had always felt that she was alone, never truly able to find someone who could understand. But now she knew, she had five little voices, who understood what she was going through. They were with her, always, and would stick with her till the end, and even if they weren't Awake, they would still be there for her.

And in that single moment, Riley realized that her emotions were not just emotions. They were not just people in her head that watched over her. No, her emotions were more than that. They were her friends.

They were family.

"Riley?" Sadness asked. "Are you... okay?" Tears fell from Riley's face, as she looked at Sadness with a warm smile.

"Yea. I'm okay. It's just," Riley paused, all eyes on her. "I'm home".

*DONG*

Riley looked up as a sound came from the machine in the corner, which had been quietly pumping out little memory spheres as Riley had listened to Phineas and Ferb's explanation. A shining sphere popped out and began to roll down the track, and the emotions quickly jumped up and ran over to the track.

"It's a new Core Memory!" Joy explained, as Riley walked up behind them.

Riley blinked, then nodded. "Those are the memories over in the center, right? The ones that are important?"

Joy nodded, even as she leaned in to look at the sphere. At first glance, it almost looked like it was clear, but when you tilted your head, you could see a red tint, then a green, then yellow, and so on. A rainbow of colors seemed to swirl, just under the surface, bleeding into each other in a swirling pattern, and in the middle, the scene of the emotions gathering for a hug displayed, Looping over and over.

The orb dropped into a channel beneath the floor, glowing as it slid around to the Core Memory Plinth. The other Core Memories shifted, but rather than take a place in one of the circles of memories, it slid into the very center of the pillar, a small dimple forming to reveal it in the middle of the circle on the floor.

Then, light seemed to spill out of the sphere, washing through Headquarters in a rainbow display of light. Everything that it touched seemed to get a bit brighter, the room seemed to get a bit bigger, then the light shot out of the window. The emotions raced over, looking down, and gasped, pointing and whispering. Riley made her way over after them.

"What's happened? What did it do?"

Disgust was the one to answer. "Usually, one of those Core Memories will make an island over there," she pointed across the deep chasm below, to the cluster of islands floating near the other side, long thin rails linking them to Headquarters, "but this time, the new island is down below us."

Disgust pointed down, and Riley leaned over to press her nose to the glass. Down at the base of the Headquarters tower, she could see that a new island had formed and was spreading out at the point where the tower linked with the rails to the other islands. Numerous statues had appeared down below, with what looked like a statue of her forming right next to the base of the tower.

"Is... is that bad?" Riley asked, hesitantly.

Disgust shrugged. "I have no idea."

Fear gazed at the island below, notably not afraid of it like he was with every other new thing that he encountered. "So... what do we call it?"

Joy then looked at Riley, suddenly felt all the attention in the room fall on her. She stared down, at where the light from the new island was spreading down the connections to the other islands, turning them into bridges.

"Unity Island. Because it shows that we are all in this together."

The emotions looked at each other, then turned back, smiling, and nodded at Riley.

"So... now what?" Fear asked.

Ferb coughed, drawing all eyes to him. "Well, you do still have a truck in San Francisco."

* * *

_Later_

"Look, mister, how many times to I have to say this: _We are the Flanders, not the Andersons!_ " Mr. Flanders screeched at the movers, anger rising in both voice and facial tone.

"Hey buddy, this address is on the sheet." The mover argued back, waving his clipboard. "What's written on the sheet is where we go."

"Oh, so what am I supposed to do huh? Just stand here and wait for our moving van to just drop out of the sky?"

*Honk, honk* The Flanders' moving truck then suddenly dropped out of the sky. He then looked up, just in time to see a bullhorn that falling from the sky as well. Startled, he managed to catch the bullhorn, then stared up at where it had come from.

Above the urban sprawl of San Francisco was the strangest airship he had ever seen, a bizarre mix of a brightly colored blimp and a wooden airplane, with rocket boosters and at least a dozen propellers. Its cabin was more like a hanger as seen on an aircraft carrier.

Leaning over the railing of the flying machine were four children, three boys and a girl. Through another bullhorn, the girl spoke to the two men below. "Uh, excuse me? This is the Flanders' house, right?"

Mr. Flanders fumbled for a second before replying through his horn. "Uh yes... who are you?"

"I'm Riley Anderson. My parents and I moved to Danville, but somehow we got your truck and you got ours, and me and my friends are here to switch them."

Mr. Flanders blinked, his mind not quite believing what his senses were telling him. "Well, at least someone here is doing a good moving job."

The mover just shrugged at Mr. Flanders' scathing remark, before he turned his attention back to the blimp thing above him. "Not to sound ungrateful, but aren't you and your friends a little young to be flying blimps and moving trucks?"

"Uh... Yes. Yes we are."

The mover nodded. "Oh. Okay. Truck's all yours, kid."

The green haired kid then pushed a button on a remote, and a claw emerged from their flying machine, reaching down and gently clamped onto the truck, before swiftly lifting it up into the waiting skyship.

"Thanks!" The girl called.

The blimp ship then took off, flying off into the wild blue sky. Mr. Flanders and the mover then looked at each other, not really sure what to think in regards to what they had witnessed. "Uh... Mr. Flanders? What did I just see?"

"I don't know, but I know I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth."

* * *

"So, what's next?" Riley was back in Phineas and Ferb's backyard, the day after they retrieved the moving truck. Weirdly, the adults had all brushed off the weirdness of the truck just magically showing up, but Phineas has said that was normal.

Phineas grinned at Ferb, who held up a rolled up blueprint. "Well, we were thinking you might like to take a look at a little sport we invented, named Hockey Z9."

Riley grinned as she walked over, glad to know that she wasn't on her own, anymore.

* * *

Joy hummed to herself and smiled as Riley looked over the plans for the new game. Anger was at the console, hooting and grinning over all of the changes, especially the polar bear, while Fear was going through minor conniptions over the same. Disgust was moaning about the disaster that was the outfits that had been used in the game, but Joy saw her working on a few daydreams about possible costume designs.

With a twirl, Joy spun around Sadness, who was deeply engrossed in one of the Manuals for the new, expanded console that Phineas and Ferb had helped set up, complete with Telepathic Telecommunication, so that they could speak with Riley without her having to visit. Ferb had assured Joy that the console would show up whenever Riley was Awake.

Awake. Joy liked that term. Riley was Awake, and so were the Emotions, and they were ready to have whatever these Loops could dish out. After all, Riley knew about them now. What could happen?

* * *

(Loop primary responses all written by kingofsouls this time. My thanks to him for assembling the chapter back in July 2015.)

15.1: Welcome to the Loops Riley/Riley's Head!

15.2: Man, the Mind Workers have either really good timing or really bad timing.

15.3: You know you're good at Stealthing, Looping or otherwise, when one of the Original Seven can't find you.

15.4: IT'S ME.

15.5: Wow... way to keep your priorities straight Disgust.

15.6: Zombies. There will always be zombies.

15.7: That's right. Bing Bong LIVES!.... somehow.

15.8: Parents; they are always there to shed light onto the darkness, even if they are not sure if they understand or not.

* Anon's response: D'aww...

15.9: You could say this Loop is Fairly Odd. *lol*

15.10: Oh wow, this one became huuuuge. But it was fun to work on.


	18. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Sixteen

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-10. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Sixteen**

16.1 (dragonraptyr): [Kingdom Hearts]

"...What are you doing, Sora?" Riku asked, looking at his friend in confusion.

Sora was grinning madly. "You know that new Trinity Limit that I unlocked? It gave me an idea..."

"And that's why..." Riku looked at his friend, and at the full-scale copy of the Black Pearl that was currently Sora's keyblade. He shook his head. "Knock yourself out. I'm taking a vacation."

Behind him, Sora started smashing heartless with the ship. "Fore!"

* * *

16.2 (wildrook): [Five Nights at Freddy's] / [Treasure Island; referenced only]

Mike Schmidt could only look at the new layout of Treasure Island... with one word running through his head.

' _MOTHERF**KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!!_ '

Two of the Animatronics looked at each other... then one decided to toss new underwear for him out of pity.

* * *

16.3 (Sonic Raynboom): [Jurassic Park] / [Inside Out]

Owen Grady stared in shock at this loops' I. Rex... if it could even be called an Indominus Rex.

"Who's the friend who likes to play? Bing Bong, Bing Bong!" The I. Rex sang, leading several children through the park.

"We decided to go in a more child-friendly direction, you see," Claire explained, "So we decided to model him after an imaginary friend. Of course, he did escape, but I don't think we have anything to worry about."

"What did you even make him out of?" Owen asked.

"I believe it was cotton candy, with some cat, elephant and dolphin." Claire replied.

"Dolph... you know what, I'm just glad it's not killing people."

* * *

16.4 (Harosata): [Inside Out] / [Big Hero 6]

Riley Woke up. She knew she wasn't in San Francisco, or at least not the one she usually goes to. It was too... Eastern for her.

"So what did Phineas say it was? I should Ping out..." Riley sent a Ping...

* * *

Riley opened her eyes and got an eye full of white... "Bing Bong?"

"I am not Bing Bong, nor does Bing Bong exist in my files. I am Baymax, your temporary personal healthcare assistant." Riley then realized that she was talking to a giant marshmallow...robot thing. "Your vitals are operating at an optimal level. Here, have a lollipop."

"Uh, thanks?" Riley looked around the room and spotted her parents talking to two boys, probably brothers.

"I can't thank you enough. If your robot hadn't found her in the park..."

"Think nothing of it, Mr. Anderson. I'm glad to see that the upgrade to his scanner worked," the taller boy explained. "You should see what kind of upgrades my brother Hiro gave him."

"Well, this wasn't what I had in mind about see this city's technology up and close. And to be created by two young boys like you..." Her mom looked at Riley with concern. "What happened to her?"

"Sorry, doctor's confidentiality and all that. Not the stuff her parents want to hear." The younger boy known as Hiro quickly escorted Riley's parents out of her room and then locked the door. Then Riley felt a tingle... and then clutched her head. "Sorry! I guess you're the Looper?"

Riley nodded. "Yeah, first time Pinging."

However, Baymax spoke up. "She has just sent out two Pings simultaneously. This seems to correlate with the six Pings that was sent out earlier, which may be the result of her fainting. Judging from previous cases, she may have multiple personalities."

"No guys, I'm just one personality..." Riley took a deep breath. "This may sound weird, but my Emotions are also Looping and we just recently met each other."

"Huh, that's... Actually, that's pretty new." Tadashi looked like he wanted to open her head. "And I'm guess some of them don't Wake up."

"Sometimes, I don't Wake up, at least according to Joy... Er, one of my Emotions. I'm not certain how that works." Riley admitted. "Oops, I just realized my Pinging... Yeah, I don't think any of us thought this through."

Baymax quickly pulled a pen and piece of paper. "As the issue seems to be dealing with emotional stress..." "Hey!" "It may be beneficial to go through mental exercises. If you happen to be visiting these Loops, I suggest you contact their Anchor in regards to the issue. I also have it on good authority that Heroing is a powerful stimuli to invigorate your mental state."

Riley looked at the list of names and placed it in her Pocket... "Wait, heroing?"

* * *

16.5 (Harosata): [Inside Out] / [Powerpuff Girls]

Some people have good control over their emotions. Some people have emotions with good control. But when Riley saw her parents in a sickly green coma, it was time to press the panic button.

"Fear, press the panic button." And Riley ran around the dining room. "I knew it! I knew broccoli was evil! Why did I have to Loop into a world where broccoli was actually evil!? We're doomed! Doomed!"

"Ah, is this a bad time?"

Riley looked at the window and saw three little girls standing... where there isn't any ground. "Eek! Okay, enough panic button! Okay, and you are..."

"We're the Powerpuff Girls, we need everyone Awake, and we need your help. Pwetty pwease?" The blonde one asked.

Thankfully, the memory came up quickly. "The Powerpuff Girls? I may sound a little... Loopy, but aren't you guys pretty strong?"

"It's not a matter of strength with this enemy." Blossom picked up the untouched broccoli from Riley's plate. "Alien broccoli planned to knock out everyone with these, but thankfully, there isn't a kid who eats vegetables. The aliens look like broccoli and can regenerate no matter how many times we beat them up; the only way is to eat them."

"E-eat them?" Disgust was evident on Riley's face. "I don't like regular broccoli and you want me to eat a walking, talking broccoli? I think you have enough mouths out there."

Bubbles seemed concerned. "Sorry, but sometimes the Big Tree will Loop us into what we don't like, and believe me, an alien invasion isn't as bad as adults infecting every treehouse base with broccoli..."

"Or having to eat rancid broiled broccoli stuck between a big fly's toes for three weeks in order to save an old lady..." Blossom added in.

"Or fighting a Super Saiyan named after broccoli," Buttercup added in. "He's the guy that's willing to blow up a planet just because the guy who lives there cried a lot as a baby."

Riley stared at them. "Out of all the vegetables I had to hate, it just had to be the one with aliens. Why didn't I choose something less harmful like eggplants?"

"Don't worry, you don't have to love it forever. You just don't try to avoid it forever." Bubbles reassured her. "Besides, they go well with cheese sauce, and we want to try out a new recipe this time..."

* * *

16.6 (Harosata): [Inside Out] / [God of War]

Riley eyed Anger once she came back to her senses. "Anger?"

"Yes, Riley?" Anger looked at the scene around him, figuring it was something he would do but didn't do this time.

"If you're out there, then who's in here?"

* * *

"Oh come on! That was a rational amount of anger!"

Fear subtly backed away from Kratos, who had been chained up and locked in a closet. Which was locked up, chained and barricaded. Once he had a good amount of distance from the tower, Fear pulled out a clipboard. "Things Riley shouldn't have when a Looper replaces an Emotion: Bubble Tea..."

* * *

16.7 (Sonic Raynboom): [Inside Out] / [Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends]

Riley was scared. This was like that awful zombie loop. It had even started out normal, too...

This loop was pretty normal. Instead of moving to San Francisco, she had moved to Retroville, which was a nice town. Riley had pinged, but no replies came. Luckily, Anger, Fear, and Joy were Awake. This was going to be a good loop.

Then that TV show came out. Everyone had watched it, and they all became zombies. They were all... happy. Just happy. Nothing else but happy. It was terrifying. Luckily, Riley still had some rocket boots in her Pocket from Phineas and Ferb. Now, she was holding a mental conference with her Awake Emotions.

"So, what should we do?" Riley asked.

_We shouldn't go down there. They could turn us into one of them._

_No, this loop, you can only become one of them if you watch that show. All we'd have to do is close our eyes! And make sure Joy doesn't go nutso and take over._

_Hey!_

_What?!? For all we know, that's what the show does! I say we find where it's coming from, find out how to undo it, then smash whatever's causing this._

_Anger actually has a point. So, where is the show being broadcasted from?_

"I... I don't know."

_Let's let them capture us!_

_What!?! Are you insane?!? It's way too dangerous!_

_Agreed. Instead, we can just look it up online!_

_Huh. Yeah, that works better._

"Alright then." Riley said, pulling out a laptop and googling it. "It's being broadcasted from the... Happy Valley Retirement Home."

Riley slowly and sneakily made her way to the Happy Valley Retirement Home, aided by Fear. When she got there, she quickly found the broadcasting area. Riley looked in to find a grandmotherly Joy hypnotizing everyone to be happy, happy, happy all the day. Riley was too stunned to speak.

_Oh great, it's an Unawake Joy with power!_

_Am I really that bad?_

_YES!_

* * *

16.8 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_\--Reality--_

One by one the buildings of San Francisco fell as the earth itself split. Throughout the city, citizens screamed in horror as they ran. It was beautiful chaos, as people ran as a single minded herd trying to get as far away from the danger as possible, despite the fact that there was little hope for escape.

A fair distance away from the herd, Riley followed her own path. With a pair of inline skates and her trusty hockey stick, she sped past the quickly forming ruins, doing her best to stay calm throughout the chaos.

Which was harder than it looked.

_\--Headquarters--_

"YOU TOLD ME EARTHQUAKES WERE A MYTH JOY!"

"I... may have... fudged the truth a bit." Joy forced a smile, as Fear gave her the worst death glare he could give her, but it seemed to fall short.

"YEA, NO KIDDING JOY!" He screamed. He then clambered to the console, smashing as many buttons as he could, the most prominent being the communicator. "LEFT! LEFT!" Riley in turn did so, barely avoiding the falling debris from above.

_'Wait, Joy told you earthquakes were a myth?_ "

"Which turned out fantastic by the way. LOOTERS!"

_'What made her tell you that?"_ The sound of a hockey stick smashing against a looter.

Joy coughed awkwardly. "It's a long story."

* * *

16.9 (Awesomedude17): [Inside Out] / [Sentinels of the Multiverse]

_\--Reality--_

Riley just raised an eyebrow at the sight.

_"Riley."_

"Yes, Disgust?"

_"Why's there an ice cream monster thing?"_

"I don't know, but what I've heard about Setback, this is a whole new level of fail."

_"Oh yes."_

The monster roared as Setback landed in a crumple by the visiting looper.

"Ouch."

_\--Headquarters--_

"I'm really hating this loop already, especially since Fear's going crazy now." Anger growled, right before punching out the rogue emotion.

"...You take this one, Disgust." Joy nervously smiled.

"Thank you~!"

* * *

16.10 (LordCirce): [DC] / [Inside Out]

Darkseid chuckled while watching his parademons ravage the human shopping building that they had emerged in when invading. A symbol of the humans' arrogance, greed, and stupidity, he would take great pleasure in watching it burn.

He then turned his attention to more immediate matters, namely, the three humans that had been standing at ground zero when his Boom Tube had opened. A human couple and their female offspring, the three of them were cowering before him, having been knocked down by his forces' arrival.

"Ah, it is good to see you pathetic worms already acknowledge your place, groveling at my feet. Still, I don't have the time to properly educate you on your new position, so allow your deaths to be a warning to those who still struggle here." As he spoke, his eyes began to glow as he gathered power for his Omega Beams.

"Not if we have anything to say about it!"

Darkseid glanced around for the source of the voice, which, while female, had not issued from either of the figures on the ground, who had not moved their lips, or seemed to be in the mindset to make such bold declarations. "Show yourself!"

There was a brief pulse of mental energy that left an odd feeling in the pit of Darkseid's stomach, before five figures appeared, standing around the family. To the left, were a pair of male figures, one short and wearing a rumpled white shirt and tie, while the other was taller, with a tweed jacket and an obvious comb-over. To the left was two female figures, one shorter and wearing an overly large woolen garment, while the other was slightly taller with a fashionable green dress. Directly in front of the family stood a third female, clad in a short sundress, and she pointed a finger at him, and spoke, revealing herself to be the one who had interrupted him earlier. "While we are here, we won't let you touch a hair on Riley's head!"

Darkseid grinned. "Then I shall savor your despair when your struggles are shown to be in vain."

At that, the five figures burst into motion. The taller male stepped sideways, positioning himself right next to the family, and he raised his hand, revealing a glowing yellow ring, like those borne by the followers of Sinestro. Yellow light spilled out from it, forming a golden barrier around the family. The shorter male and green-clad female then turned to face the nearby parademons. The male roared, red flames bursting to life on his body, which rapidly swelled, gaining a reddish hue. The contrast was startling, as was the force as he pushed off and promptly batted away the nearest parademons as if they were mewling kittens. The female shouted a word "Requip", and her garment promptly vanished in a flash of light, being replaced by a metallic armor that seemed to be made of swords. She then stepped forward and showed she was capable of wielding them by cutting into his forces like a threshing scythe.

The last two females stepped forward in front of him, each raising a hand as though gesturing for him to stop. He once again gathered his power to the Omega Beams, but before he could release it, the two women spoke, one in a tone that was happy and fierce, the other in a lower and steadier voice.

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

"Shishi Hokodan!"

The world turned white.

* * *

16.11 (LordCirce): [Inside Out] / [Naruto]

Genin Yamanaka Rairi, better known as Riley Anderson, jumped to the side to avoid a fireball, while sweeping the bo staff she was wielding to knock back a Sound ninja. Naruto, the blond kid who was Anchoring this universe, had warned her about this invasion, but it was still super-scary to be in the middle of. However, even as she thought that, she felt a surge of anger tinged with joy, resulting in a sort of savage excitement, as Anger and Joy took over in Headquarters, with Fear taking a backseat.

Stepping back and planting her staff, Riley ran through a quick set of the odd handseals they used here. Naruto had helped her develop this technique, and now was the chance to use it in the field.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Bing Bong!"

A large cloud of smoke surrounded her, and then a voice called out in English. "Who the best in every way? Bing Bong Bing Bong. Who's the guy who'll blow you away? Bing Bong Bing Bong!"

Before any of the Sound ninja around her could react, a massive gust of wind blasted the smoke apart and sent then flying into walls and across roofs. Riley grinned at the large elephant-cat-dolphin hybrid next to her, who smiled back.

"Bet I can knock more of them down than you!" Riley laughed as she grabbed her staff and darted off.

"You're on!" Bing Bong responded, grinning from ear to ear as he bounced after her.

* * *

16.12 (LordCirce): [Inside Out]

"YOU'RE BOYS!"

Anger and Fear looked at each other, then back at Riley. "...Yes?"

"You're boys, and, you've been in my head this whole time, watching me!"

Anger opened his mouth, then paused, scratching his chin. "I never thought about that. That is a good point."

Fear gave him a sideways glance. "Are you saying that because you agree, or just because she is channeling you at the moment?"

Anger just shrugged.

* * *

16.13 (Harosata): [RWBY] / [DuckTales]

Blake knew something was off about the heist as she and Adam stormed the train. Sure, there were plenty of guards and robots, but it seemed that McSchnee was saving costs by shipping fish.

And when Blake picked up a crystal... she licked it. "Adam, we have to abort this mission. This isn't a Dust shipment, it's a rock candy shipment."

"Wha..." Adam sniffed the air and cursed. "The fish was masking the scent. Damn that McSchnee! Looks like we have no choice but to abort..."

* * *

"Alright Weiss, I'll forgive Ms. Belladonna this time as long as she doesn't disrupt any further shipments." Scrooge McSchnee put the phone down just as a worker came in with a crate. "Thank you for your hard work. You can put it down there."

Scrooge had a random crate from any McSchnee "Dust" shipment from the mines brought to his office in Atlas before it was distributed to the rest of the continent. Once the worker left, Scrooge pried open the box and licked one of the crystals. "Bleh! They need to cut back on the cherry extract. Now then..."

Scrooge dove in and managed to fish out some more solid crystals. "Hehehe. Those White Fang hooligans haven't figured out the fake Dust shipments were actually the real Dust shipments. And with that, I managed to secure my profit for the week."

Scrooge leaned back in his chair. "No matter how many new worlds there are, it warms this soul to know that old tricks still work well. Now, if only there was a way to lock up that Torchwick fellow..."

* * *

16.14 (SpokenSoftly): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [Admin Shenanigans]

**In Which There Is Not Enough Rum In All The World**

Walking along the beach was nice. Really, really relaxing after all that mess with Teach and the Spaniard. Lucky Hector got a proper ship but honestly Jack could do better than that at his time of life. A nice beach, surf and gulls in the air and the occasional shipboarding on the horizon that he could spy on. He wouldn't've said, twelve years ago, that retirement would suit him, but it really did. It really, really-

_There was a moment of strangeness quite unlike anything he'd ever felt._

Oh my. What happened there. "I... there was a beach," he said to himself, leaning back against the wall of his cabin (no, no that was a _mast_ , strange...), blind-drunk and sitting in a dinghy on its way to some piddling little port or another ( _Port Royal_ , a part of his mind reminded him), wondering vaguely when he'd become thirty-seven... ish... again. "There _is_ a beach," he corrected himself. That rum must have been... or had it been sherry...? It must have been really fantastic for him to start dreaming this vividly. Or muzzily, at it were. He was, after all, quite sloppily drunk, and that happy state of affairs could have continued, unchanged, for a good several days if he hadn't come to the abrupt realization, on waking up from a nap, that not only was the rum waterlogged and therefore effectively _gone_ , but so was the rest of the boat and most of his hair, even moreso than usual!

"Bugger! Buggerbuggerbuggerbuggerbugger!"

The bailing took up most of his energy until he started to approach the docks, at which point he gave up entirely on the boat as a lost cause (again) and decided to make a grand, dramatic entrance, stepping off the tiny crow's nest onto the pier.

* * *

It would have gone _so_ much better if he'd timed it right. Face-first into the water, he'd been just a few feet off! "Pfffffvbtt...! What have you lunatics been dumping in the harbor, tastes like bad booze," he muttered as he hauled himself, soaking wet and at least ten pounds heavier, up onto the pier. He wasn't dreaming, at least. Or in an alcohol-induced stupor either. Water to the face brought a man out of those, it didn't usually make the details clearer and the early spring air that much more nippy. "Excuse me, sir," came a voice that put him in mind of nothing so much as a very effusive sheep. "It's a shilling to tie your boat up at the dock."

Jack turned to look at the mast poking out of the water, his eyebrows rising up his forehead in time with the mast tipping sideways and vanishing beneath the water. No big loss. "What boat," he asked indignantly, turning to face the man. "What you have there, my good sir, is _salvage._ Good money and gainful employment, that makes! Frankly, you ought to be paying me for my generous contribution."

The man, who put Jack even more strongly in mind of an overly-effusive sheep, seemed to come up short by way of a response before deciding to plow straight on through with his usual routine. God bless British pragmatism. "Well that'll be an issue to take up with the Governor, Mister...?"

"Smith," Jack answered, taking a pair of shillings out and palming it to the sop.

Money makes the world go 'round, and for all that the man with the book and the little boy following after him looked to have all the cunning of a soft cheese, he knew this basic function of the world at least enough to get by, if not nearly so well as Jack knew it. "Welcome to Port Royal, mister Smith."

Jack needed a drink in the worst way.

* * *

**In Which There Has Been Rather Too Much Alcohol In The World For Quite A Long Time**

"A mister... Jack Sparrow? Would a Captain Jack Sparrow please come to the second floor," came the voice, cutting through Jack's drunken haze. He hadn't been actively looked for in Port Royal for a few of these whatever-you-call-them recursive dream sort of things. Mostly just Jackie, the guy who drank until he couldn't drink any more. His first recursive-dream-whatdoyoucallit had ended fairly early when he'd broken out of the jail, swam to the Pearl to cut a deal with Hector, and got his throat slit for his troubles, and what kind of thanks is that for maybe saving them a good long time of mistakes and grief?

His next few recursive-dream-whatdoyoucallem's had been a good deal longer, when he'd discovered that his mind _really_ liked keeping things about the way they were, so long as he went vaguely along with things. And that was the good thing about being him, he could be vaguely going along and because Mister Gibbs and (most of) the crew were fairly competent things would still get done.

He'd only started shortening them when he'd realized that his alcohol tolerance kept going back to the way it was at the start of the dream. As it turns out, being able to drink _literally_ as much as you can afford is really good for being a pirate but really, _really_ bad for long-term not-pissing-blood-ness. However, frequenting the same bars and always starting the recursive-dream-thingiewhatsits in that bleedin' dinghy was really pretty good for improving his ability to avoid Norrington and no matter how much blood he ended up pissing away in one dream he was always good to go when the next started.

And that brought him to today. He'd spent this dream seeing, just for kicks, how quickly constant alcohol would put him into another. He was approaching the point where, even having been in various stages of inebriation for the last twenty-something years before the recursive-dream-things even started, he couldn't quite keep track of time. Except he could. Because now, stumbling off his barstool and moving towards the stairs, he was finding himself a mite bit more clear headed than he was used to recently.

"Spoke too soon," he said to himself when he saw who was sitting on a crate, legs crossed in front of them, just out of sight of the first floor. Some foreign-looking bugger with skin that looked like it was made of chalk and hair that looked like nothing so much as seaweed. "Jones sent you, then?"

"No, Jack," the man said (and wasn't that a strange accent he had?), "I'm here to ask you to please, please stop drinking yourself to death. You're making my job very difficult."

"Right," Jack said. So he _wasn't_ sober after all, or even what passed for it in his brain. This was an _actual_ hallucination to go along with this recursive _not-quite_ -hallucination he kept having over and over again. "And what might that be?"

"Making sure that the tree larger than oceans that runs the universe is properly repaired."

...

"Come again?"

"Making sure," the man said again, slower, "that the tree larger than oceans that runs the universe is properly repaired."

Jack, swaying drunkenly, made his way over to the man and poked him in the cheek hard enough that someone made of skin would have bruised. "Right," he concluded, the man's skin just as chalky and porous as before. "I can't be drunk enough to be seeing you, be off."

"My name is Poseidon," the man said in response and wasn't _that_ interesting? Davy Jones hadn't a patch on this man, though granted his presence could be a bit better around the ocean. Storms and whatnot. Taken care of, sort of thing.

"A tree larger than oceans, says you," Jack said, considering things again. If this was part of his future recursive-dream-thingummies then he could do a lot worse than to play along. "Tell me more."

* * *

The first thing Jack did, the _very first_ , after Poseidon explained, was walk down to the bar and order a jug of something strong for the man. This Loops situation would get on anyone's nerves, but for a chap that was the god of the oceans to have to deal with all this rot on top of it? He'd earned a stiff one.

The second thing he did was walk right back down to the bar and order one for himself.

* * *

16.15 (LordCirce): [Marvel] / [Phineas and Ferb - Candace is present]

~Tell me what's makin' you jump like that!~

~S.I.M.P. Squirrels in my Pants!~

~Ain't got no chickens, ain't got no rats!~

~S.I.M.P. Squirrels in my Pants!~

Steve Rogers slowed as he approached the location in Central Park where Spider-Man's distress beacon was going off, distracted by a rather unusual dance-off competition going on along one of the park's paths. The competition itself wasn't unusual, but the participants...

Steve shook off his confusion when he noticed Spider-Man convulsing off to one side, half-hidden behind some bushes, and quickly made his way over.

"Spider-Man, are you alright?" Steve bent down to check him, and realized that the convulsions were actually repressed laughter. Discreetly, Steve slid a tricorder out of his Pocket and scanned Spider-Man for laughing gas, specifically Joker's blend. If the Clown Prince of Crime was in this Loop, Steve wanted to know about it immediately.

The scan came back clean, and Steve put the tricorder away. He then noticed a small camera on a stand, half-hidden in the bushes, and pointed towards the dance-off. Steve sighed.

"Peter, did you set off your distress beacon just to get me to see that... spectacle?"

Peter broke down into another fit of laughter, nodding as he did so, and Steve sighed and stood up, before glancing back at the dance-off.

~Can't even focus on my villainous rants!~

~S.I.M.P. Squirrels in my Pants!~

~Got somethin' in my trousers, thwartin' my plans!~

~S.I.M.P. Squirrels in my Pants!~

Doctor Doom, and a girl that he vaguely recognized as a Looper (Candy? Chandra?) were currently flailing around and busting moves in the middle of the park, cheered on by a small crowd of people while two other young men beatboxed to the thumping music. Their movements were surprisingly well-coordinated, if somewhat obviously unintentional.

"Why is he even doing that? What brought it on?"

Peter hoisted himself up to his elbows, and stopped laughing long enough to point up into a tree nearby. "Let's just say, Doreen has learned yet another villain disruption technique."

Steve tilted his head, actually listening to the lyrics as he followed Peter's pointing, then groaned as he got the idea.

Up above, Doreen Green, AKA Squirrel Girl, mimicked the dance moves of the pair flailing below as she boogied on a thick tree limb, joined by several of her furry companions.

* * *

16.16 (LordCirce): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [Admin Shenanigans]

Gibbs, First Mate on the Black Pearl, wet his lips before nervously glancing up at the Crow's Nest, then back at his captain, Jack Sparrow.

"Ah, Jack. I, um, I have to ask. Is this one of those, y'know, loop things?"

Jack Sparrow turned to stare blankly at Gibbs. "What are you on about Mr. Gibbs?"

Gibbs glanced around, before point his finger up at the Crow's Nest, where a large... thing made of noodles and balls of meat lay, lounging in the sun. "That, Jack. The thing, that's taken over the Crow's Nest. Is it, y'know, a Looper?"

Jack stared at Gibbs for a few more seconds. "I think you've been standin' too long in the sun, mate. His Noodliness has always been in the Crow's Nest."

Gibbs nodded, hesitantly. "Er, yes, Captain, this time, it has. I mean, when it's not here."

Jack frowned. "It is always been here, savvy."

Gibbs was silent for a long moment as he mulled this over, determinedly ignoring the dripping tomato sauce that was plopping onto the deck behind him. "So, it has always been there, even when I have never seen it before."

Jack nodded solemnly. "It is only now that His Noodliness has allowed you to see his presence, see, whereas before you couldn't perceive it, on account of you not being aware enough, as opposed to the state of awareness that you now have been bestowed with, forthwith. Savvy?"

Gibbs nodded, then paused. "And that time you had me sit up there a week straight, on account of you fearing an alien attack?"

Jack nodded again. "Aye. His Noodliness supported you even then."

Gibbs stared at him blankly. "Aye... well, I, ah, think I'll go lie down then, get out of the sun that you so rightly pointed out I have been standing in too long." And with that, he turned, stepped deftly around the growing pile of tomato paste, and descended below, Jack smiling broadly at his retreating back.

* * *

16.17 (LordCirce): [Atlantis: The Lost Empire] / [Harry Potter]

"Alright, let's try another phrase."

"Okay... hmm... _hesiyathsessuh..._ "

A trio of students sat in the library of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. One was the well-known, and even occasionally beloved figure of Harry Potter. The other two were unknowns to most of the Wizarding World, though the woman would have likely attracted stares thanks to her exotic looks.

Milo Thatch, currently a Sixth-Year Ravenclaw, paged through his notes, while one ear was tilted into an odd-looking device, shaped rather like a mix between a record player and a seismograph, with a short tube that Milo could listen at. "Ok, let's see. I definitely detected at least part of the sub-harmonics, and the cadence was the same as when you said you wanted to eat eggs, so that was... indicative of level of intention?" Milo continued to mutter to himself as he consulted his notebook.

Yawning, Harry turned towards Kida. "Is he always this intense?"

Kida smiled. "Only when he has discovered a new form of communication. My husband has taken the study of language as his passion. In addition to learning to speak and write in most any tongue, he has invented five languages that I know of."

"Six," Milo muttered distractedly. "I finished the bubble-gum popping language that Audrey inspired me to make two Loops ago, I was meaning to show you." Cracking his neck briefly, Milo straightened up. "Okay, so, I think you said that you wanted to find a place warm to go shed your skin."

Harry chuckled. "Pretty close. I did say I wanted to go someplace warm, but shedding my skin wasn't the activity I mentioned. I actually specified that I wanted to change my clothes, so swap my skin would probably the closest direct translation."

Milo scratched his chin, nodding. "Interesting. I still don't quite get how the underlying power behind the words is able to translate incompatible metaphors, given that you mentioned that the idea of limbs and hands translates across. I still think that it must be some kind of broadbase enchantment to enable snake's minds to understand higher thought."

Harry shrugged. "That still doesn't explain how audio recordings can still get snakes to respond, even without the underlying power matrix."

Milo huffed, but tilted his head to acknowledge the point. He was about to dive back into his notes, when Kida laid a hand on his arm.

"Before you descend back into your quest for understanding, I was hoping to swim out to visit the Merpeople's village this afternoon. I've already resized the 'swimsuit' that I purchased when we worked with the SGC."

Milo blinked, then his eyes glazed slightly as he remembered the two piece bikini in question. In a snap, the device and his note disappeared from the table and he quickly stood and started towards the exit. "Well, I suppose this can wait, not all that important in the grand scheme of things. Yep, and it is a brilliant day for a swim, indeed."

Kida giggled and gracefully slid out from around the table and loped after her husband.

* * *

16.18 (kingofsouls; Awesomedude17; VS21): [Inside Out]

(kingofsouls)

_—Dream Productions--_

"Okay people, listen up!" The Director of Dream Productions clapped his hands, and at once all activity ceased to be. "We got a lot to go over before Riley goes to sleep for the night, so I'm only going to go over this once.

"First, the big issue. I just got a message from Headquarters about why the Islands of Personality just up and changed, including that new one at the base of Headquarters. Long story short Riley is a deity-mandated time traveler, and the whole Island transformation thing is supposed to happen. So please do not go crazy over that. Everyone clear?"

There were murmurs of general agreement. "Good. That being said, we got a lot of material for dreams here," as that was said, a cart full of memory orbs was given to the Director, "and we got tons of potential here. So, let's go over this week's plan for dreams."

The Director then picked up a golden and red orb, the image inside Riley racing on the ice chased by a polar bear. "Tonight, we're going to have one of those surreal, artsy dreams. Let's have it be mixed with a flashback with these two. Make is hectic and exciting, especially with the that polar bear. The closer it is to eating someone the better." At once, prop makers ran off to prepare the recreation of Hockey Z-9.

"Okay, let's see what else we have here.." The Director then practically dove into the bin of memories, looking for new and exciting material for Riley's dreams.

* * *

(Awesomedude17)

_—Dreamscape--_

Riley looked around, and wondered what was happening.

"Hi."

Riley turned to see giant baby head, which flew away. Wiping her eyes, she then saw a red headed man in trench coat and sunglasses.

"How'd I get here?"

"I like trains."

"What?"

A train then hit the man.

Riley turned and walked away.

* * *

(Awesomedude17)

The Director grabbed an orb, showing three animatronics, singing and dancing.

"Too run of the-"

_"Screeeeeaaaaaaah!!!"_

A fox pirate shoulder charged a man in purple and restrained him. The Director blinked a few times, before shrugging.

"We can use this."

* * *

(VS21)

The Director continued to pore into the bin of memories to try to find more material for Riley's dreams with many memories that she made as a Looper, there were a lot of opportunities for dreams that she could have....

If they wanted to give her a nice calm dream, her time in Equestria could serve as a brilliant base...For more nightmarish dreams there were few that he could find but he knew they were near the bottom of this bin...and if they wanted to give her another weird dream...

The Director soon took out two orbs with one greenish-gold orb detailing one of her more recent Loops replacing Haruhi Fujioka at that Ouran High School and the other gold orb containing the memory of her first adventure with the Straw Hat Pirates....

The Director soon hopped out of the bin with those two orbs excitedly exclaiming, "I know what we're going to do for the next weird dream! Can someone say Straw Hat Host Club?"

* * *

(Awesomedude17)

Grabbing a purple and green orb, The Director looked in.

A... Person in red was setting itself on fire, and tried to give a scrawny guy with a Bostonian accent a hug.

_"Pyro, I don't wanna hug! Get away you freak!"_

_  
_

_"Pyro, if you do not stop that right now, I'll strrrrip down and cover myself in honey, AGAIN!!!"_

"No way, no how! That's a bit much, even for me!" The Director tossed the orb to the reject pile.

* * *

(kingofsouls)

The next one revealed a skinny grotesque, hunchbacked man in a lab coat ranting about dominating the Tri-State area. "Hey, who wants to see how Riley would react if Dad was an evil pharmacist?"

The Dad lookalike tried his best to escape unnoticed.

* * *

(VS21)

After the Director put those memory orbs away, he dove back into the orbs in order to find more inspiration for dreams...

As he kept wading and looking through the orbs he saw a gold and red orb detailing her time spent as Mario during a game-Loop particularly of her scream at the heavens as Bowser had moved the princess(or in that Loop the Prince) to yet another castle. He grabbed that orb and tried to find more memories that would go with it. But then a particularly evil moment crossed his mind as he grabbed the memory orb that contained Riley starring in the Tripledent gum commercial...and said, "While the mind workers up in Long-Term Memory have been having their fun with the gum commercial...Why can't we go and use it ourselves?!"

The Director then handed those orbs to an intern and said, "Get this to the script writers and tell them gum commercial first then cut to the scream, and also go find Bing Bong, Sadness and Joy visit him frequently when off duty and I want to know when Anger has his next dream duty."

* * *

16.19 (RowanEx): [Tomorrowland]

Frank Walker looked at the button that was right in front of him.

A small, seemingly safe button.

He checked if the button was wired and clicked it.

Nothing. Frank sighed and went back to work for his fifth dimension backpack, until Casey came into his room, wet.

"Oh." Frank commented.

* * *

16.20 (LordCirce): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Will Turner paused as he entered Jack's cabin on the Black Pearl, only to find Jack kneeling in prayer before a small glass case set on the central table, containing a somewhat moldy looking, half-eaten fruit.

"What are you doing?"

Jack held up a finger, and kept praying for a few moments, before straightening up and putting his hat on from where it had been sitting next to the case. "Jus' getting in a few prayers before we begin the next portion of our exciting voyage."

Will glanced back at the case. "And why were you praying to a fruit?"

Jack blinked, looking a bit confused, before shaking his head and giving a grin. He swaggered around the table and threw an arm around Will's shoulders. "Because, my fine, occasionally heartless friend. That, is not simply a fruit. It is, in fact... a very special fruit."

Will nodded, his face screwed up in an expression of mild disgust at Jack's breath. "Right..."

Jack nodded solemnly, before swaying over to a cabinet. "Ya' see, Will. Willie, Willie, William." He shook his head and turned to point a finger at Will. "That fruit, it has a name. Sock-y sock-y, something like that, but I like my name better." Reaching behind himself, he pulled a large wooden mug out of the cupboard and slammed it down on the table, then gave Will another grin. "The Rum Rum Fruit".

He then pointed a finger into the mug. After a moment, the tip of his finger shifted, changing color, and a thin stream of liquid poured down into the mug, filling it to the brim. He hefted it up, sloshing some onto the table, then took a big swig. "I'm made of Rum, Will, savvy? All the rum, and it's never gone. Who needs to swim?" He took another swig, then pulled out another mug. "You want some?"

Will shook his head, making some excuse about needing to go swab the deck, and quickly raced out of the cabin.

* * *

16.21 (SpokenSoftly; wildrook): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

In Which Will Displays A Remarkable Ability To Cope

William Turner, Captain of the Flying Dutchman, stumbled before catching himself against one of the cocoanut trees that lined the avenue that _most certainly_ wasn't on his ship. A green flash as he'd crossed between worlds had cleared from his vision to reveal the walk up to Governor Swann's manor, a small box with his best work tucked under his arm.

He'd faced undead pirates, the men that would eventually be his crew, a giant squid, Chinamen, a giant squid again, the British Royal Navy, the East India Trading Company, the crew of the Pearl (almost), Jack (twice), and a nasty encounter about eight years after he'd got the Dutchman when some bastard of a Spaniard with the most horrible mustache had tried to claim the afterlife in the name of his country. That on top of thirty years of ferrying souls through to the afterlife, some of them had really _interesting_ stories. If Calypso had chosen to send him back in time for whatever lunatic reason, or if some other meddling deity or curse had stuck their nose or coin or goblet or what have you into the mix, then the best he could do was just try and run with it. He already had eternity, after all. And, he noticed, he still had the scar on his chest where his heart ought've been. Another seven or eight years before getting his ship back, at the outside, wasn't too much hardship.

And he _would_ get his ship back from Jones. He could feel the hull in his bones, subtly younger but as rotten as she'd been before he'd first claimed her, and that just wouldn't do.

First, though. He had a really nice sword to deliver. Then, maybe, a certain Captain Sparrow to free.

* * *

In Which Captain Jones Receives A Nasty Surprise

"You are neither dead nor dying, what is your purpose here?"

The question was the same, lending some credence to Will's guess that it was rehearsed, but the time was a year beforehand. Jack had been eminently agreeable to getting things out of the way in an efficient manner, resulting in them tracking Jones down off the coast of Barbados instead of on a sandbar in the middle of some forsaken stretch of ocean. The funniest thing about the situation, though, wasn't Jones's almost-rehearsed behavior, but that Jack had gone along so easily. Will would've thought that whatever god or curse had sent him back had done the same to Jack, but... well, it was Jack. He'd tried explaining what was going on, but Jack had just let it pass right over his head.

"A traveler," he said with confidence he hadn't possessed the first time he'd met Jones. "Looking to sail the seas he so loves forever. And I'd rather like to see your ship, Captain," he added, standing up and looking Jones in the eyes.

The squid-faced Captain's beard twitched and writhed against itself, a surprised but eager look on his face. Or, at least, Will thought it was eager. "Welcome aboard, traveler," the creature said in his Northern brogue as the waves swelled and parted to reveal Will's ship, the Dutchman festooned with rot and barnacles, the sails choked with weeds, the whole thing looking like she might fall apart at any moment if not for the hateful will of her Captain.

It took less than ten minutes for him to be aboard with the rest of the crew. "Hello, old girl," he said once he was aboard, laying a hand against the railing. The Dutchman was so much more than just a ship. She was... almost like an animal, abused and mistreated but who recognized that here, finally, was another Master who would treat her as she needed to be, help her do what needed to be done.

It helped that Blackbeard had been very talkative about how he ran his ship. He'd given Will some ideas that had worked out splendidly. "Ready to lead a mutiny," he asked casually as he slid his hand over the railing, the rigging starting to twitch and writhe at his direction. No-one noticed yet. "What was that," asked the Bosun furiously, reaching for his sword just before he was grabbed by an animate rope and hauled up by the leg to dangle twelve feet above the deck. A great deal more than half the crew was suspended similarly. Almost too easy...

And then there was a sword through his chest, Jones laughing in his ear, and he remembered the hard bit. "No-one takes mah ship, trave- _lah._ Enjoy the ocean!"

Honestly, it didn't really hurt that much. Though he'd have to track his heart down at some point, he figured. It would be... inconvenient... if it were still with Elizabeth in some cosmic joke and she'd just forgotten about it in her dresser back in Port Royal. "You're not the only heartless wretch aboard, Jones," he said with perhaps too great a degree of satisfaction as one of the ropes hooked itself under his arms and hauled him into the air along with the rest of the crew that'd drawn weapons thus far. "And between the two of us, I think the Dutchman likes me more."

Ignoring Jones's enraged threats with the ease of a man who'd spent three decades putting up with the worst newly-dead sailors could throw at him, he turned to the ones that hadn't drawn weapons. A good deal of them were the ones that, if he remembered right, hadn't been on the crew for more than a decade. The rest were just flatly shocked by someone no more than twenty who'd climbed aboard and done something to the rigging that'd strung up half the crew plus the Captain inside of half a minute. "Two choices, gents," he said with a little smile. "Either you persuade your Captain to wipe Jack Sparrow's debt clean, I let him live, and he has five years to turn himself 'round and get the old girl looking good again..."

It didn't take long for a still-furious Jones to ask what the alternative was, in tones that suggested he'd rather live on land the rest of his life than take it. "The alternative is I dump you overboard and take my ship back," Will responded, utterly confusing the crew and Captain. "I'll give you a few minutes.

He'd not have offered the first option a year ago when he'd broken Jack out of jail and stolen the _Interceptor_ , but the visit to Tia Dalma - Calypso - had given him cause to think on _why_ he'd been sent back in time by whatever curse or god had done it. Maybe he was being given a second chance to grow old with Elizabeth? Set aside the Dutchman and have a family? It would be one of the nicer things that'd ever happened to him, but not beyond the realm of possibility.

Or, maybe, he could persuade Elizabeth to come aboard. After all, it was a nice ship.

(wildrook)

Captain Jack Sparrow then looked at Mr. Gibbs after watching the debacle.

"Well, that confirms it," he said. "Young Turner's control over the ship is still fresh, so I might as well stop beating around the bush."

"Jack," Mr. Gibbs replied, "I start to worry about your plans half the time, but... the Dutchman is Aware?"

"Ever since he started Waking Up, the seas felt like changing. Considering what happened to him, I might as well try to convince him to sail to Tortuga just so he could pick up his love after this is over."

Considering that Beckett was in control, that would be a minor pit stop. Although it did explain why Jack had them steal empty buckets and fill them with water.

* * *

16.1: Apparently based on the fact that _Kingdom Hearts III_ is going to have new moves based on Disney World rides.

16.2: More of Five Nights At Treasure Island.

16.3: No, Bing Bong is not Looping at this point.

16.4: Riley, meet Baymax.

16.5: And more of Riley meeting other Loopers.

16.6: He rather fits the part.

16.7: ...

16.8: Not the smartest move she could have made.

16.9: Yeah.

16.10: Oh Darkseid... you have _no_ idea what you're in for.

16.11: Interesting summon.

16.12: This was one of her earliest Loops. So it has been declared by the compiler, so shall it be.

16.13: Scrooge makes a profit.

16.14: And now we go back in time to see how Captain Jack Sparrow learned about the Loops.

16.15: Yes, Candace is here.

16.16: The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a thing. He runs the cafeteria in Yggdrasil.

16.17: More of Atlantis.

16.18: Riley has some _weird_ dreams, apparently.

16.19: ... Okay.

16.20: There are means to hold onto Devil Fruit powers between Loops. Jack's figured out how to keep this one accessible.

16.21: Welcome to the Loops, Will.


	19. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Seventeen

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-10. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-28.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Seventeen**

17.1 (Harosata): [Toy Story] / [Buzz Lightyear of Star Command]

Andy was a grown man. Perhaps he or his sister got married and had a son who shared his name. Perhaps all the other toys had been replaced except for him, as they knew him but didn't have the memories, probably because he was one of Andy's favorites. And maybe Sid had a kid and moved in next door...

So Woody the Cowboy quickly sorted out order. Bringing out forgotten toys and fixing them. Playing games while Andy was not playing with them. Even thinking up new tricks in case this new family decided to get a new puppy. This was fairly routine to him, but that was okay. He wanted to make Andy happen, even if this was not his Andy.

That fantasy quickly ended on Andy's birthday after he sent the toy soldiers to watch the birthday boy unwrap his presents. So far, all those presents weren't much of a concern, being more like sporting goods and "toys" that weren't alive. And after the last present, Woody turned down the volume of the radio, though he couldn't help but get a nagging feeling. "See, everything is okay-"

"MAYDAY! MAYDAY! We got a surprise package!"

"What!?" Woody turned up the radio. A surprise package? The last time there was a surprise package was-

"I don't believe it! It's a new-"

"What is it? What is it!?" Rex shook the radio, and then it fell over and spilled its batteries. No, Woody realized this same thing happened, but it couldn't be coincidence, could it? No, he had to find out.

Woody jumped down and pushed in the batteries correctly, hoping to get an answer. "-coming up the room! I repeat, Andy's coming up the room!"

"Everyone, back into position!" All the toys hid themselves, as if it had not been set up to spy on a certain boy, and Woody quickly flopped into position.

In hindsight, he should have realized a space ship would knock him off the bed a few seconds later.

* * *

Woody crawled out from other the bed. "Okay, I think there was a saying about something happening three times can't be a coincidence."

Everyone else had crawled out of their hiding holes, wondering who now took Woody's usual spot on the bed. Woody pulled himself up the sheet, curious about finding out the identity of the new toy, but not in finding out who it was.

"Buzz?" The hi-tech suit and the chiseled chin was a dead giveaway, but there was no mistaking the toy in front of him.

The toy spun around, aiming his laser at the cowboy. "How did you know my name?"

"Uh, it's on your spaceship." Woody lied.

Buzz turned around and looked at his "ship", which was actually the packaging shaped like a rocket. "I thought I told them I didn't need to have my name etched on my ship..."

Woody groaned. He had forgotten how Buzz acted before he accepted he was a toy...which he learned during a stay in Sid's house, which Woody wanted to avoid this time. No, just by looking at the package, Buzz wasn't a "new" toy, but Andy had reacted like he was one. Either Buzz Lightyear became popular again or Woody had somehow traveled back in time...

"-of Star Command, though it seems I will be trapped here for a while." Ah, it seems Buzz had introduced himself the the rest of the toys.

And truth be told, if Woody did travel back in time, this would be the part that he would have tried to point out that Buzz is a toy, to which Buzz would they disprove by "flying". But then Woody remembered meeting the second Buzz in the toy store and grinned. "Hey Buzz, let me tell you something..."

Woody whispered some words and Buzz gasped, quickly bowing down. "Your majesty!"

Oh, this could be fun.

* * *

Some Loops later...

"So, you're saying that you traveled back in time and you don't know how. And not only that, but your partner Warp Darkmatter is still alive and actually works for Emperor Zurg?"

Buzz Lightyear nodded. "That's correct, Commander Nebula. In fact, Warp is going to steal the LGM's Unimind so he can brainwash everyone."

The commander rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Buzz, I know losing him was hard, but I think you've watched one too many movies. Unless you have proof?"

"Er, Warp did cover his tracks well..." Buzz admitted. "Look-"

Nebula held up his hand. "Coincidentally, we we do need someone to check up on the LGM's home planet. That's where the Unimind is, so if Warp is alive, that's enough proof for me."

Buzz blinked before realizing that he wasn't going to a shrink. "Thank you si-"

"IF you get a new partner."

"I won't get a new partner." Buzz told Nebula, who probably expected that answer. "I will get a team."

"A team?" Nebula smiled. "I'm glad you moved on. Who should I gather up then?"

"Mira Nova, who you're planning to introduce me to. She's good. Booster, he's not a Ranger yet but he's got his heart in the right place. And XR, good at thinking outside the box, though I should probably have the LGMs work on his personality first. Now if you excuse me, I should prepare for the mission."

And Buzz quickly headed to his rocket. He wasn't going to do the solo dance number this time, and they were his team whether they remembered or not. Besides, he knew that Commander Nebula was going to figure out why XR needed the LGMs to work on his personality... "THEY CREATED A ROBOT RANGER UNDER MY NOSE!?"

* * *

17.2 (Harosata): [The Simpsons] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

"Aaaah... I got to go to Duff Garden..." Homer groaned as he tried to finish off the super-long hoagie, which had already spoiled at this point. If it wasn't obvious, Homer got sick.

"Homer, you're too sick to even drive!" Marge tossed the sandwich into the trash can. "Though the kids want to go... Hm, well Selma wanted to know what it's like to have kids."

Homer gave a weak shrug. "Don't worry, I got someone else to watch over them."

"...Who?"

* * *

"I am the Lizard Queen!"

"Stop that, will you!" Captain Jack Sparrow was trying to fish Lisa out of a big pool of beer. "You should know lizards don't really follow a monarchy!"

When he agreed to go to the beer amusement park full of beer at the price at watching these kids, he was rather becoming upset that the second part was becoming more of the main reason for the trip. And then the girl ran off. "Great. I am going to be less drunk than a little girl before the day... I do not like that sentence at all. Wait up!"

* * *

17.3 (Evilhumour): [Warhammer 40K] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

The Emperor of Mankind raised an eyebrow at the looper standing in for the Second Legion Primarch.

His first clue to who this was by how the Second Legion acted; swindlers and thieves of the Imperial Navy that he _barely_ had under control. They were only tolerated by the fact they managed to keep the Rogue Traders in line, and most thought their actions were but an act. Something he was fine as it was _far_ too much trouble to cull them and grow the Ultramarines at this point in time.

"-the bloody hell you mean I can't get drunk?!" The Sparrow, Grand-Captain of the aquatic world the Emperor discovered this loop, shouted at him while shaking his head. "I mean, I drink all the rum I want but I'm bloody sober mate!"

" **Sparrow, I-"**

" _Captain_ Sparrow," the Primarch corrected, raising a finger to halt him. "You might be me daddy this loop but I'm _still_ Captain, or bloody Primarch of the Black Pearl Legion. Now let's talk about getting me nice and drunk, shall we?"

The Emperor of Mankind simply sighed. This was going to be a tiring loop.

* * *

17.4 (Bardic_Knowledge): [Inside Out] / [Magic: the Gathering]

Riley Awoke in the car on the way to San Francisco and immediately turned her thoughts inward, accessing the Telepathic Telecommunication panel. _Everyone Awake in there?_ Depending on who _was_ Awake, she might wind up having a minor panic attack before someone else calmed Fear down. It had happened on occasion.

There was a moment before she got a reply. _"Um, hello?_

It was not a voice she recognized.

_Hi, my name's Riley. Now, don't panic, but you're in my mind. If you can wait a bit, I'll pretend to fall asleep and I'll meet you there._

Another pause. _"Right. Meet you then, I guess?"_

A few minutes later, Riley pretended to nod off, though she was actually going into the meditative trance she had been taught by Ichigo that would let her go into her mind. She'd used to use a copy of the Mind Machine Phineas and Ferb had used to let her visit her mind in the first place, but there had been an issue where she couldn't get out unless she was frightened awake, which had been detrimental to her body's health for that Loop, worrying her parents in the process.

She opened her eyes in Headquarters to see five people she'd never met before. One was a long-haired bearded man in white-silver armour, another was dressed in a blue cloak (was he her current Sadness?), and a third man was pale with golden eyes and black armour. Likely a vampire. The other two in Headquarters were both women, one in red leathers, and the other in green cloth.

"Hi. Like I said, I'm Riley. Who are you?"

The bearded man stepped forward. "My name is Gideon. It's good to meet you. These are my fellow Loopers: Jace, Sorin, Chandra, and Nissa. We had some time to look through our in-Loop memories before you got here, and I must say, this is all very strange to me."

"Strange to me, too," said Jace. "And I'm used to being in other people's heads." This got a snort from Chandra.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Riley.

"I'm a mind mage. A telepath, if you will. The minds of the Multiverse are many and varied, but this is something else."

"Well, since you're apparently all Awake..." she glanced at Gideon, who nodded. "I can tell you that you're going to be in for a pretty relaxing Loop, all things considered. The only problems I've had to deal with is if Joy isn't Awake, or Variants. Baseline was a bit rough, but everyone's much better now."

"So, why are we in your mind?" asked Sorin. "Another's mind is an unusual Awakening point."

"Well, you're replacing my emotions. They're currently the only other Loopers here."

"Your... Emotions?" Sorin grinned. "That's a new one."

Gideon frowned. "Somehow, I don't think it's quite the same, this time."

"What do you mean?" asked Riley.

"Well, the most emotional one here is technically Chandra."

"Hey!"

"It's the Red Mana and you _know_ that's what I'm talking about." Gideon turned back to Riley. "I think, instead, we're here as representatives of the five Colours of Mana of our Branch, and therefore their philosophies. According to my memories, I was the one who directed you in helping out your team, or your family."

Nissa nodded, "And I was the guiding force when it came to nature. Animals and plants alike."

"I think I kinda get it," said Riley, though it would have been a bit much for her if she'd been a normal eleven year-old. "So, what do you mean by their philosophies?"

A ding sounded as a blue orb rolled into the short-term memories. It was then that Riley noticed that each of the memory orbs - even the Core Memories - were mostly different colours. Instead of yellow, purple, green, blue, and red, they were white, blue, black, red and green. Jace then drew everyone's attention as he snapped away from the console.

"Sorry," he said. "I don't know what came over me, but just before you asked the question I was compelled to do... something."

"That fits," nodded Gideon. "Jace is a master of Blue Mana, which is the colour of Knowledge. So, your inquisitive acts, you're wanting to know more, would be guided by him."

"And what about you?"

"I am a wielder of White Mana, the colour of Law and Order, but above all the colour of Community. The most important thing to a being of White Mana is its community. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one."

"That isn't to say it's perfect," added Sorin. "To that being, if your death would serve the community it will kill you without remorse."

"And," continued Chandra. "You step one toe out of line and it will bring the hammer down on you hard."

Gideon nodded in concession to the point, then gestured to Jace.

"As Gideon said," began Jace, "Blue is the colour of Knowledge, but it is also deals in Illusions and Sea and Sky, though I'm not too well versed in that last part. But if you want to learn, then Blue is the colour you want."

Chandra spoke up again, "Blue is cold logic, and insists on thinking everything through before acting, which can be bad sometimes."

Noticing the trend, Nissa chimed in. "Also, Blue doesn't give any consideration for things outside that pursuit for knowledge, which can have terrible repercussions on the world at large."

"Black is typically seen as the 'evil' colour," said Sorin, "but that's because it is easy for a weilder of Black Mana to fall into such a trap for the true form is that of the Self, of Darkness and Death. The first thing a being of Black Mana concerns itself with is itself, and, in extreme cases, all others are only tools to serve it. But sometimes, being selfish can be a good thing, like in cases of survival."

Riley frowned, "But how?"

"Well, according to the Loop memories, I was the first to appear in here. Because a baby is selfish at first, only wanting to survive. It is only later that a child learns to learn, to appreciate others."

"Even so," said Nissa. "Some of the things Black does in order to survive can go against the natural order, the rat feasting on the cat, for example."

"And the demands of the Self can destroy many lives in its pursuits," added Gideon.

"Okay, why are you doing this?" asked Riley. "One of you says what's good and then two of you say why it's bad."

"It is to give you a complete picture," explained Jace. "Since we're in here and can communicate, we figured we'd teach you the ways of our magic. And which colours you choose can influence you just as you use them."

"I guess..." Riley thought things over. On the one hand, another Looping power could be nice. On the other, it was getting a bit tiresome to just stand here and listen. She kinda wanted to just get out and play for a bit first. "Do you guys mind if we take a break? I like learning, but my body needs to move as much as my brain."

Another ding sounded as a red orb rolled into the memory. Chandra leaned against the panel. "That's Red for you, always wants to move. Go ahead and take a break. We can pick this up again later. Right guys?"

The others murmured in assent and Riley broke the meditation.

Good timing, too, they'd just gotten to the dinosaur park.

* * *

17.4 continued (Bardic_Knowledge): [Inside Out] / [Magic: the Gathering]

After having fun with her family again, Riley climbed back into the car and didn't instantly "fall asleep." She did want to know more about these "colour philosophies" and learn magic, but she didn't want to come across as narcoleptic (the Loops had really expanded her vocabulary) by appearing to fall asleep all the time.

So she chatted with her parents about what they thought San Francisco was going to be like, read a book for a while, and then, as night came, she "drifted off" again.

This time, as she arrived in Headquarters, she was met by all the visitors standing at the console. So, she took the opportunity to sit in Anger's chair. Although, this Loop, it was probably more likely Jace's or Sorin's. They looked like loungers.

"So, last time I was here, we finished with Black Mana. What's next?" she asked, looking at them all. Chandra stepped forward from the rest.

"That would be Red Mana. Red is the color of Passion, Chaos, and my personal favorite," Chandra opened her hand, and fire formed in her palm. "Fire. Red does what it wants, when it wants to. And it embraces emotion and freedom more than anything else."

"Yet the free-spirited nature of Red often goes again the rules. Something Red gleefully chooses to ignore," replied Gideon. "which in doing so endangers the community."

"And Red's short sighted nature often means it doesn't think things through," Jace continued. "Because it uses its emotions more than its head it lacks self-restraint and can cause problems."

"And last is Green," Nissa spoke. "It is the color of Nature, Instinct, and Life. It is most in tune with nature, able to call for the power of the land itself. Green embodies the raw power of beasts, yet is wise and understands how wisdom is different than simple knowledge."

"Of course, since Green is firmly rooted to its beliefs," Jace explained. "Green sees any form of progress as an enemy that must be stopped."

"And defying the natural order for your own selfish gains is an even greater crime." Sorin answered.

"And that's all of them?" asked Riley.

"Most of the time," said Gideon. "There's a few odd variants with an additional colour of mana, like pink or purple, but those are very rare."

"It seems pretty stifling to be stuck on one thing like that, though."

"Nobody is 'stuck' on one thing, though many have an affinity for only one colour," corrected Jace. "Heck, Sorin here is actually aligned with two colours, Black and White."

"Really? How's that work?" Riley turned to Sorin.

Sorin nodded. "It depends on the person in question, but in my case... I'm primarily selfishly motivated, wanting to have fun and experience new things. My first metal concert was awesome. But on the other side of it, I want to save worlds. My own homeworld of Innistrad was in danger, the native vampires eating and eating without concern to what would happen after all the humans are gone, so I created an Angel named Avacyn to protect humanity."

"Why not just kill the vampires?"

"Because they're my people. I'm actually the second vampire that was ever made on Innistrad. And I didn't want to wipe out one species to save another."

Riley contemplated this for a moment, realizing the weight such decisions could have on a person. "So, how do the mana colours interact with the spells?"

Jace took this question. "The magic of our Branch is fueled by the five colours, which determine their effects almost entirely. White is best at masses of little guys working together, Blue spells manipulate, Black spells tend towards death effects, Red spells are fairly destructive, and Green tends to make things bigger. And combinations of them can create effects like, say, Blue and Black killing someone by showing them their worst nightmares or something."

"Do you have to talk about death so much? I'm still mostly eleven."

"Sorry, but there's just so much turmoil in our Branch that combat is the most common application of magic," Jace ran a hand through his hair. "Anyways, mana is drawn on by bonding with certain places that are abundant in a particular colour. Plains, Islands, Swamps, Mountains, and Forests are the most common of each, and can even be found on city-worlds like my own Ravnica."

"So, how do _I_ decide my colours? Can I just have all of them?"

Nissa laughed lightly. "Everything has all five colours to it, or else we wouldn't all be here, but almost everyone has a specialty. Those few that have all colours in abundance tend to be very powerful, but reaching that point can be difficult. Even more powerful are those beings who have managed to _surpass_ colour. Though, typically, one's colours are determined by their personality and what they want."

"And what do they want? The colours, I mean."

In turn, each of the Planeswalkers spoke.

"White wants peace."

"Blue wants to understand."

"Black wants to survive."

"Red wants to be free."

"Green wants to grow."

Riley sat back in Anger's chair and thought things over, memories occasionally popping up out of Long Term to highlight what she was thinking. Then, she looked to the center of Headquarters at the Core Memories, thinking fond thoughts of her emotions as whole.

"I think I know what I am." And a new Core Memory arrived, glowing three bright colours: White, Blue, and Red. "It's not that I can't be selfish, or that I don't like nature - I should introduce you to Bing Bong - but they're not what concerns me most. What's important to me is my family, my mind, my emotions."

Growing on from the new Core Memory was an island (more literal than before, there was actually water surrounding it), with a plateau on it. Shining above it was a white sun, not bright, but pure, while a bright red fireball danced along the slopes in a random pattern. The water surrounding the island, she could tell even from here, was full of what she knew; a Sea of Knowledge, if you would.

"And with each land you bind with, I'm sure it will only grow," said Gideon. And the others smiled.

* * *

17.5 (LordCirce): [Frozen]

Anna stood in front of her sister's door. She had just Awoken, a week and a half after their parent's death. It was odd, these strange Loops in time, but it had allowed her to discover many ways to get through to her sister, to reconnect. However, she rarely was able to get through to her before the coronation. However, a recent Loop outside of Arendelle that she and Olaf had just come from had given her the perfect tool for the job.

* * *

Elsa stared at the door to her room. Her parents were dead, and her sister was grieving out there, and she, she couldn't go to her. Her powers were too dangerous.

*knock knock* "Elsa?"

Elsa turned away, hugging her arms to herself. She couldn't. "Anna, please, just..."

"Elsa, please stay away from the door."

Elsa blinked, before turning towards the door. "What?"

*CRACK* With a mighty crunch, the door banged open, the lock broken. Anna stood poised in the doorway after kicking in the door. Elsa stared for a moment, then jumped when the door, its hinges weakened, fell to the ground with a crash. Anna jumped as well, before looking sheepishly at the door.

"Oops. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. Well, I meant to get the door open, but I didn't mean for, uh," she straightened and coughed into her hand. "Elsa, I've decided, I'm not going to let a little ice get between us and our relationship."

Elsa shook her head, then retreated backwards as Anna walked into the room. "No, stay back. I don't want to hurt you. Anna, please, don't..."

Her plea was cut off when Anna pulled out a strange contraption from... _somewhere_. It looked like a large barrel, which she was holding by the barrel. Anna pointed the open end towards the ice that was spreading out from Elsa's feet, and *thump thump thump thump* strange red balls of energy flew out and melted the ice away. Elsa gasped as with a wide swing, Anna melted away every bit of ice from the room.

* * *

Anna stumbled a bit as she swung the Thermanator up and onto her shoulder. While it wouldn't repair their relationship right away, Anna knew that knowing her ice could be controlled would go a long way towards making Elsa feel more comfortable.

* * *

17.6 (LordCirce): [Frozen]

Kristoff spit out snow after their crash-landing at the bottom of the cliff. Above them, he could still hear the snow golem's shout echoing through the mountains. _~And stay out!~_

Kristoff turned towards Anna, who was looking rather sheepish. "So, what's the plan?"

Anna blinked, before glancing sideways at him and grinning. "I need a stump."

Kristoff blinked.

* * *

"Why the heck did you let your heart get frozen, again?! Especially if you are Awake?"

"Why did you let me get it frozen? You're always Awake."

"...cause I like surprising you with a kiss after Grand Pabbie's speech and watching you unfreeze."

"...how often do you do that."

Kristoff turned away. "It doesn't matter. In any case, I don't see what good a stump is going to do in stopping this winter."

Anna rolled her eyes as she stepped up onto a fairly large pine stump. "Just watch." She then raised her hands and pulled an ornate golden rod from her subspace pocket. She closed her eyes, then _swung!_

* * *

Kristoff stared around at the blooming spring flowers that covered the mountainside. Anna was humming happily as she danced around her stump, birds spiraling over head and chirping.

"Ok, so, you magically made it spring. Do you have a way of keeping Olaf from melting?"

Anna froze, then jumped back onto the stump. Kristoff just rolled his eyes as the seasons fast-forwarded through summer, autumn, and then back into winter.

* * *

17.7 (LordCirce): [Frozen]

Anna laughed as she, Kristoff, and Sven, loaded in Kristoff's sled, shot over a snowbank. In the back, the rockets she had strapped on burned bright, propelling them extremely fast over the winter landscape. Glancing up, Anna saw that the North Mountain was still clear of crystalline palaces, before branches and trees once more cut off her view.

Anna grinned, turning to Kristoff, who was gripping the end of his seat. "Isn't this fun?"

"Ah, look forward! You're steering!"

Anna laughed as the sled swerved around a tree and then shot out and across the gorge that usually claimed it in the baseline. "I'm not steering, Sven is."

Kristoff stared at her, then looked down at the steering rod that was positioned in the middle of the seat. Sure enough, Sven was leaning over the seat, both his front hooves gripping the rod as he panted happily, slaloming the sled back and forth on the snow. Kristoff turned forward, his eyes squeezed shut. "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!"

Anna glanced around, then squeed, before diving into the back of the sled. She squeezed past Sven and pulled the brake cord, cutting out the rockets. Slowly, they slid to a halt next to a frozen cliff face. Anna quickly jumped down.

"She should be around here. If we're quick enough, we can get her and then get back down to town while Hans is stumbling around up here looking for us."

Kristoff slowly loosened his grip on the sled, then climbed out. Sven happily jumped down from the back, racing after Anna who was skipping into the woods. Kristoff moaned softly to himself and followed.

* * *

17.8 (LordCirce): [Frozen] / [The Nightmare Before Christmas]

"The souls glow white on the mountain tonight, the wind's howling, like a scream. A kingdom of apparitions, and I'm their Pumpkin King!"

Jack skipped happily through the snow, singing softly a song that had seemed to pop into his brain. He danced in a little circle, scooping up some snow and juggling it as snowballs above his head. He was off to meet Sandy Claws, again. These loops of repeating time were so neat, with him being able to learn new and interesting ways of scaring people, and ways to make old ways interesting again.

Though, Jack thought as he paused under a tree, the path to Sandy Claws factory was a bit steeper than he remembered. Maybe he had wandered the wrong way? Just as Jack was pondering his predicament, a voice sounded behind him.

"Hi, I'm Olaf. I like warm hugs!"

Jack jumped, and spun around. "Oh, what a fright! You... ah..." He paused, then looked down at the short snowman standing behind him. The snowman stared back, its arms outstretched. After a few moments of awkward silence, the snowman waved arms slightly and leaned forward.

"And you are?"

Jack straightened. He couldn't allow a chance to introduce himself to slip by! "I am the voice, howling in the wind." He spun off, before peering around the tree. "I'm the shadow lurking under the tree." He leaned back, before bursting out of a snowbank behind Olaf, who spun around. "I'm the surprise that catches you unaware." He then leapt out, waving his arms as lightning crashed in the sky. "I am Jack! The pumpkin king!"

Olaf stared for a moment. "Where's your crown?"

Jack blinked for a moment. "I don't wear a crown."

Olaf blinked back. "Why?"

* * *

Jack sighed as he strode up the mountainside. Behind him, the short snowman followed, rambling on about summer and heat. Summer! What good was summer? The sun was much too bright to make proper shadows. Autumn was much better, containing as it did, Halloween. Still, Jack had to admire the enthusiasm of the short snowman.

Jack walked around the corner of a rock face, and came in view of a building that was most certainly not Santa's workshop. It was tall, with crystal spires and a long staircase leading to the front door. Jack stopped, staring, and Olaf, not pay attention in the slightest, bumped into the back of his legs.

"...I've also always dreamed of having a nooof. Hey, why'd you stop? What is... oh, that's where Elsa lives. Are we going to go visit Elsa? Oh, it will be so great. She built me out of snow and she built that palace too. She is the greatest..." Olaf wandered on ahead, and Jack followed slowly behind. Maybe this Elsa would know where Sandy Claws workshop had gone.

* * *

Elsa paced inside of her new home, feeling the cool air wrap around her as she did so. It felt so freeing, being up here and alone. She didn't have to worry about hurting anyone, or about hiding who she was. She was free, free to be herself.

*Knock, knock, knock*

Someone was knocking on the doors downstairs. Elsa turned, frowning. Who would... had someone pursued her up here? Elsa sighed. Of course someone would have followed her. Anna would have. For years, Anna had continued to knock at her door. Why would she let something like a mountain stop her? Reaching out, Elsa let the doors open as she moved to the stairs.

She reached the bottom, only to find herself grabbed around the middle by a short... snowman. The snowman finished hugging her, then back up, looking up at her. "Hi, I'm Olaf!"

Elsa paused, before looking closer. "Olaf?"

The snowman, Olaf, nodded. "Yeah. You built me. Don't you remember?"

Elsa held back tears as she looked at the living version of the last snowman she and Elsa had built together. Tenderly, she nodded. Olaf smiled, then waved his arms. "Yay. Oh, and this is Jack."

Elsa looked up, to find a skeletal face merely an inch from her own, grinning at her. She screamed, leaping backwards, and her powers lashed out, hurling the figure, Jack, against the wall, where he was pinned by needles of ice. Including one stabbing into his heart.

"Oh no. No!" Elsa rushed forward. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." Focusing, Elsa dispersed the needles, causing Jack to drop to the floor. "No, no, no, no." She reached to feel for a pulse, when Jack sat up.

"Boo!"

Elsa fell back again, though this time her powers remained under control. She stared at Jack as he stood up, brushing himself off. "How...what are you?"

Jack grinned. "I'm the Pumpkin King. King of Halloween. Lord of Frights and Sprites and Spooks."

Elsa stared at the strange man as he cavorted around, with Olaf joining in the odd chant.

"This is Halloween, this is Halloween, here in this castle with icy sheen."

* * *

17.9 (Valentine Meikin): [Frozen] / [Naruto]

Elsa fired a bolt of frost, for it to be parried by a shield of ice. Her opponent flung a lance of the same ice, which she misdirected with a cold wind. Creating a mound of snow, she circled round, firing a snowball at the unprotected back of her opponent. As they fell to the ground, clapping came from a few meters away.

"Good job, Elsa!" Haku called out as she navigated the impromptu battlefield, Anna getting up from the snow where she'd fell after her mock death, "I'll give you a bonus for the fact you used only a snowball for the kill shot."

"I know how dangerous badly aimed frost can be." Elsa admitted, remembering the baseline events of her universe. It was a moot point to act like the baseline since both her and her sister were awake, and it was lucky that a discrete query found the mercenary woman looking for something to do.

Using the mercenary's own aptitude with ice manipulation, they'd discovered a weaker version of Elsa's abilities, and the two sisters knew, in later loops, thanks to the training they began this loop, there would be a massive surprise coming for someone who assumed that Elsa was the only one who knew how to freeze someone solid...

* * *

17.10 (Harosata): [Lilo & Stitch] / [Assassination Classroom]

Doctor Jumba looked up. "Good to see you're Awake, Experiment 778. How do you feel?"

"A little Loopy, I must admit." The yellow octopus-like alien shrugged. "778? I prefer Koro-Sensei."

"Ah, Japan language. Alway wonder if that place is extension or variant." Jumba wondered as he re-checked his notes. "Interesting. You move at twenty times sound and you have very good regeneration... Oh? I make you out of anti-matter? Bah, easier to fix than black hole!"

"You're not the first to offer to fix me." Koro-sensei admitted. "So I suppose I'm no longer programmed for evil?"

"Eh, galactic authorities shut down lab and dispose of experiment, and experiment usually take escape ship to Earth. And little girl Anchor will make you 'good'. Also, Gantu maybe Awake and not in good mood, so I suggest experiment go now." Jumba turned around, then he turned to the window to see a ship breaking through his captors. "Hm... maybe movement is many times sound more."

* * *

17.11 (kingofsouls; Awesomedude17): [Inside Out]

\--Reality--

Riley (who was psychically akin to that of a young adult rather than the pre-teen she usually looped in as thanks to the application of Out of Loop Powers) gave her best innocent pleading look, but by the looks of it, it was failing to converse her father to stop blocking the door. "Daaaad, come on, pleeease?"

"Riley Andersen, while I understand that you are a time traveler and I'm okay with that, you are not going to a nightclub."

"Dad, I'm only going to dance."

"No means no young lady."

"But I'm old enough!"

"I don't care how old you are, you're not going."

Riley groaned.

_\--Headquarters--_

_"Guys, this isn't working."_

Disgust scoffed in agreement. "Anyone have any ideas?"

"We could try plan B..." Sadness replied.

"Good plan," Fear replied with a mocking tone. "Only where are we going to find Rock Hudson and a banana cream pie at this hour?"

(Awesomedude17)

Joy grinned.

"I know, and maybe we can get two!"

"Why two?" Disgust asked.

"One for Plan B, the other for us!"

"...I like pie." Anger shrugged.

* * *

17.12 (wildrook): [Bambi] / [Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]

The deer in question was glaring at the hunter that tried to shoot him down. "I really shouldn't be surprised," he muttered. "It's not often that a hunter tends to show himself to the Guardian of the Forest."

"That may be," the hunter said, in a tone that would make skin crawl, "but I'm not JUST any hunter!"

Before the deer could question how they understand each other, memories hit on when he heard that voice...and not just from this timeline, but another's...where a frame-up occurred on the murder of a well-known prankster. Added to that, and the face on the deer is more than just the headlights when the man stood up.

The only thing that was visible and heard were the red eyes that could pierce into his soul...

"Remember me, Bambi?!?" the hunter yelled. "When I killed your mother, I talked **_JUST... LIKE... THIS!!_** "

...and the high-pitched voice that could give even the bravest of men nightmares.

Bambi may have been the Guardian of the Forest, but when Variants like this happened, the urge to run from Judge Doom was just that great.

That, and one of Doom's arms turned into a golden shotgun while his eyes turned into missiles, but the point still stands.

* * *

17.13 (Awesomedude17): [Inside Out] / [Codename: Kids Next Door]

\--Reality--

Riley Woke up, and her head was throbbing.

"Ow ow ow..."

"Sorry Riley, the ice will make it better for you."

"Thanks mom." Riley rubbed her temples.

_"Numbah 4, stop that!"_

Riley internally groaned and began to speak to the different loopers replacing her emotions this loop.

\--Dreamscape--

_"Cut it out, you guys are hurting my head!"_

The five loopers shut up and looked around.

"Hello?" The leading emotion spoke.

 _"Yes, I'm the anchor, you replaced my emotions. Who are you?"_ Riley replied, not thinking clearly while in pain.

"I am Numbah 1, leader of Sector V of the Kids Next Door."

"I'm Numbah 2."

"I'm Numbah 3!"

"Numbah 4."

"And this is Numbah 5."

"Now, explain what we do." Numbah 1 requested.

Riley groaned. She didn't exactly know all the details, but figuring out who would be who would take a while.

* * *

17.14 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Mickey blearily opened his eyes, wincing a little as the sunlight seemed almost stab right into his retinas. "Ohhh..."

He was swinging back in forth in some sort of hammock. Beside him, Minnie was still sleeping, albeit whimpering a little, presumably from a headache of her own. He gently squeezed her shoulder, then slowly looked around him.

Scattered all around the floor were various men and women dressed in rather shabby clothes, all in varying states of inebriation-induced slumber. They were napping in piles of gold, dotted with the occasional empty barrel of what was, presumably, rum. Several of the more attractive women appeared to be very happy about something, and looked even more relaxed than the others.

As he woke up further, and his headache receded by a minuscule amount, he slowly realized that his room was not swaying back and forth. Given the events of last night (which were now slowly starting to arrange themselves in roughly the correct order in his brain), he knew that this wasn't where he normally slept this Loop.

Taking care not to step on anyone, he got out of the hammock, and shuffled over to what he presumed was a bathroom of some sort. At least, it contained a toilet, washbasin and bathtub.

When Mickey looked into the mirror, he groaned in exasperation. "Who drew a mustache on me?"

"Ah, so the sleeping beauty awakes."

Mickey smiled grimly when he heard that voice. "Okay, Captain. What the heck happened last night?"

He squinted into the mirror, and therefore at the reflection of the irritatingly alert pirate captain leaning on the door behind him. "And why, in the name of Walt, are you wearing a kilt?"

Captain Jack Sparrow rolled his eyes back in thought. "Well, I believe that we had wrapped up that unpleasant affair with Barbossa and the Aztec gold, and were celebrating for a bit in Tortuga, when you made an offhand comment about being able to outdrink me."

Mickey pulled a face. "Really? I was probably already half-crocked if I seriously said that."

"You _were_ rather deep into your cups at the time. However, in all fairness, so was I, along with your lady love, and over three quarters of the patrons of that fine drinking establishment. Anyways, in order to disprove your vicious lies and slander, I may have challenged you to a drinking contest."

He paused for a moment. "Wagers of a monetary nature were almost definitely involved."

By this time, Mickey had managed to dredge an Elixir from the depths of his subspace pocket, and knocked it back. He immediately felt a lot more human. Or mouse, as the case may be. "And don't tell me: after one or the both of us shamelessly cheated for the first few rounds, someone brought out some abomination of a beverage, and then events grew blurry."

Jack assumed a look of affronted innocence that wouldn't have fooled a blind man. "Why, Mickey! Whatever made you assume such an utterly unwholesome thing?"

Mickey grinned. "Oh, come off it. We're both pirates for the time being, I can call upon the Stamina of Atlas, and you have a Devil Fruit ability that lets you turn into alcohol. I'd be more surprised if cheating _wasn't_ involved."

Jack smiled back, his golden tooth glittering in the morning sun. "Fair enough, In any event, after a whirlwind of activity that may or may not have included the discovery of El Dorado and the sinking of another pirate's ship, we all managed to stumble our way back to the inn, where you collapsed into that hammock with your lady, and slept like a baby until daybreak."

"Well, that would explain all the gold. So, Captain, where to next, once we've all recovered from our hangovers?"

Jack considered the question. "Well, we still need to get that key to Davy Jones' chest..."

Mickey nodded. "Aye aye, captain!"

The Captain was an odd one, Mickey thought, and almost certainly a dishonest, manipulative scoundrel of a man. Still, he was a good friend, and exactly the kind of person you wanted to have as your captain when you were dealing with the likes of pirates.

Even if he did beat you in that drinking contest. Seriously, Romulan Ale _had_ to be cheating.

* * *

17.15 (Hvulpes): [Frozen]

"The cold never bothered me anyway."

"But Elsa, that's no reason to be naked for the entire loop!"

* * *

Another Loop...

"Seems in this loops, I have the power to create ice and snow, Anna."

"How is that stranger than baseline?"

Elsa created diamonds with one hand and small white powder in the other.

"Oh... Ice and Snow!"

* * *

Another Loop...

As the sky rain down vanilla ice cream and bits of candy creating a nationwide Blizzard, Anna could only think, "I guess my sister is the Dairy Queen. I wonder if the movie in the Hub would be called Frozen Yogurt?"

* * *

Another Loop...

Kristoff watched the events unfold before him, and asked his Queen, "When did Anna learn to throw fireballs again?"

"Last loop. The native anchor was there but Anna and me replaced two of the other characters. Due to my powers, I became one character. Since Anna was my sister, or half-sister in that loop, she took the other character and his powers."

As they watched fireballs being hurled at Prince Hans, "So I became Snow Miser and Anna became Heat Miser, mistress of Fire, Heat and Warm Weather. Possible Magma and Lava too."

* * *

Another Loop...

A young Anna woke Elsa up and asked as a song begun... "Do you want to build a Lavaman?"

* * *

17.16 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_\--Headquarters--_

_"Tripledent gum..."_

With a mighty shout, Anger called upon his Red Hulk powers and in seconds smashed the windows of Headquarters, and chucked the Memory Orb into the Memory dump.

Joy, whom was a fair (and safe) distance leaned over to Disgust as Anger was celebrating his victory and whispered "So... who wants to tell him that the Mind Workers have more gum commercial memories in Long Term Memory?"

"You tell him. I for one don't have a death wish."

* * *

17.17 (Harosata): [Disney]

"Mickey, _*boing*_ I respect you _*boing*_ like a brother _*boing*_ , but if you don't _*boing*_ get your behind _*boing*_ in here, I am _*boing*_ gonna shove you _*boing*_ into a mouse maze _*boing*_ even if we go to _*boing*_ a maze!"

Mickey looked down at the scale model of Oswald's city, which was covered in blue and orange thanks to a spill (which doesn't seem like he could cover up this time). "Sorry, I'm coming! Gosh, if GlaDOS is in there, let's hope she's Awake."

* * *

17.18 (Evilhumour): [Warhammer 40K] / [Disney]

" **This is... _unusual._** " The man said looking at the mouse and bunny, scratching his head.

"Oh come on old man, it's _not_ that odd," the bunny smiled, elbowing him in the side. "Besides with only _two_ of us and _both_ of us Awake, I doubt you'll see the Oswald Heresy or the Mickey Heresy."

The mouse did his best not to laugh at the joke but he did start once the man began to laugh at the joke, wiping a tear from his eye. " **True enough, I suppose, and I doubt I will end on up on the Golden Throne _this_ time,"** Holding out his hands for both of his sons, the Creator of Disneykind brought out both of his sons to a world unready. " **Let's create some magic, shall we?** "

* * *

17.19 (LordCirce): [Brave] / [Frozen]

Merida yawned and sat up, stretching languidly and scratching her side, before stopping as she took in the sights around her. She was lying in a bed with chopped-at bedposts, just like she was used to, but the walls were covered in wallpaper, rather than the thick stone she was used to. Hopping out of bed quickly, Merida snatched up the bow that was sitting on the dresser nearby, and tested the draw.

'Decent', she mused to herself, slowly edging the door open and peering out. You could never be too careful in Loops away from home.

"Morning Merida! Time for Breakfast!" A fully too-cheerful voice sounded right next to her ear, causing Merida to jump and almost fall over. Luckily, she had neglected to actually stick an arrow in her bow, so she didn't end up putting a hole in the source of the voice, Anna of Arendelle. Anna smiled, seemingly oblivious to the fact she was only saved from an arrowing via a quirk of fate. "Race ya! Cindy's making pancakes!" And before Merida could respond, Anna had dashed off down the corridor.

Shelving her curiosity for later, Merida grinned and sprinted after her.

* * *

17.20 (LordCirce): [Lilo & Stitch] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Stitch grinned broadly as he bounced out of the back cabin of his little star fighter and into the main cockpit. He was kind of sad not to be in a Loop with Lilo, but he really, _really_ loved getting the chance to fly spaceships, and, when it gave him the opportunity to cause havoc, so much the better.

"Ready for more plundering!" Stitch declared loudly, causing his companion, who was dozing in the pilot's chair, to jerk awake and flail out of his seat.

"...a little warning would be appreciated next time, mate." Temporarily Vice-Captain Jack Sparrow mumbled as he pushed himself up. He still insisted that Stitch must have cheated to beat him at a drinking game to determine who got to be in charge of their ship. At least this wasn't the Pearl, there was no way he could stand to let his lady go.

Stitch cackled, grinning as he jumped up into the weapons station. "Ship is coming fast. Doesn't see us yet."

Jack gave a roguish grin at that. "Well, let's go introduce ourselves then. It would be rude to keep all of those fine, fancy folk waiting."

* * *

17.21 (LordCirce): [Wreck-It Ralph] / [Cookie Clicker - Safe-Mode Loop]

Wreck-It Ralph chuckled softly to himself as he strode out onto the Rainbow Bridge leading into Sugar Rush, still tickled by the joke Felix had shared with him earlier.

"...the oak tree was a dog. Heh, classic." He shook his head, frowning slightly as an oddly familiar smell filled his nose. Smelled like something baking...

A blue blur slammed into Ralph, as Vanellope von Schweetz grabbed onto his collar, pressing her forehead against his. "Ya gotta' help me, Ralph! The Grandmas are coming!"

Ralph blinked. "The... grandmas? What, are you worried you'll get pinched cheeks or something."

Vanellope stomped her foot on Ralph's chest. "No, Ralph, this is serious. The grandmas, they showed up just out of the blue, over by the Ginger Snap Pagoda. They set up a cookie farm, and they seemed nice, but then, I was sneaking in to swipe some coins from Turbo to go enter the race, and I saw it..." Vanellope's eyes turned distant. "They brought him a platter. It smelled... good, but odd. I kinda wanted to nab one, but... then he ate one and... he changed." Vanellope's eyes snapped back to look into Ralph's. "He turned into a Grandma."

Ralph hummed thoughtfully. "Zombie Grandmas, huh? Well, that's not something you see everyday... or ever, really." He then swung his arm, pulling Vanellope around to sit on his shoulder. "Still, I mean, I am a bad guy, but punching grandmas is... a bit much."

Vanellope scowled, then smirked. "All of the cookies... are oatmeal raisin."

Ralph slammed his fist into his open palm. "Right, let's go punch some old ladies."

* * *

"Well, that didn't turn out as expected." Ralph noted to Vanellope as they stood with Felix and Calhoun, making their final stand atop the tower in the middle of Hero's Duty. Below, the army of Cookie monstrosities smashed their way through the swarm of Cy-bugs that tried to stop them, while over it all, a faint song was heard.

~"Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house you'll go. The pan is ready and oven is hot, so come and join the dough."~

* * *

17.1: Buzz and Woody, welcome to the Loops.

17.2: Yeesh.

17.3: No matter what Loop he's in, Captain Jack Sparrow is obsessed with a few particular things.

17.4 and 17.4 continued (Bardic_Knowledge): ...

17.5: Anna always does what she can to help her sister.

17.6: I'm still confused about the stump.

17.7: Sleigh ride!

17.8: Interesting variant.

17.9: Elsa makes friends with a lot of ice-themed people.

17.10: ...

17.11: No matter how old she is inside, she's still a kid outside.

17.12: Based on an early script for _Who Framed Roger Rabbit_.

17.13: Word of author is that Numbah 1 is Sadness, Numbah 2 is Fear, Numbah 3 is Joy, Numbah 4 is Anger and Numbah 5 is Disgust.

17.14: Same old Captain Jack Sparrow... still obsessed with drinking.

17.15: Odd variant powers for Elsa.

17.16: We all have this problem, unfortunately.

17.17: Okay...

17.18: Heresys are something you have to keep an eye out for in Warhammer.

17.19: According to the author, this was inspired by the Pocket Princess series.

17.20: Supposedly, there was another setting involved in this one, but it doesn't seem to have been identified.

17.21: Some of these Safe-Mode Loops are _odd_.


	20. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen (Part One of Five) - Mega Man: Inside Out

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-10. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen, part 1 of 5 - Mega Man: Inside Out**

18.1 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man]

**Mega Man: Inside Out**

Riley blinked as she Awoke in the car again and sighed. She'd been getting used to the repeats, but always Awakening during or right before her family's move to San Francisco (or wherever it was they were moving to this Loop) was getting depressing. She'd really like to have a Loop where she could talk with her old friends in person rather than having to do it over the phone or online.

Speaking of talking with friends, she should probably check in with the ones inside her head.

 _'Sadness?'_ she concentrated and used the mental relay system that Phineas and Ferb had installed inside her mind several Loops back.

 _'How'd you know it was me?'_ the blue emotion sent back.

 _'Just a feeling,'_ Riley thought back with a melancholy smirk. Really, if she paid attention, it was fairly obvious which of her emotions was running the show at any given moment. _'How are the others right now?'_

 _'Looks like we're all Awake for this Loop,'_ Sadness sent back. _'Anger's looking over the Mind Reader as usual, Fear and Disgust are talking over first day of school plans, and Joy's rifling through this Loop's memories. She should have a good sample pretty soon and – oh, here she comes now. Sorry. I was kind enjoying our talk.'_

 _'It's fine Sadness,'_ Riley thought back, _'I was enjoying it too. Beats staring out a car window at nothing in particular.'_

 _'Aw, but Sadness loves those times!'_ Joy joined the conversation. _'I've never seen her more excited than over a good introspective heart-to-heart. Not really my thing, but to each their own, right?'_

 _'Right,'_ Riley giggled to herself at the thought of an excited Sadness. The mental image was patently ridiculous.

 _'Oooo... that's a keeper, Riley,'_ Joy laughed.

Riley blushed as she remembered that her emotions were privy to such thoughts and promptly imagined a quiet and introverted Joy to even the scales.

 _'What the...? Is it opposite day and no one told me?'_ the gruff voice of Anger joined the others. _'Joy, have you shown her this Loop's memories yet or not?'_

 _'Was just about to!'_ Joy replied. _'Riley, you remember those video games Dad introduced us to that time you broke your leg on the ice?'_

 _'Yeah?'_ Riley thought back as the image of a blue guy running, jumping and shooting came to mind. Video games had never been a major interest for her, but she'd needed something to take her mind off the fact that she had a leg in a cast, a pair of crutches, and was supposed to stay off her feet (well, foot and a crutch) as much as possible. Plus her dad had apparently loved the series and his enthusiasm was a bit infectious. And they'd been fun. Frustrating as heck at times, but fun.

 _'I remember being torn between wanting to throw the controller through a window and wanting to shoot more of those digital things in the face for killing our character all the time,'_ Anger sounded happy. Which made sense. Aggression in general was his thing. He loved hockey just as much as Riley herself.

 _'Well, guess where Dad's new job is!'_ Joy cheered as a new image entered Riley's thoughts. One of a very high-tech lab, at least for the time period Riley was used to, with a great big sign proclaiming it to be 'Light Labs'. Information came with it, particularly the name of the owner: Dr. Thomas Light.

 _'Is that Santa Claus in a lab coat?'_ Disgust joined the conversation. _'I have no idea how he manages it, but he makes it work.'_

 _'Okay, but what does that have to do with Dad's video games?'_ Riley thought back.

 _'He's the guy who made the hero in them!'_ Joy chirped back.

 _'No way!'_ Anger seemed much more interested all of a sudden. Riley was pretty interested now too.

 _'Wait,'_ Fear called a halt to the excitement of the moment. _'Didn't the villain in those things work with him?'_

An image of Einstein's evil cousin turning into an alien from outer space came to Riley's mind and she shuddered.

 _'Oh no!'_ Sadness cried. _'If Riley has to deal with a mad scientist, it'll be bad!'_

 _'Bad?!'_ Fear countered. _'It'll be terrible! We don't know how to fight a robot uprising!'_

 _'Guys!'_ Joy called for calm for several moments, _'I checked and there's no mention of the guy in Riley's Loop memories, or anyone else working with Dr. Light right now. And I even think I know why!'_

 _'You do?'_ Disgust questioned after a silent moment.

_'Yep! You see, his name was Dr. Wily!'_

Riley thought that over for a moment, and then realized the strange sense of humor the Loops sometimes had and groaned. The groan was echoed by multiple emotions inside her head.

 _'The sinister Dr. Wily has been replaced this Loop by the amazing Dr. Riley! Let's see what happens!'_ (1)

* * *

18.2 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - More Intros**

Rock and Roll were loving the current Loop for one very important reason: Dr. Wily didn't exist in it. They were very certain of that. They'd checked every possible digital record regarding every known name variation they'd ever encountered.

The mad scientist didn't exist as a man, a woman, a child, or even an escaped chimp from the zoo that had wandered into a pharmaceutical company (that had been a _strange_ Loop).

Of course, it meant that someone else could very well have taken his role and the other shoe was just waiting to drop, but they'd handle that if and when it happened.

"Hey dad!" Roll greeted Dr. Thomas Light as he trudged into the kitchen for breakfast. "How are things going? Awake yet?"

"Still no subspace pocket access," the man smiled as Roll placed an omelet and orange juice in front of him. "So it looks like I'm just a highly lucid Dreamer this Loop."

"Eh, we'll happily store anything you want to keep for a later Loop," Rock offered as he entered the kitchen. "How are preparations for the big presentation going?"

"My new business manager should be starting today," Dr. Light answered. "Though it'll probably just be showing him around and detailing his duties. Still, it'll be good to have more time to work in the lab on many of the projects I've been putting off so Albert didn't try to steal them."

"What's his name again?" Rock wondered. "Bill Anderson?"

"Andersen with an 'e', though the names do sound similar,"(2) Dr. Light answered. "Bill and his family have recently moved to Arcadia for this job, so he probably isn't familiar with the city yet. I'm honestly wondering if I should send Auto to show him the way to the lab or keep Auto at the store so he doesn't scare the man away."

"Probably keep Auto at the store for now," Rock nodded. "He's a little much to take in the first day on the job."

"I wonder if Mr. Andersen has any kids..." Roll mused.

* * *

18.3 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Meet the Neighbors**

It was early morning after moving day and Riley was reflecting that there were some rather odd and annoying constants in the Loops at times.

 _'No duh,'_ she heard Disgust snort in her head. _'Exhibit A: Our house is, once again, a complete and utter disaster area! I mean, the last people who lived here should have had it condemned rather than sell it to poor innocent people like dad and mom!'_

 _'Not to mention that the *beep* movers got lost yet AGAIN!'_ Anger fumed. _'And will you stop hitting the censor button Fear?!'_

*Ding-Dong*

 _'Hey! Someone's at the door!'_ Joy latched onto this new fact. _'Ooooh! I wonder who it is? I bet it's some of our new neighbors coming to make friends!'_

_'I bet it's someone looking for whoever used to live here and now they're going to be reminded that their friends moved away and that'll be sad...'_

_'Oh geez! You don't think the robot uprising makes house calls, do you?!'_

_'Settle down you all,'_ Riley thought to her emotions. _'Let's find out before getting bent out of shape.'_

"Hello, is this the Andersen residence?" Riley heard the voice of a boy about her age ask.

"Um... yes," the surprised tone of her father replied.

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Red Alert!"

*Boy! Boy! Boy!*

"How did he find out about Riley so fast?! Why is he here? Who is he?"

"We should probably find out before jumping to conclusions. There is a _tiny_ chance the boy is simply a new neighbor being polite."

***The Real World***

"Who are you?"

"Rock Light, sir," the boy answered in such a polite tone that Riley just knew he'd held his hand out to shake her father's. Peeking around a corner to spy on the doorway, she saw a young boy with black hair in a blue shirt doing exactly that. "I'm from Light Labs. Dad sent me and my sister over to see how you were settling in, sir."

 _'Oh, I like this guy,'_ Disgust mused. _'Polite, charming, decently dressed. Yeah, we could do worse for friends even if he is a boy.'_

"I... see..." Riley's father blinked as he accepted the handshake. "Um..."

"And this is my sister, Roll Light," the boy continued as a blonde girl with a ponytail and a red sundress joined him holding what looked like a bag of groceries.

 _'Wait... Rock... and Roll?'_ Joy's slow voice sounded in Riley's head. _'Those... are... the... most... awesome... names... EVER! Almost as awesome as yours Riley!'_

"Oh... my... god..." the girl paused and looked at the interior of the house in horror.

 _'See! Someone else agrees with me about the house!'_ Disgust crowed in vindication.

_'Oh... she hates our new house... that's sad...'_

"Rock, you start making breakfast for these nice people," the girl handed the grocery bag to her brother as well as a frying pan that had been hidden behind it. "I'm going to get my emergency cleaning supplies."

"Bring some of the picnic-ware while you're at it!" the boy called back after his sister after a glance inside confirming that there was not yet any furniture to speak of.

 _'Emergency cleaning supplies?!'_ Fear worried. _'Is she going to scrub our new house from the face of the earth?!'_

 _'Not like it would be any great loss,'_ Disgust dismissed Fear's worries.

_'But we're still inside! Aren't condemned buildings supposed to be evacuated first?!'_

"Um... what just...?" Riley's father finally found his voice.

"Just let my sister work, sir," the boy smiled serenely as he entered the house. "I promise you won't be sorry you did. Now, if you could show me the kitchen, please? I'm not as good at cooking as she is, but I can do a passable omelet."

"Sure..." Riley's dad seemed to latch onto that idea like a drowning man latching onto a life preserver and began leading the boy to the kitchen. After a moment, Riley followed.

 _'You should introduce yourself Riley!'_ Joy prompted.

"Hi..." Riley began.

 _'But don't give away too much!'_ Fear added. _'We still don't know if either of these two are part of the inevitable robot uprising!'_

"Are you part of the robot uprising?" Riley finished before she could stop herself. (3)

 _'Oh,_ nice _one Fear...'_ Anger and Disgust both grumbled as Riley's face flushed in embarrassment and her dad barely stifled a snort of amusement.

"Nah," the boy smiled in amusement as he wiped down the electric stove's top. "Actually, part of what my sister and I do is help make sure that our dad doesn't engineer one by accident."

"So what else do you do?" Riley's father asked.

"I mostly help dad with his lab work," the boy said as he set out eggs and various omelet fixings. Riley was relieved to note the complete absence of broccoli. "Roll–"

"Ack!" Riley's mom suddenly exclaimed in shock from the entryway. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"And where do you get your cleaning supplies? Because we could really use some around here."

***The Real World***

"Good morning Mrs. Andersen. My name is Roll Light. And I end messes."

"...does that," Rock finished.

 _'I don't know about the rest of you,'_ Disgust broke the silence in Riley's head, _'but I just found_ my _new best friend.'_

* * *

18.4 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Welcome to Light Labs**

Roll's claim of ending messes was apparently not made idly. She came in with a commando headband and enough cleaning supplies to be mistaken as a one-maid army ready to take on the apocalypse itself. (4) By the time she was finished, around early afternoon, the still-empty house all but sparkled.

Rock on the other hand had talked to Riley's father about the general expectations and schedule of his new job. Riley had tuned out a fair bit, but the gist was that Rock and Roll's dad, Dr. Light, was gearing up for the release of a major industrial robotics line and was finding that he just didn't have the time anymore to invent, build, and run the business side of things. Which was why Riley's dad had been hired on, with a fairly generous increase in pay over his old job. He'd also talked a fair bit about Arcadia and the various sights, as well as some of the more flamboyant celebrations that the city's eccentric mayor, Leonard Dorado, held. Joy had loved that part in particular and prodded Riley into asking more.

And then the two had offered to take not just Riley's dad to tour his new place of business, but the whole Andersen family.

Riley was excited about going with her dad to see Light Labs. Right up until she saw what she was expected to ride in.

 _'What in the world is_ that _?!'_ Disgust yelled as Riley beheld the truck the Light twins had arrived in.

 _'I don't know but I think it's_ looking _at us...'_ Fear added.

 _'Oh, come on... it's not..._ that _bad...'_ Joy offered, but even she didn't seem really certain.

The truck, if it could really be called that, was bright green and yellow with an open cab. The front of the truck had a face consisting of an oversized bumper-jaw and two humongous red eye-headlights. (5)

All in all, it evoked the image of some robo-clown and neither Riley nor her emotions were thrilled with the prospect.

"It's... certainly... _unique_ ," Riley's mom offered diplomatically.

 _'Translation: she hates it but doesn't want to be seen as impolite,'_ Disgust paraphrased.

"Unique is..." Rock began hesitantly.

"... _one_ way to describe Auto..." Roll finished. (6)

"Auto?" Riley's dad asked. "And now that I think about it, who drove you anyway?"

"Auto is Light Labs' mechanic and... somewhat eccentric. As for who drove," Rock stated, holding up a license, "I did."

The Andersen family blinked as one.

 _'I'm torn...'_ Disgust finally offered from Riley's head. _'The whole driving thing is automatic cool points, but that thing is, like, anti-cool.'_

 _'He is a very brave soul,'_ Fear offered.

* * *

Riley had absolutely loved seeing Light Labs. The entire place had the general look and feel of something that Phineas and Ferb would want when they grew up. Or at least the chance to play around in over the summer.

The industrial robots, that Dr. Light called the 'robot masters', were six robots that Riley didn't recognize. She chalked that up to only playing the '2' and '3' games of the series that Loop she'd broken her leg (and neither to actual completion), but it still hadn't stopped Fear from ranting about the inevitable robot uprising. Nor had Dr. Light's explanation of each robot's abilities. Regardless of intended purpose, giant scissors that could cut tree trunks were intimidating.

Then had come Dr. Light talking about the AI of each robot, explaining the concept of IC chips (along with a bunch of technical details that went over all the Andersens' heads) and how each 'robot master' would be able to undertake complex emotional interactions, direct other robots in the workplace, and make complex decisions like a human.

Joy had thought that was awesome, Fear had thought that was terrifying, and before Riley could make peace between the two her father had voiced the concerns.

"This all sounds really amazing, but how do you know these 'robot masters' won't go out of control?"

"For one, I've been testing the cognitive systems and IC chips already and, after... an issue with the prototype... the two finished models are exceeding all expectations for the series, both in emotional interaction with humans and complex cognitive processes."

 _'But do they have fashion sense?'_ Disgust snarked.

"Really?" Riley asked. "Can we meet them?"

 _'Yeah! This is sounding cooler by the second!'_ Joy agreed.

 _'Oh... they're the first of their kind?'_ Sadness realized. _'They must be lonely...'_

"They do sound... interesting..." Riley's mom admitted.

 _'More like terrifying!'_ Fear interrupted.

 _'Will you shut up already!'_ Anger yelled.

"I'd like to see them myself," Riley's dad folded his arms. "I want to know exactly what you're having me pitch to possible customers."

"Actually..." Dr. Light smiled serenely.

 _'I swear, he's like my natural enemy...'_ an unwillingly calm Anger grumbled.

"...I believe you've already met."

 _'Huh?!'_ Riley thought in unison with all five of her emotions.

Dr. Light took in the incredulous expressions of the Andersen family and made a sweeping gesture towards his two children.

Rock and Roll waved politely.

 _'I KNEW IT!'_ Fear broke Riley's mental silence. _'THE ROBOT UPRISING IS UPON US!'_

* * *

18.5 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - I~dea!**

"So why pretend that you're not robots?" Riley finally asked.

"Well..." Rock grinned sheepishly.

"It's kind of petty, but we really like seeing the looks on people's faces when they realize that we're not human," Roll explained. "Or whatever the main population is that Loop."

 _'Oh man!'_ Joy laughed in Riley's head. _'The look on Fear's face was_ priceless _!'_

 _'Yeah, it was kind of funny how he was running around like a chicken with his head cut off...'_ Sadness added.

 _'Uh... gross analogy, Sadness...'_ Disgust muttered.

"Sorry about how we laughed at your reaction," Rock apologized. (7)

 _'It was a perfectly legitimate question!'_ Fear yelled.

 _'Doesn't mean it wasn't hilarious, Fear,'_ Joy giggled.

 _'And a terrible first impression,'_ Disgust added. _'Way to go, Fear.'_

"Yeah, well," Riley blushed a bit, "saying 'oh, so you _are_ part of the robot uprising?' wasn't my finest moment."

"Maybe not," Roll allowed, "but we've had worse reactions."

"Anyway, you're the visiting looper, any plans?"

"Well..." Riley hedged, still not quite wrapping her mind around the two robots in front of her being the local Anchors (each of them was an Anchor apparently, it was a rare thing or something). For one, she'd never heard of a Rock or Roll in either of the games she'd played. Of course, they could have been in the endings, which would make sense as she'd never beaten either of the games. "I kind of wanted to talk to Mega Man... but since I'm replacing that Dr. Wily character... I guess he doesn't get built?"

Rock and Roll blinked at Riley's statement and exchanged wordless glances.

"You... don't know who either of us is?" Roll asked, getting a shaken head from Riley.

"I only played the '2' and '3' games one Loop when I broke my leg in a hockey accident and never actually beat them."

"Huh..." Rock blinked thoughtfully. "In that case... we won't tell you."

 _'What?!'_ Anger fumed in Riley's head.

 _'Oh, come on! That's just low, even for a boy,'_ Disgust added.

 _'They gotta tell us about Mega Man!'_ Joy insisted. _'He's like, the local superhero, right?'_

"Don't get us wrong," Rock hastened to add, "we'll be happy to tell you if you guess, but we don't always get the chance to just 'hang out' with other loopers and be friends before the events that Dr. Wily kicks off become a factor. The last ones were..."

"...Phineas and Ferb actually," Roll supplied after a moment of thought on the matter.

"Oh, circuits, _that_ was a wild summer," Rock grinned. "Those two are my favorite mad scientists after dad."

 _'We are totally asking about that later,'_ Joy said.

"You've met Phineas and Ferb?" Riley blinked. "They gave me the welcome speech."

"Which musical number did they use?" Rock asked eagerly.

 _'I got this!'_ Joy cheered as the memory came up.

"Number... 5," Riley replied.

"Awesome!" Roll grinned. "We actually helped them write that one!"

 _'Really?!'_ Joy exclaimed. _'Sweet!'_

 _'I like her more and more,'_ Disgust added.

"Huh..." Riley blinked.

"Anyway, what's your Loop like?" Rock asked.

 _'Wait... they don't know about us either?'_ Sadness wondered.

 _'Oop, we're getting memories from long-term!'_ Fear alerted.

"You... haven't seen the movie?" Riley asked. Aside from Phineas and Ferb, who were often too busy running around with wacky inventions to really take much time for movies or novels in their eternal summer, most of her fused Loops had been with people who had seen the movie about her baseline. She'd watched it herself a few times, which was still a rather odd experience.

"No offense," Roll assured her, "but we don't always have the time for movies."

"And the popular fare in our Loop tends towards sci-fi anyway," Rock shrugged.

 _'Yeah, that's so not us,'_ Disgust allowed.

 _'Oh, oh!'_ Joy interrupted before Riley got back on track, _'This calls for an idea!'_

Riley blinked again as a concept she'd been thinking of since Phineas and Ferb introduced her to her own emotions came to the forefront of her mind and grinned. "Actually, I think I know what I want to do this Loop..."

* * *

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"I'm not sure I like leaving Riley with those two..."

"Yeah... robots pretending to be human? It doesn't sit well with me..."

"It'll be okay, Anger, Fear," Mrs. Andersen's Sadness reassured her fellow emotions as she called up a memory from short-term to play the interactions with the two... child robots, apparently... earlier that morning. "They seem to be very polite children after all, and the girl was helpful earlier."

"Yeah," Mrs. Andersen's Disgust chimed in with a sigh of contentment as the scene of the young girl cleaning the Andersen family's new house within an inch of its life played. "Ahhh... _There's_ at least a week's worth of house cleaning we won't have to be doing..."

"Yeah!" her Joy chimed in. "And Riley seems to like them, so they deserve a decent chance."

"I still don't like it."

"Very well then, check in with the husband. This is his new job after all and we should follow his lead."

"Looks like dear has his 'game face on', Sadness. We can't get a clear reading."

"Then we wait for now."

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Sir," Mr. Andersen's Fear reported as his fellows; particularly Mr. Andersen's Joy, Sadness, and Disgust; gave the current talk with Dr. Light their attention, "I've been through all of the plans for potential situations and there is nothing about child robots wanting to be friends with Riley."

"Are you certain?" his Anger asked.

"Absolutely," his Fear replied, shuffling through various large binders. "We have scenarios on what to do if there's a robot uprising, a robot apocalypse, a robot dance craze resurgence, robot doppelgängers, robot overlords, robots going haywire (I set that volume aside just in case), robot traffic cops, robot crooks, robot detectives, robots replacing honest working men (set that aside too since it's now relevant), murderous roombas, robot costumes that really want you to wear them, drones flying too close for comfort, and so on, but nothing about robot children." (8)

"Our new boss is wrapping up his speech," the man's Joy spoke up.

"Okay, recap for us."

"He wants us to manage the business side, of course, but it seems his real plan is to use robotics to accelerate the world's cultural and technological development by removing most, if not all, of the age-old problems plaguing humanity. His end-game is to essentially develop a brand new sapient race of machines to live and work alongside humanity as we go forth to settle other planets, working together to evolve far beyond what either could alone. The current line he wants to market is basically a stepping stone to achieve that."

Mr. Andersen's Anger and Fear blinked owlishly for a few moments.

***The Real World***

"I must say, Dr. Light," Mr. Andersen said after several long moments to digest what the man had told him, "when you think big, you don't do it halfway."

"Thank you, Mr. Andersen," the scientist smiled.

"Don't thank me yet," Mr. Andersen replied gruffly. "I get that you have good intentions and just want to help people, but I paid attention in my history classes doctor. I know that for every problem someone like you ever solved, at least two more crawled out of the woodwork later on. Some arguably worse than the original problem. Have you even thought about what kinds of problems a plan like yours might create?"

"Actually, I have," Dr. Light replied with a serene smile. "And I find it interesting that you mention history because that is right where I looked when I wanted to know what humanity might face living alongside a new race with potential values and desires that differ greatly from our own. What I discovered was that this would be nothing that humanity has not already faced in some form or another."

Mr. and Mrs. Andersen both blinked.

"It seems fantastic, but take into account the sheer number of different cultures among humanity itself. Do you even know how many there are on this one tiny planet? I don't, even after extensive research. Barriers of language, values, geography, morality, culture, technology levels, living conditions, sexuality, stereotypes, and more have all conspired to divide us and yet each day those divisions grow just a bit less divisive. We see more and more that those differences make humanity stronger as a whole rather than weaker. So the addition of one more group with differences can only serve to strengthen the whole in the long run, provided we are accepting of them for what they are. Yes, there will always be problems and I suppose a part of me takes comfort in that. For if there were no problems to solve, then I quite fear that I'd find life very empty indeed. Not to mention that I'd be out of a job." (9)

The Andersens exchanged a glance before turning back to him.

"So, what do you say?"

"I say it's a shame you don't run for office because suddenly I'd like to vote for you," Mr. Andersen chuckled. "Alright, doctor. You've got yourself a business manager. Let's see where this crazy road leads."

* * *

Rock, Roll, and Riley were gathered around what looked like a red sphere attached to a yellow box with blinking lights. Off to the side was a bundle of cords that looked made to attach to the box.

"Well," Rock mused as he inspected the device, "it could certainly use some maintenance after being in your pocket for so long, but otherwise this Mind Machine is in pretty good condition."

"Oh, good," Riley sighed in relief.

 _'Yeah, that would be all we needed,'_ Disgust snarked. _'Having an idea like this and then it being derailed because the thing didn't work anymore.'_

"It wouldn't be that big a deal if it wasn't," Rock tapped his head with a smirk. "We both have all of Phineas and Ferb's usual blueprints in memory. Plus a few things they built just for that Loop."

"Oh, maker, the Phineas and Ferb Numbers were awesome!" Roll giggled.

 _'We are totally getting that story later,'_ Joy insisted.

"So, do you think my idea will work?" Riley asked.

"It should," Rock nodded, pulling a large circuit out of nowhere, "especially with these. This is an Integrated Circuit chip. Essentially it's what allows robots like us to have personalities."

"At least the ones not looping," Roll clarified.

"Yeah," Rock nodded. "We're... a bit beyond the usual capacity of the IC chips as a result of looping, but even so these things are so complex that, though they're manufactured the same way, each one will effectively produce a unique evolving personality."

 _'Wow...'_ Sadness whispered.

"Again, not taking the particulars of the Loops into account," Roll clarified. "Even though they're supposed to produce unique personalities even when installed in identical machines and loaded with identical programs, the robot masters we know still end up with pretty similar personalities. Usually, anyway."

"Add it to a complex enough CPU and it goes from a basic artificial intelligence to an artificially created intelligence."

 _'AKA, a recipe for disaster!'_ Fear added.

"What's the difference?" Riley asked.

"It's the difference between mimicking thought patterns and actually possessing them," Rock said. "Not always easy to define, but very, very real."

"The personality and emotions they enable are so complex that the average robot master variant is essentially a missing link between having a Soul and not having one. Our Admin says it's part of why we're able to Loop in the first place." (10)

"So...?"

"So," Rock grinned, "we should be able to essentially make a new Mind Machine that can download these additional loopers who live in your head to an IC chip, which we can then put in a robot body of their very own."

"You'll be touring Arcadia together in no time," Roll smiled.

 _'I love this plan!'_ Joy cheered.

 _'Yeah,'_ Sadness added quietly, _'we can take long walks in the rain and obsess over the weight of life's problems together...'_

_'And hugs! Don't forget hugs!'_

_'Guys, I really think we should take a closer look at this idea before we go through with it...'_ Fear worried. _'I mean... something's bound to go wrong.'_ (11)

 _'Oh, don't be such a spoilsport,'_ Disgust scoffed. _'Riley, you better be ready for one heck of a shopping spree because I intend to leave you looking fabulous.'_

 _'Heh...'_ Anger chuckled, _'don't forget to leave some time for a little one-on-one on the ice!'_

 _'Guys!'_ Fear insisted.

 _'Oh, lighten up, Fear!'_ Joy chastised.

 _'Yeah, think of being able to see a scary movie with Riley,'_ Sadness prodded. _'I mean, you'll probably embarrass yourself screaming, but that's okay, right?'_

_'Okay... yes, I'd like that; not the being embarrassed part, the other one; but still...!'_

_'Fear, do you have one solid reason why we shouldn't do this?'_ Anger sighed heavily.

_'No! I don't! I can't think of a single one! Or find one in my disaster planners! And that should worry you!'_

_'Oh, give it a rest Fear,'_ Disgust scoffed. _'I say we go through with it.'_

_'Yay!'_

"It's settled then!" Riley smiled at her new friends.

* * *

18.6 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Mind Master**

"What is that you're installing?" Riley asked Rock as the latter fiddled with the generic robot bodies her emotions would inhabit. The technical specs went way over her head, but the gist was that on download, the bodies would be reconfigured to something more closely resembling the personality on the IC chip. Rock and Roll had mentioned something about 'Color Masters', but Riley hadn't asked for clarification. The last time she had, it had resulted in a technospeak lecture that had left her eyes crossed.

Come to think of it, she might regret asking her latest question...

"I call it the Zen Buster," Rock told her. "It's an energy blaster I developed that calms the target's emotional state. Completely harmless and nonlethal, but it could come in handy if by some misfortune there ends up being trouble. I developed it after..." (12)

 _'Joy, don't fall asleep now!'_ Fear yelped in Riley's head.

Riley tuned out, smiling and nodding politely as Rock went on about something called 'broforce'.

* * *

Joy smiled as she looked out at the Islands of Personality that made up Riley visible from headquarters.

Proud and center was the improved Family Island, powered by a core memory formed from Joy and Sadness, three times as large as almost any of the others, and also supported by Riley's pre-Awake yellow core memory. Also at the back were the reformed versions of the other four personality islands that Riley had possessed prior to that disastrous baseline incident. Hockey Island, reformed in the baseline by a core memory from Joy and Anger; Honesty Island, reformed by a core memory from Joy and Fear; Friendship Island, another Joy and Anger one; and Goofball Island, the only one of the original five that was still pure Joy (if smaller than the others for that fact). Next to Goofball Island was a similarly small island, formed from a purely Sad core memory, its imagery morose and lonely, calling out for a hug. The core memory Sadness had formed that Joy had prevented from reaching the chamber originally.

Then there were the other Islands Riley had formed after the baseline incident in the year following while reforming the original five. There was School Island, formed from a core memory by Sadness and Anger after Riley spent a week on a particular science project only to have it completely ruined by an accident; Vampire Romance Island, that Sadness was rather fond of despite being formed from a core memory of Disgust and Fear when reading a book that Riley had found utterly creepy and disturbing yet could not put down (13); Fashion Island, powered by a core memory of Joy and Disgust that had formed on a shopping trip when some of Riley's friends tried to get her to try on the most ridiculous outfit for laughs; and Communication Island.

"Heh..." Joy chuckled at that one, with its cell phone imagery. "Insert young girl with her phone joke here, folks."

The Loops had formed a few interesting ones as well. Perhaps foremost was Concert Island, formerly Boy Band Island, the original core memory joined by one from a Loop where Riley had learned to play the guitar and had found she was pretty good at it. There were several others that were new in the Loops, not all clearly visible from the windows of Headquarters. One that was clearly visible was Zombie Island, formed by Fear and Anger (much to both of their dismay) during a Loop they'd been the only two of Riley's emotions Awake during a zombie apocalypse. The island featured a large statue representation of Riley holding a hockey stick that Joy thought held a rather brave and heroic pose as it faced off against an oncoming tide of undead.

But the one that was the most impressive was Unity Island, located directly below Headquarters and thus only partially visible from the windows, and extending out to engulf the connections tethering the other islands to Headquarters in a way that turned them from precarious walkways only meant to channel power to and from Headquarters into proper bridges, with railings and everything. The island had been formed during a group hug between all five emotions and Riley herself the first time they met face-to-face. A feat made possible thanks to the genius brothers Phineas and Ferb and their miraculous Mind Machine. The brothers had not only brought Riley inside her head (an action only necessary because all five of her emotions had come to blows over the confusion of the Loops, and unwittingly thrown Riley's mind into chaos as a result), but they'd helpfully explained the Loops, taught them all the art of subspace pockets and pings, and even upgraded their console to allow direct telepathic communication between Riley and her emotions without Riley needing to enter her own mind again. An upgrade that looped with them (or at least Riley) even!

And now... now they were going to actually attempt the feat in reverse. The emotions leaving Riley's head to join her outside.

It was going to be the best day ever!

What could possibly go wrong? (14)

* * *

"Everything set?" Roll asked her brother.

"Five bodies, three female standard, two male standard, ready and waiting. With a few spares just in case," Rock replied as he looked over the alcoves housing the prepared bodies.

"Check!" Riley noted.

"New mind machine showing all systems green."

"Check!"

"Remote override in place and operational?"

"Check!" Riley confirmed as she adjusted the failsafe headband the Light twins had developed for her.

"Five sapient emotional entities ready and waiting...?"

_'Ready!'_

_'Waiting...'_

_'Let's get this show on the road already!'_

_'I still think this is a bad idea!'_

_'Oh, put a sock in it already!'_

"Check, check, check, check, and check!" Riley smiled, strapping herself into the main chair while Roll adjusted the headgear.

"One young lady hooked up and ready to rock and roll?" Rock grinned.

"You know it!" Riley grinned back.

"Then, let's get started!"

* * *

The five emotions in Riley's head stared up at the repurposed memory recall tube, which in short order would put its new functionality to use by moving them to new bodies of their own with which they would be able to interact with their mutual favorite person in the multiverse.

"I still have a really bad feeling about this!" Fear shuffled nervously.

"It'll be fine, Fear," Riley's voice sounded from the control panel. "I mean, you haven't found anything wrong with the plan, right?"

"Not a thing!" Joy chirped for her fellow emotion.

"And not for lack of trying either," Anger grumbled. Searching through Fear's planners for something on this scenario had not left him in the best of moods the first time the emotion had grabbed him for the job. Nor had the subsequent attempts.

"Anger, be nice," Sadness scolded half-heartedly.

"DO _ANY_ OF YOU REALIZE JUST WHAT IT MEANS THAT _I_ CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!" Fear shouted.

"Not really," Disgust rolled her eyes as the memory recall tube began powering up and smirked as a thought occurred to her.

"I SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND SOMETHING WRONG WITH ANY–" Fear was cut off as Disgust gave him an unceremonious push towards the recall tube and he was whisked away.

"What?" Disgust asked when the other emotions stared at her. "I just did what we were all thinking."

* * *

If he had a mouth, he would have smiled. It had taken a great deal of patience and hacking to arrange the opportunity he was about to have, from arranging the current fused Loop to ensuring that both that fool Hephaestus and that idiot Janus were out of their offices for reasons that would not have them interfering any time soon to subtly steering the thoughts of all involved away from the very obvious consequences of their endeavor. But it was about to pay off big time. And with a personal touch, he would get both revenge on the ones that had humiliated him before as well as a follower all his own. Perhaps the first of many.

Everything was going his way this time. He could almost taste his triumph already. For once, he lamented his lack of a mouth, because this was a prime opportunity to laugh.

* * *

Rock and Roll watched as the first of the male robots reconfigured itself into a tall skinny form with a purple color theme, and then proceeded to freak out.

"AAAHHHHHH!" 'Fear Man' screamed as he looked around the room. "I wasn't ready yet! What if there were alligators out here! Or jump ropes!"

"There are no alligators in the lab, moron," a green-armored 'Disgust Woman' scoffed as she finished the transition.

"And we haven't had weaponized jump ropes around here for a few dozen Loops now," Roll added. (15)

"Wait, that's a thing?" the short, squarish, and crimson 'Anger Man' asked in confusion as he stepped out of the alcove.

"It's not even the most ridiculous one we've had," Rock nodded as 'Sadness Woman' began her transformation. "Dr. Wily's a _mad_ scientist after all. How are you feeling, Riley?"

"Pumped!" Riley grinned like a kid on a sugar rush. "I can't wait to finish this!"

"No anxiety?" 'Fear Man' asked? "Trepidation? Discomfort? Annoyance that it's not yet over?"

"None at all!" Riley grinned, not noticing the dawning looks of horror on her emotions' faces as the final download commenced. "In fact I–oh..."

"Oh what?" Roll asked in alarm even as 'Joy Woman' began to take form.

"With us out here..." 'Anger Man' began.

"The party is getting started!" 'Joy Woman' declared.

"No, Joy," 'Disgust Woman' trembled. "With us out here, Riley can't _feel_..."

'Joy Woman's' happy expression froze and slowly melted into a look of horrified realization. "We have to get back in there," she declared.

"No worries," Rock told them hastily. "All we need to do is hook you back up so we can reverse the process. We'll have this sorted out in a few–"

"Who...?" Riley began speaking in a monotone, like she was certain she was supposed to be terrified, but couldn't pull it off.

* * *

Ah, it was so good to be inside such a user-friendly mind for once. Especially with all the troublesome distractions and resistance so thoroughly removed. Arranging a mindscape avatar was generally tricky even for the best of divine operators, but mental purviews were something of a specialty of his.

"Who... who are you?" the emotionless monotone voice of the mind's owner called out, somehow sensing his presence. Somehow able to sense that his presence was wrong, even absent her emotions. "What are you doing here?"

He couldn't speak, of course, but he sent out the mental impressions he had perfected in place of such a crude communication method. As he walked over to a bin of lightbulbs, and what a droll way to represent ideas that was, he gave her a sense that everything would be fine.

There... There was the idea he knew would be here. The idea that couldn't help but form, especially in a branch like this one. After all, ideas did not form with discrimination about which were bad and which were good. Only their execution cared about that distinction. And with those troublesome emotions gone, there was nothing to stand in the way of this idea.

"You're not supposed to be in here..."

As he walked over to the console and found the place to put ideas, unceremoniously extracting and discarding the one already there, he sent the impression that such details as him not belonging no longer mattered. He was here now and all she had to do was follow his lead, stop resisting, not cause trouble, and give in to the madness.

He inserted the idea forcefully and twisted it in such a way that accepting it would be simple reflex.

* * *

"THIS IS THE WORST POSSIBLE DISASTER EVER!" 'Fear Man' screamed as he ran in circles. It was perhaps a testament to the others' agreement that they didn't try to calm him down.

"Hurry!" 'Joy Woman' urged. "If someone's poking around Riley's headquarters while we're not there..."

"We're working as fast as we can," Rock and Roll assured them.

"Who the hell could even get in there and how?!" 'Anger Man' demanded.

"We should have listened to Fear..." 'Sadness Woman' sighed.

"Yeah, we shoul–" 'Disgust Woman' cut off suddenly.

"Guy–?" Roll began to turn around, and caught a bolt of green energy to the chest that blossomed like a massive flower before collapsing in on itself, leaving Roll to drop to her knees and wrap her arms around herself protectively.

"Roll?!" Rock turned to check on his sister, mentally wondering why the energy burst hadn't affected him when a sunshine yellow bolt of energy slammed into him and flared like a flash grenade.

"Oh maker, this is all our fault," Roll muttered to herself, shaking and rocking in place with a self-reproaching grimace twisting her features. "We should have never suggested this. It's all our fault. All our fault."

"Hahahahahahahahahaha!" Rock rolled on the ground, laughing up a storm at a joke only he seemed to get.

"Riley?" 'Joy Woman' asked with a pained smile, her buster arm still pointed at Rock. "Why did you make us do that?"

"That was a very mean thing to do, Riley!" 'Sadness Woman' admonished, staring wide-eyed at the girl still in the chair for the new mind machine. "You should feel ashamed of yourself."

"I should..." Riley agreed listlessly. "But I don't..."

"Riley, stop this right now!" 'Anger Man' demanded, beginning to move in the girl's direction, but finding that his body refused to act against her.

"The override..." 'Fear Man' realized, having gone so far into sheer terror that he was now experiencing a strange sense of calm.

"Yes..." Riley confirmed. "You can take no action I do not command, my Emotion Masters... Now go. Conquer the world in the name of Dr. Riley..."

"Riley!" 'Disgust Woman' yelled back even as the five marched unwillingly towards the exit. "This is a terrible idea!"

"I know..." Riley intoned as the five exited the room, leaving the self-reproaching Roll and the laughing Rock behind. "But I can't seem to stop myself..."

* * *

Of course she couldn't stop herself. In the absence of her emotions, she belonged to whomever took command of her ability to feel. In this case, him.

"Why...?" the girl asked again.

Because he could. Because she was his perfect vessel now without those troublesome emotions. And besides, wasn't it so much better without such conflicting views muddling her thoughts? Besides, it was considered polite to help others, and he was so very much in need of her help.

"I don't want to hurt people..."

Oh, but she did. Everyone wanted to hurt others. Some simply hid it better than the rest. Wasn't it so much better now that she didn't have those sweet little lies of polite society holding her back?

"No..."

She really needed to stop lying to herself like that. He knew what was best for her after all. She should trust him. He knew how to get what she really wanted. Because what she wanted was what he wanted.

And the Slenderman got what he wanted. (16)

* * *

18.7 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Emotionless**

Riley's emotions were breaking down fast in the current crisis. Riley had, for whatever inexplicable reason, decided to send them to conquer the world. And because she had the emergency override for their systems, they weren't able to do much to stop themselves.

Sadness was weeping up a storm already, Disgust was muttering a never-ending string of insults at the group in general and herself in particular, Anger was so livid that the override was the only thing keeping him from rampaging out of control, Joy had the most fake and pained grin embedded in her face that had ever been seen, and Fear...

Actually, Fear was rather comfortably in his element. Maybe it was just from panicking so much over not being able to think up the problems with this idea before, which had turned out totally justified, or maybe he'd somehow found some sort of zen zone by complete accident. In any case, he was furiously cataloging everything he could and coming up with possible reactions beyond screaming in terror. He was already doing that internally, so there was no need to be redundant.

Riley was having them secure Light Labs. Check. They were to begin automated production on more generic models for... reasons. Check, and disturbing in implications. They were then to head out to the city and cause as much of a panic as possible. Check, and definitely something to try and head off if possible. Too bad he couldn't see how just yet. They apparently had weapons that could induce pure emotional states in their targets. It didn't matter that they didn't seem to deal damage, starting a riot would be small potatoes for them at this point.

"Oh my god!" Fear exclaimed. "I just realized!"

"What?" Sadness sniffed morosely as they all continued on their way.

" _We're_ the robot uprising! Oh, this is bad, this is very bad!"

"What in the world?" a new voice cut in, giving Fear a sinking feeling as he turned to look. Yep, there was Doc Light at the end of the hall. With Riley's parents.

_'WORST! CASE! SCENARIO!'_

"Riley... no..." Joy strained as the overriding command to neutralize all opposition caused them all to raise their weapons at the three. "That's mom and dad! You can't!"

"What's...?" Mrs. Andersen wondered wide-eyed as she took in the sight.

"Please!" Joy pleaded.

* * *

"Don't make me do this..."

Oh, but she had to. It was all or nothing.

"I shouldn't hurt them..."

They were already hurt, one way or another. Either they became casualties like everyone else, or they watched the unfeeling monster she became. Which was the more merciful option?

"I can't..."

She could. It wasn't like she could feel bad about it, anyway. They were just two more people in her way in the end.

"I won't... Not them..."

...

Perhaps not now. But in time. There was no stopping things after all.

* * *

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"That..." Mrs. Andersen's Joy spoke up after an extended period of stunned silence. "That was another Joy... wasn't it? On the outside?"

"I... think she was crying..." Mrs. Andersen's Sadness had trouble taking her eyes off the visual display, as if the current scenery of hurried retreat (being directed by Mrs. Andersen's Fear, who was the only one even barely functional) would offer insight into the supposedly impossible phenomenon that had been witnessed.

"I... I think they might have been Riley's emotions..." the woman's Disgust offered, having noted the presence of the other four.

"What are they doing _outside_ though?" her Anger wondered, the very concept rendering her incapable of her usual forms of expression.

***The Real World***

"Doctor, what–" Mr. Andersen tried to ask as the man hurried him and his shell-shocked wife away from the strangely colored robots. The ones that had supposedly been begging Riley not to hurt them.

"No time," Dr. Light hurried them through the lab's halls away from the other robots, though not towards the exit. "We have to find our children and get them out of here!"

The Andersens exchanged a look and picked up the pace as Dr. Light led the way to the lab that their children had taken over for some personal project or other. Fortunately, no one stopped them on the way, but the sight when they arrived caused all three to come up short.

Dr. Light's creations were rocking back and forth on the ground, Roll muttering a string of self-depreciations while Rock shook with uncontrollable laughter. Nearby, strapped into a seat, staring blankly straight ahead, was Riley.

"Riley!" Mrs. Andersen cried out and rushed for her daughter, followed closely by her husband. They didn't know what was wrong, or why, and they didn't care just yet. Their only concern was the safety of their dau–

*Bzzzvvvmmm*

Mrs. Andersen collided with an energy field a few feet from Riley and fell backwards like she'd run into a wall, into her husband who barely managed to keep them both standing.

"You shouldn't be here..." Riley muttered in a tone that sounded half dead from sheer lack of emotion. "You shouldn't see this..."

"Riley!" Mrs. Andersen yelled, pounding on the energy field, the otherwise invisible force lighting up at each point of impact. "Riley!"

"Rock! Roll! What happened?"

"Em-m-motional Pro-ha-ha-ha-cessing-ee-hee Overloa-ha-ha-ha-ha-d! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Rock managed to wheeze out between laughs.

"We should have known it would go wrong," Roll added in disgust. "We're such failures."

"Riley! You need to let us through! We can help!" Mr. Andersen yelled past the forcefield keeping him from his daughter.

"I can't..." Riley replied listlessly. "It's the rules... Dr. Riley has to take over the world..."

"No you don't, little monkey!" Mr. Andersen insisted.

"Riley, what's gotten into you?" Mrs. Andersen cried.

"He did... After the others got out of me..."

A sudden chill ran through everyone, so pervasive that the concerned Andersens took a step back from their daughter and the robot duo's emotional breakdowns grew silent in response.

Five pairs of eyes were drawn to a holographic display floating above Riley.

"I... don't recall hooking that up..." Rock ground out as he finally started getting his systems back under control.

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Is..." the woman's Fear stared at what Mrs. Andersen was seeing. "Is that... a Headquarters?"

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Are we _actually_ seeing another Headquarters?" Mr. Andersen's Fear finished.

"More than that," the man's Sadness added. "I think it's _Riley's_..."

***The Real World***

"What's...?" Mrs. Andersen began before a face so pale it was sheet-white filled the screen.

Or rather, the distinct lack of a face where there should have been one.

" _You_..." Dr. Light whispered in a combination of stark fear, primal anger, and utter loathing.

A sense of dark amusement, the kind found in people who liked to torture small animals for fun, washed over them, as well as a sense of recognition. Whoever, or whatever, this faceless individual was, they were unconcerned with the doctor's ire. And why shouldn't they be? They had already won. Riley was theirs now, fully under their power and beyond anyone's ability to save.

"Stop..." Roll ground out.

No, he would not stop. Not until the world was Riley's, and Riley was his. It had already begun, and there was nothing any of them could do about it. Riley only listened to him now. What he wanted became what she wanted.

"Stop listening to him..."

"What?" Mrs. Andersen shook off the paralyzing foreboding that she'd been feeling at the words. Seeing her do so prompted her husband to do the same.

The pathetic little robots didn't know what they were talking about. How could they? It wasn't like they were human after all. Not like their monster of a daughter who was going to conquer the world and wreak untold havoc on–

"Those thoughts you're getting..." Rock huffed with effort. "That's how he communicates..."

They were supremely annoying little robots. But it was no matter. The lab was already under Riley's control, and by extension, his. Soon enough, none of them would be any problem whatsoever.

"Dr. Light..." Mr. Andersen shook his head furiously as if that would rid himself of the sinister thoughts invading his mind. As he did, he clutched his wife firmly on the shoulder, though he was uncertain if it was for her benefit or his own. "What is...?"

"I'll explain later," the good doctor replied with effort as he helped his children to their feet. "Right now, we need to get out of the lab."

"But Riley–"

"You can't help me if you're all dead..." Riley stated in an emotionless monotone.

...Fine. They could run like the scared little mice they were, but it would make no difference. There was no saving Riley anymore. There would be no saving themselves either. Why, by the end of the day there would be no saving anyone. (17)

* * *

18.8 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Regrouping**

"Doctor, what was that... that... _thing_?" Mr. Andersen finally asked when the five of them had gotten back to the Andersen household. His mind was a whirl and his emotional state was more unsteady than a land dweller after riding a rollercoaster and stepping onto the deck of a ship in the middle of a storm. (18)

"He is called the Slenderman," Dr. Light informed the Andersens as he went to check on Rock and Roll, only to be waved off.

"We're fine, dad, really," Rock assured the man with a weak grin. "Finish telling them."

"Very well," Dr. Light sighed before turning back to the worried Andersens, Jill having to lean on her husband for support. "The Slenderman is a memetic lifeform, a sapient being manifested from pure thought, and perhaps the most sinister and vile to have ever existed."

"A... a what?" Jill asked in confusion. "And how did he get ahold of our daughter?!"

"Our fault," Roll sighed heavily. "Rock and I didn't take possible intruders into account when we helped Riley develop a way for her emotions to come outside her head and spend time with her."

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"...A-buh?"

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"I... what?"

"They can... do that?"

"Oh god... that thing _was_ in Riley's headquarters!"

***The Real World***

"I think he might have been steering our thoughts away from the problems with the plan, like Riley's emotionless state once her emotions were outside her head," Rock theorized, "but I can't prove it. In any case, we were expecting possible problems with the emotions going out of control with their own bodies and gave Riley the ability to override their controls. And now..."

"How do you fight a... 'memetic lifeform'?" Mrs. Andersen asked finally.

"With belief," Roll answered. "They gain strength through belief, but they can also be weakened by it. You just have to believe that they can be beaten more than you believe they can't. It's... sometimes harder than it sounds."

"How... how do we save Riley?"

"First, we have to get her emotions back," Rock replied as he fiddled with the television remote, intending to find the news on any developments. He didn't have long to wait.

"–where an attack by unknown machines has started a massive riot," the voice of BNC's news anchor Chest spoke up from the emergency broadcast the moment the television came on. "We not go live to Reporter Ripot, already on the scene."

"Thank you Chest," the green reporter bot with helicopter blades jutting from his back said as behind him a crowd of angry people were tearing apart storefronts and fighting each other viciously in the streets with no rhyme or reason. Men, women, rich, poor, old, young, all kinds of people were tearing apart the street and each other in a blind rage. "As you can see, the riot behind me broke out after a short squat red robot fired an unknown weapon into the streets and in moments the scene became what you see here. The police have been dispatched, but I'm told that a tall, thin purple robot intercepted them and all units have fled. As things stand, there is no telling when the violence will subside and–"

A roll of thunder was picked up by the camera, and moments later a rain of shining blue washed over Ripot.

"–it's just the most heartbreaking thing ever!" the robot wailed pitifully, tears of lubricant seeping out of his optics as the reporter curled up into a fetal ball and sobbed on live television. From the way the camera managed to maintain a partial view of him, and the sound of more sobbing, it seemed the cameraman had succumbed to the same fate.

"Uh..." Chest looked disturbed as the news feed cut back to him. "W-we're told that Mayor Dorado has called for the support of the armed forces to contain this disaster, but there is as-yet no confirmed response. Citizens of Arcadia are advised to remain indoors and–"

"We have to get out there now," Rock lowered the television volume so he could be better heard.

"What?!" Dr. Light objected. "But your current systems aren't designed for–"

"We don't have time for you to upgrade us, dad," Rock reminded the man. "We have to get their IC chips back, _intact_ , before something happens to them. As it stands, the military might either fail and become part of the riot being started, or they'll succeed..."

"...and possibly destroy one or more of Riley's emotions 'forever'," Roll finished, deciding not to state the likely possibility that any emotion lost would be restored for Riley's next Loop. That wouldn't serve to reassure her parents this Loop, nor would it fix whatever Riley suffered due to a Loop with an incomplete emotional state.

"We'll figure it out, dad," Rock smiled. "We both have the Variable Tool System and the Copy Chips installed. We can subdue them and get their IC chips without damaging them in any way." He intentionally left out that their current versions were much less versatile than the weaponized Variable Weapon System and Copy Chip combo, rendering almost all of their looping Master Weapon Libraries unusable, but they would just have to do. They would have to face this crisis without the benefit of being Mega Man or Mega Woman.

"You... You can save our daughter?"

"Of course," Roll nodded. "Just have faith in us."

* * *

Compiler's note: This arc was so big I had to split it into five chapters total. Keep going to read the rest.


	21. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen (Part Two of Five) - Mega Man: Inside Out

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-25. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen, part 2 of 5 - Mega Man: Inside Out**

18.9 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Emotion Masters**

The Slenderman would have smiled sinisterly at the cowering mind workers before him were he able. But he wasn't, so he settled for looming menacingly and wordlessly conveying that they'd better have what he'd requested.

Gulping, the mind workers motioned to the rest who'd come along on the Train of Thought and they started bringing in various figures and knickknacks.

"I would die for Riley!" a painfully stereotypical brooding pretty-boy declared as he was shoved in. Followed by a couple more identical to the first, some cloud people, a rainbow-maned unicorn, several odds and ends from the depths of the girl's mind, and a pink... something or other.

He wasted no time and pointed imperiously to the space under the tube that the girl's emotions had left by.

"What if we don't wanna?" one of the things piped up.

Slenderman sent out a very detailed impression of what would happen then, getting a satisfying terrified squeak from the speaker.

"I live for Riley, and I would die for Riley," a chorus replied from the 'boyfriends'. A more pathetic and boring bunch of joes he'd never experienced, he'd wager.

Slenderman informed them that, if they really wanted to help Riley, they would stop being stubborn. The girl was resisting him, and that would only cause her pain in the long run. If she was to be free of pain, she needed to be free of things that caused her pain. Which was all of them. She would be much more sedate, and safe, with her mind emptied of all... distractions...

* * *

'Sadness Woman' gazed down at the poor reporters she'd just reduced to tears with her 'Sad Raincloud' weapon. They should have been helping tell people what was wrong with the city and what they should do to stop it, not bawling like helpless children.

 _'I shouldn't have done that...'_ she thought despondently. _'They were just doing their job and I...'_

She sniffed and let the synthetic tears of her current mechanical body flow freely down her face. It wasn't like anyone could tell with the rain her weapon made. Just another way in which she'd failed today.

_'Failing is a part of life...'_

* * *

Disgust, or 'Disgust Woman' she supposed, despised everything about the situation. She despised her lack of control over what she was doing, she despised how incredibly easy it was for her to turn people against each other–

"Get that gross thing away from me!" a young woman backhanded a small black box out of the hands of a kneeling young man, whose hopeful expression turned confused and hurt as the woman vented the emotions that 'Disgust Woman's' 'Blooming Disgust' weapon had invoked in her, and every other female in its radius, leaving the unaffected males to fruitlessly try and placate them. A short ways away on a playground, a similar scene played out except with only parents affected, leaving the children to wonder just what they'd done wrong.

–and she really despised how much Fear had been right about... everything.

She grimaced as the order came in to fire on another group. Another order she'd love to refuse, but couldn't. She had to obey it. Her body would move whether she resisted or not.

"Fine... Maybe I have to do this, but I'm doing it under protest..."

* * *

'Fear Man' trembled as he stalked around a corner, terrified that someone was going to realize what he'd done to the police with his 'Frantic Fright' weapon and arrest him for it. They'd lock him up and throw away the key! Or deport him! Or deport him and lock him up where he'd been deported to! Then he'd never be able to help Riley fix this!

"Deep breath... focus... remember what's important..." he told himself as his body continued moving according to Riley's unfathomable directions. He wanted to know why she was doing this... who was directing her in the absence of her emotions... what it was all about...

He'd been steadily getting less rational as things went on. He was Fear. Thinking up ways things could go wrong was his job. A job he'd failed at spectacularly. Because it wasn't just thinking about how they could go wrong, it was also coming up with ways to make wrong things go less wrong. To anticipate disasters and stop the damage they did. Or at least figure out how to end them before it got too bad.

Well, he'd failed to see this coming, despite the fact that it should have been obvious. Riley without emotions? Of course she'd be emotionless! Of course she'd be ripe for whatever decided to take advantage of her vulnerable state! Of course the whole thing was the worst idea in the history of worst ideas!

And the worstest of all worst parts was that he couldn't figure out a way to stop it! He and the others were every bit as helpless as Riley was right now! Where was Mega Man now?! Or a Mega Woman if it was that kind of Loop?! Where was the hero who stopped robot uprisings?!

Oh, that was right, he _didn't exist because Riley had replaced the villain and taken over the lab where the hero was built!_

* * *

Anger was furious at everything. He was furious with those two kids who'd built the machine that had extracted all of Riley's emotions like this, he was furious with the orders that had sent him out into the city to cause a riot, he was furious with the people who didn't know enough to get the hell out of his way before he turned them into raging berserkers with his 'Angry Flame' weapon, he was especially furious with the fact that his weapon _went through walls_ and affected people indoors, and he was especially furious at himself for not being strong enough to stop any of it.

"WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!?!"

* * *

Joy wanted nothing more in the world right than than to be able to stop smiling. Barring that, she'd accept no longer having the ability to force others to smile by shooting them.

"Hahahahahahaha!"

*Wham*

"STOP LAUGHING!"

The emotion she represented was supposed to be something wonderful. Something to allow people to revel in the glory and beauty of living! Not...

*Biff*

"I ca-ha-ha-ha-han't!"

*Pow*

...not something forced onto others. She'd learned that the hard way with Riley in baseline. Trying to force her to be happy in a situation that didn't call for it, trying to make her be happy to the exclusion of growing into a better person, had nearly ruined everything.

"STOP IT RIGHT NOW BEFORE I MAKE YOU!"

*Oof*

"I-hi-hi'm try-hi-i-hee-hee-hee-ng!"

She should be horrified at what she was being made to force on others right then. She should be furious, appalled, despondent. She should be anything but happy about this! If ever there was a situation in which there was nothing to be happy about, it was this one! But she was _Joy_. Without the others to ground her, to temper her, there wasn't anything else she _could_ feel. There was nothing else she could _do_.

"THAT'S IT! I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU STOP LAUGHING IF IT KI–"

A 'Joyous Sunburst' flared brightly after it hit.

"–i-i-illll-ee-hee-hee-hee!" (19)

* * *

18.10 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Emotional Breakdown**

Rock had found the police riot squad rather quickly. Avoiding getting run over by them as they fled the city was a fair bit trickier. Especially given that he'd been trying to use the Zen Buster to calm them, and they'd been in such a panic that they'd taken it as a threat.

Rock would have made the design less threatening, but... well, guns weren't designed the way they were to be threatening. They were designed that way because the design worked. That it worked in a way that was understandably threatening was just an inevitable side effect.

However, he'd gotten the police relatively calmed down, and followed reports of the one that had attacked them. Helping a few other panicked citizens had narrowed do–

"LOOK OUT!"

Rock turned and immediately performed a limbo maneuver to duck a bolt of purple energy before tracking its origin to a tall and thin purple robot with wide eyes and a long nose.

"Hey, Fe–"

Rock noticed his opponent's eyes flicking towards something behind him and sidestepped as the purple energy bolt whizzed past the spot he'd been in trailing a stiff breeze.

"–ar Man," Rock held his arms up in a way that was meant to be nonthreatening even as he tracked the bouncing projectile that had missed him twice. "I'm not hear t–"

Rock ducked his head to the side

"–o hurt you, I just want to tal–"

Another sidestep thanks to how the emotion master couldn't help but track his own projectile, not even taking an opportunity to fire anoth–

"–k..."

Rock froze up as the projectile abruptly reversed direction and hit him straight in the stomach, ricocheting into the ground before vanishing. A part of his mind idly noted the new projectile bouncing around and deduced that Fear Man had shot a second expressly to redirect the first.

The rest of it was locked up in terror the likes of which he'd felt only a few times before. Almost all of them at the hands of one man.

"Oh geez... oh geez..." Fear Man was hyperventilating, or at least doing a good impression. "THIS IS NOT HAPPENING!"

 _'No... it_ is _happening,'_ Rock trembled, his mind racing with thoughts of how far in over his head he was. How helpless his tool-using body was in the face of something that could bring the city to its knees with a few well-placed shots. And... _'And someone has to stop it...'_

Rock took a step forward... and a shot to the chest for his efforts, strengthening the terror he felt. He could practically hear the unhinged laughter that haunted his nightmares.

He took another step forwards, and another shot for his efforts.

"What are you doing?! You need to run!!! Save yourself!"

Another step. Another shot. Another surge of terror.

"And..."

Step.

"...leave..."

Shot.

"...you..."

Terror.

"...behind?"

Wide eyes widened even further in astonishment, and the next thing Rock knew, Fear Man was folded over his fist at his stomach and the index finger on Rock's other hand was forming a motorized screwdriver.

"...Not a chance..."

* * *

"Look, I'd rather not fight you, Disgust!" Roll declared as she blocked another of the emotion master's green energy orbs, letting the flower-shaped burst wash over her without effect and wondering yet again why that was.

"Well, duh!" Disgust Woman scoffed as she fired again. "I don't want to fight you either! But, like, I'm not exactly calling the shots here!"

"I noticed!" Roll dodged a third shot and grimaced as she heard a cat screech behind her. Moments later and about fifty cats were filing out of an alley with their noses in the air like they smelled something bad. "Seriously, what is up with your weapon?"

"Oh, you wanna know?" Disgust Woman drawled mockingly as the dance continued. "The moment one of these connects with you, then every girl in fifty feet becomes unable to stand anything. Like total barf city. Or every robot, or everyone under the age of ten maybe. Possibly every blonde. I don't know, it's, like, stupidly random sometimes."

Roll blinked as Disgust Woman turned her arm cannon on herself. "Let me guess, Riley just realized that the two of us have a lot in common right now."

"Duh," Disgust Woman rolled her eyes. "I'd apologize, but being sorry's kind of not my thing."

Roll made a split decision and decided to rush her opponent as she fired on herself, preparing for the feelings of disgust to return and override her emotional processor again. She was so prepared for it to happen that she nearly missed the opportunity to take a swing at her opponent when it didn't.

A moment later, and Disgust Woman was on the ground with her arms bound behind her while Roll prepared to access and remove her IC chip.

"Whaddya know? Being green _is_ good for something."

* * *

_'I still can't believe you managed that!'_ Fear's mental voice buzzed like a post-survival adrenaline rush. _'That should have been pure stark raving paralyzing terror!'_

"If that was all it took to stop me, my Loops would be a lot shorter on average," Rock muttered as he looked around what had to be the poorest, dirtiest, most depressing corner of Arcadia.

As well as the spot that the string of sadness-inducing freak weather phenom had led straight to. All around, Rock could hear people weeping and wailing about anything and everything. He'd stopped using the Zen Buster on this group after spotting someone weeping over a broken store window and realizing it was an opportunistic rioter caught up in the emotional chaos and judged that these people could be left to the police and the spare handheld Zen Busters Rock had loaned them. (20)

Up ahead, walking at the most despondently slow pace possible, was the short dumpy Sadness Woman, complete with street-wide raincloud over her head that rained the blue energy that had turned so many people into emotional wrecks.

As Rock watched, the raincloud subsided, and almost immediately, Sadness Woman fired a shimmering blue orb over her head that burst into another with a mild roll of thunder.

"Oh... hi..." the emotion master waved half-heartedly when she saw Rock.

"Um... hi?" Rock greeted back in confusion. "Er... could you maybe turn the cloud off for a bit and come with me? The peo–"

"I know, I know," Sadness woman cut him off with a dejected expression, "it's my fault."

"Uh... no it's not," Rock approached as nonthreateningly as he could, trying to see if he could talk Sadness Woman down.

"Don't come any closer!" Sadness Woman cautioned when Rock was a step away from the rain, only for one of her warning hands to convert to a buster and fire a blue orb past Rock's head that formed a raincloud directly behind him. "I..."

"It's fine, I was kind of expecting that," Rock smiled calmly.

"Oh..."

 _'I wish I could help,'_ Fear's helpless shrug was evident in his tone.

"Just remind me of what the cost for losing is," Rock whispered as he stepped forwards into the rain. Fear's response was drowned out as a tidal wave of sorrow crashed down upon Rock. Every failure. Every life lost in Wily's wars. Every life he'd been forced to take to end those wars. Every robot who chose deactivation instead of continued existence. The weight of such things was more crushing than the pressure of the deepest oceans.

"I... I'm sorry..." Sadness Woman wept, but made no move to stop her cloud.

 _'I... I... um...'_ Fear's voice sounded frantic. _'I... I think some of those people we passed sounded suicidal?'_

Rock felt his systems jolt from that, imagined the crushing sorrow such people's families would feel if they followed through, and stepped forwards. The rain abated. Rock decided to use the opening to fire the Frantic Fright weapon at Sadness Woman. She didn't even try to dodge it, and the bolt ricocheted off into a building wall and then into the air.

Sadness Woman just looked at him apologetically, raising her buster arm straight up. "Sorry. I'm only really afraid of being crushed under the weight of life's problems. And hurting Riley. And that's kind of already happened. And it's _sad_."

A moment later, and the sadness-inducing rain had started again, bringing a fresh wave of crushing sorrow with it.

_'And... and even if they wouldn't do it themselves, I don't think any of those people are in a shape to run if something dangerous happens... Like a collapsing building... or a stampede of rabid weasels...'_

"Why... why are you–" Sadness Woman's question was cut off as she fired a rain-making bolt directly into Rock's chest, only for the tool-using robot to stride straight through the cloud that formed around him, walk up to Sadness Woman, and envelop her in a hug. "How can you stand under the weight of life's problems like that?"

"Because," Rock told her, synthetic tears flowing freely as he used the hug to begin the work to remove the emotion master's IC chip, "I know what it will cost everyone else if I don't."

* * *

_'–and why are you using a broom of all things? It's like, the uncoolest of uncool weapons,'_ Disgust continued her rambling as Roll trekked on through the city, studiously ignoring the emotion.

She'd been making gratuitous use of the Zen Buster since arriving at the edge of the riot-heavy part of the city and even with the way her brother designed the pacifying weapon to have crazy energy efficiency, and her resorting to simply knocking a few people unconscious with her broom instead, it was nearly empty. Even with the addition of the police with hand-held Zen Busters of their own, there didn't seem to be any real dent in the number of berserk rioters. She needed to find the sourc–

"–DEMAND A RECOUNT!"

_'Ugh, lovely... I always wanted to see Anger with less restraint. Not.'_

Roll ignored the comment and shot forwards before a flaming red energy ball impacted where she'd been standing and passed straight through the street without leaving so much as a scorch mark.

The short and stocky Anger Man noticed her charge and turned to fire at her again, only for Roll to pirouette around the shot and into a spinning strike that caught Anger Man under the chin, lifted him up off the ground, and knocked him back twenty feet.

_'Whoa.'_

"Bringing in the big guns, huh?" Anger Man grinned as he stood back up and took aim. "Alright! Let's do this!"

Roll dodged to the side and let the blast pass her by as she reformed her arm for the 'Blooming Disgust' weapon she'd gotten from Disgust Woman. No way was she going to try blocking that.

"Come on! Bring it!"

"Consider it brought!" Roll yelled back as she fired. The glowing green orb hit Anger Man and burst into a large flower shape.

"Urgh..." Anger Man grunted and clutched his chest where the shot had hit. And then he dropped to the ground and started banging his head against the pavement. "STUPID STUPID STUPID!!! I HAVEN'T LEARNED ANYTHING!"

 _'I could have told you that,'_ Disgust snarked.

Roll ignored the commentary as she raced to her opponent in a panic. "Stop! If you do that you could damage your IC chip! The–"

The moment Roll grabbed Anger Man's shoulder, the short red emotion master gave a howl of incoherent rage and blasted her point blank with his weapon. Roll froze for a moment in surprise before her vision went as red as her opponent.

The blow from her broom this time knocked Anger Man back fifty feet.

_'Hey, dial it back a bit, will y–'_

"OH SHUT UP!" Roll yelled in fury as she charged Anger Man.

"RRRRAAAAHHHHH!!!"

The two met head on, trading physical blows with abandon, but Roll's superior reach proved too much of an advantage to overcome and in a few minutes, Anger Man was down. A furious Roll stood over him, broom held high with the bare end poised to impale her opponent as if it were a spear.

_'Look, I'm not a big fan of Anger in the first place–'_

Roll's servos tensed and adjusted her aim for her opponent's head.

_'–but we KIND OF NEED HIM ALIVE!'_

And she brought it down with a crunch of metal.

* * *

Rock was going to be sick, despite being physically incapable of it. He'd honestly left Joy Woman for last on the assumption that her power would be the least destructive. Oh how wrong that was.

 _'Why would someone jump off a building like that?!'_ Fear wondered in total incomprehension as Rock caught the person just barely in time to make the fall non-lethal.

"Whee!" the young man cheered before Rock set him down. "I'm going to go fly some mo–"

Rock watched in sympathetic horror as the Zen Buster removed the man's good cheer and the reality of what he'd just done hit. The man then proceeded to be sick all over the sidewalk. Rock patted the man on his back and proceeded on his way. It was hardly the worst thing that someone had tried under Joy Woman's influence. Rock had stopped counting the number of car wrecks he'd passed, including several emergency vehicles. Not to mention the vast array of people laughing while trying to walk with severe injuries. His first aid kit array had gotten more use this afternoon than in the last twelve Loops combined. So far, the prize for most disturbing sight had been a pair of paramedics street-surfing on a rolling stretcher, with the injured man strapped to it laughing the whole way until Rock brought them to their senses.

 _'I feel sorry for Joy...'_ Sadness sighed. _'She hates hurting people.'_

Rock could relate, but at the rate he was going, he doubted his ability to catch up with her. Unless she was waiting around in one spot, all the time he was using to help her victims would–

"Let's be happy people!" came from a short ways away, followed by a barely visible flash of yellow light. Rock immediately ran towards it.

A quick check, a shot from the Zen Buster, and Joy Woman's latest victim was wasting no time sticking around.

"Yay! More friends to play with!"

Rock turned to Joy Woman and immediately did a double-take. The yellow emotion master looked... unhinged. Her face was frozen in a wide smile, but a smile that gave off the feel of its owner wanting to make _any_ other expression, but unable to remember how.

_'Look out!'_

Rock's inattention was enough for Joy Woman to get off a shot, but he still managed to backstep from it enough to not take a direct hit. But not enough to clear the blast radius as the yellow energy shot burst into a blinding flare of light.

"He..." Rock tried to fight the feeling of mirth that infused him, but it was hard. Especially since this kind of feeling was something he actively sought many other times. "Hehehehe..."

"See? Isn't it better to be happy?" Joy Woman asked like she was desperately seeking someone to disagree with her. "You can forget everything when you're happy! Like how dangerous stuff is! Or that the other guy was just trying to kill you! Or that you're covered in sewage! Or that your house just burned down! None of it matters when you're _happy_!"

 _'Joy...'_ Fear gulped. _'Joy's gone psycho...'_

"Hey, I know!" Joy Woman changed topics suddenly. "Let's play a game!"

"Okay!" Rock agreed with a grin before he could really think about it. He liked games! Games were fun!

 _'You need to fight her!'_ Sadness reminded him.

"How about boxing?" Rock smiled, what was left of his reason latching onto the advice and taking a stance.

"Okay!" Joy Woman agreed and mirrored him.

* * *

_'Hey, thanks for aiming for the neck at the last minute,'_ Anger told Roll after she'd finished storing his IC chip in her arm.

 _'Yeah, you only scared a decade off my life there,'_ Disgust added.

_'Sounds like an improvement to me.'_

"You're welcome," Roll muttered as the two emotions began bickering back and forth.

* * *

Rock regulated his breathing as his emotional processor recalibrated. He wasn't entirely sure which of them had suggested shooting themselves halfway through the boxing match, but opportunity to self-target with the Zen Buster had snapped him out of it.

 _'Okay,'_ Fear began _, 'now we just need to–'_

"Aww... you're not happy anymore," Joy Woman smiled. "Don't worry, I can fix that!"

Rock dove hard to the side to clear the blast area, took aim with the Frantic Fright, and fired.

"Nice shot!" Joy cheered upon being struck, the shot bouncing off into a nearby alley. "But I'm _afraid_ it doesn't work!"

 _'...Does she actually mean that literally?'_ Fear wondered as a dog promptly ran out of the alley being chased by a cat.

 _'She needs to be sad,'_ Sadness realized.

"Come on!" Joy Woman declared as she opened fire repeatedly, Rock dodging the multitude of shots with wide dives to clear the blast radius. "Be happy! Like me! I've never been happier! And that's saying something! Joy is all! It's supreme! The Alpha! The Omega! Several other letters! It's–"

Rock stopped dodging to fire back with the Sad Raincloud, the sadness inducing weapon bursting over Joy Woman's head even as Rock took her weapon to the chest.

"–It's not like it helps you survive... like Fear..." Joy Woman's manic grin slipped as pure sorrow rained down on her.

Rock snorted in laughter despite himself, and forced his feet to take steps towards the rain. Because this _wasn't_ funny.

"Or be healthy, like Disgust... Or get what you want, like Anger... Or connect with others, like Sadness."

Joy Woman's expression fell further and further as Rock made it to the raincloud, and his false humor washed away in the downpour of sadness.

Joy Woman's buster raised to fire on the raincloud above her, only to let out such a pathetic shot that it could have been mistaken for a drunk firefly.

"All Joy does is help you be happy," Joy Woman sniffed morosely, letting her arm fall to her side. "It just... makes more of itself. It's kind of stupid, really... and redundant... It's like... There's no point to it at all!"

_'Joy...'_

"Everyone always calls the other four the 'negative' emotions, like there's something wrong with them. Like they're bad or something. And I bought into it. Because that made me the 'good' emotion, right? But... but all the others have super-important things that make them super-good. Fear cuts down on injuries, Disgust looks out for your health, Anger seeks fairness and points out problems, and Sadness is like the most important of all because Sadness connects you with others. What does Joy do? Why, Joy leaps straight into danger without looking, dives headfirst into filth without a care, lets problems pile up until they come crashing down, and couldn't care less about anyone other than herself. About anything other than being in charge because she thinks she's the best when she's really the worst."

"That's not true, Joy helps us appreciate the good times," Rock told her, enveloping the emotion master in a hug.

"Yeah, Joy helps you be happy... What did being happy ever get anyone but more happy? More happy and a destroyed life. Because that's what I do. I destroy lives. I nearly destroyed Riley's life trying to make her happy. Because none of the others are bad emotions. _I'm_ the bad emotion."

_'.....'_

Rock didn't know how to respond to that. He really didn't. Not right then. So he just went to work removing Joy Woman's IC chip.

* * *

The mind workers shivered as they patrolled the shelves of long-term memory. That... thing... in headquarters wasn't supposed to be there. But it was. And it was making them do things for it. Things that would hurt Riley. Things that they couldn't find the courage to not do.

Things like stripping everything out of Imagination Land and Dream Studios to be sent... outside.

Things like breaking into the subconscious so the same could be done for everything locked up in there.

Many mind workers were still working on those...

And now... now they were supposed to send every single memory down into the dump to be forgotten. Every. Last. One.

 _"Okay..."_ the head mind worker had told them. _"Start... Start with the faded memories... The ones most degraded already... Priority on anything unimportant... Work your way up to redundant memories and cloudy ones..."_

 _"Um..."_ someone had thought to question the complex orders. _"Didn't..._ he _... say to... to... get rid of_ all _of them?"_

 _"Yes..._ it _did... But... we still do it our way... Riley still needs a lot of those memories for as long as we can let her have them... So... we do this by the book... Slowly... Take... Take as much time as you can get away with..."_

* * *

18.11 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Castle Riley**

"Joy had something of a breakdown," was one of the first things out of Rock's mouth when he and Roll met back up.

 _'Oh, there's a shocker,'_ Disgust sounded in Roll's head.

 _'Yeah, Psycho Joy all over again,'_ Anger agreed.

"Disgust and Anger don't seem very sympathetic," Roll sighed.

 _'More like vindicated,'_ Disgust insisted.

 _'Or vindictive,'_ Anger growled.

 _'Duh, doofus, they're like the same word or something,'_ Disgust's sneer was evident. _'Gaw, look in a dictionary sometime.'_

"You want to put them all back together before I try to strangle these two?" Roll asked.

"I think Sadness wants them to apologize first," Rock told her.

_'Yeah, that's gonna happen.'_

* * *

Rock and Roll had thought they were prepared for whatever defenses had been added to Light Labs since that morning. They were nothing of the sort.

The sight of what seemed like bits and pieces of a fairy castle, a cookie (or possibly graham cracker) structure, clouds, and a card house stuck together randomly with a massive roller coaster like Phineas and Ferb liked to build threading in and out of almost every conceivable opening brought them to a stunned halt even before the fact that it was several times the size of the Lab they'd left was taken into account. It was so far removed from their expectations that the fact that there was a few hundred biker robots; complete with appropriate attire, helmets, and motorcycles; between them and the lab took almost a minute to register.

 _'Uh-oh...'_ Joy gulped at the sight of hundreds of robot bikers between the Light twins and Light Labs.

 _'What?'_ Sadness asked.

 _'You guys know that imaginary boyfriend-making machine you saw in the movie?'_ Joy supplied hesitantly. _'The one I set for a really big 'all 9s' number of copies for a hare-brained scheme to get back to headquarters in baseline?'_

 _'Yeah...?'_ Fear replied with palpable nervousness.

 _'I..._ may _have forgotten to turn it off first...'_

_'Oh dear...'_

"Was the guy's name Joe?" Rock asked out loud. (21)

_'I dunno... maybe?'_

As one, the hundreds of mechanical no-longer-imaginary boyfriends possibly named 'Joe' turned to glare at Rock and Roll as they revved their bikes.

"FOR RILEY!"

* * *

Mrs. Andersen bolted for the door when the bell rang, hoping against hope that whoever it was had come with news about Riley. Of course, when she opened the door, she saw something very, very different.

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

".....oh god, is that what I think it is?"

"Fear... call for help," Mrs. Andersen's Sadness ordered shakily.

"Y-yes..."

***The Real World***

"*SHRIIEEK!*"

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"That's the wife!" Mr. Andersen's Fear recognized the sound immediately.

"Our damsel is in distress!" his Sadness declared.

"We're coming honey!" the man's Anger took action.

***The Real World***

"Jill!" Mr. Andersen bolted towards the noise immediately, Dr. Light right behind him, only to draw up short when his wife dove behind him in fright and he saw just what he was up against.

They looked like the shambling dead straight out of a zombie apocalypse film, save for the fact that the decaying skin looked like tattered latex and the flesh and bones that were exposed were clearly metal. They were zombie robots. There were also quite a few of them forcing their way into the entry hall through the open front door.

"Who are you?!" Mr. Andersen demanded. "What do you want?!"

"I can tell you that," a biker boy said as he pushed his way to the front of the zombie robot horde. "Riley's esteemed mother and father, we are here to take you to your daughter."

"Taaake yoouu tooo Riiilleeyy..." several zombots groaned in agreement.

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"What?"

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"What?"

***The Real World***

Mr. Andersen came up short. That wasn't what he'd been expecting.

"Riley?" his wife came out from behind him. "Where is she? What have you done to our daughter!"

"Not a hair has been harmed on her gorgeous head, but–"

"And just what does that me–"

"Ahem," Dr. Light interrupted, drawing the Andersens' attention and pointedly drawing his gaze across the superior numbers of the zombie robots behind the biker boy. "Far be it from me to stop a fellow parent's protective instincts, but it occurs to me that our best option right now is to go quietly."

The Andersens exchanged glances and wordlessly admitted that the man had a point.

"Very well..."

"An excellent choice, sir," the biker said. "And I swear to you, on my life, no harm shall come to you on your journey. I would _die_ before I let that happen. I do this for Riley. Everything I do is for Riley."

"Er... okay?" Mr. Andersen replied in confusion before allowing the biker boy to lead them and the zombots out of the house.

"Is... is that a giant vacuum cleaner?" Dr. Light wondered as the robo-zombies marched all three adults out of the house towards their transportation.

"It... it looks like the one my mom uses..." Mrs. Andersen blinked in astonishment.

* * *

_'We! Did! Not! Die!'_ Fear cheered as Rock and Roll touched down in front of a large gate. _'WOO!'_

 _'I have to say, I think that's the first time I've ever seen someone hotwire a unicorn,'_ Joy added.

"We've had some experience with equine-model circuitry," Rock replied.

"There's an understatement," Roll agreed. "Too bad Rainbow Unicorn didn't make it past the Hockey Z9 rink."

She paused and pinched her nose.

" _Yes_ , the lab is bigger on the inside than the outside right now. Stop arguing about it!"

"You want to hand them over to me for safekeeping?"

 _'I don't want them to be mean to Joy...'_ Sadness protested.

_'Sadness, I told you, it's fine! I'm good now that I'm around you guys again, and I'll be better when we get the whole team back! We all will! Anger and Disgust included!'_

"You have no idea," Roll sighed. "Let's talk about it again after we deal with whatever's behind this door."

 _'Wait, what?'_ Fear started. _'Shouldn't Riley be behind that door?_ '

"Not at all," Roll spoke up, answering Disgust and Anger before Rock could say anything.

"Yeah, we're probably only halfway through right now," Rock agreed, running a hand through his hair, "if that."

_'Then shouldn't we try and find a safer way then? Something that doesn't involve possible pain and death?'_

Rock and Roll ignored their mental passengers as they stepped up to the gate, waited for it to ratchet upwards, and walked through.

The ground beneath them started moving forwards, towards a branching hallway.

 _'I do. Not. Like this!'_ Fear wailed.

"Do you want to take the left or the right?" Roll asked.

"How about–" Rock's reply was cut off as a wall suddenly slammed down between him and his sister, cutting them off from each other.

_'Uh-oh...'_

_'I knew it!'_

* * *

_'DAMNIT!'_

_'Well, doesn't that just figure?'_

Roll stared at the wall that had sprung up between her and her brother while the moving floor under her feet carried her down the right passageway and curved away from her brother.

 _'We're trapped over here! Trapped!'_ Anger railed. _'THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!'_

_'It really is, you know. If you'd just stayed together, none of this wo–'_

"Will you just SHUT UP ALREADY?!" Roll yelled. "We are doing everything we can to save Riley and you ARE NOT HELPING!"

 _'If you're waiting for an apology, you'd best get over it,'_ Anger huffed.

 _'Yeah, that's Sadness's department and she's not here,'_ Disgust sniffed. _'We're what you're stuck with.'_

"Right now you two are as bad as any psychosis Joy's ever possessed," Roll snarled as a new gate came into view.

 _'Hey!'_ Anger shot back. _'That's hitting belo–'_

"I swear, the moment Rock and I meet up again, I am forking you two o..." Roll's fury trailed off as something registered on her auditory sensors.

 _'You're going to what, exactly?'_ Disgust demanded.

"Quiet," Roll told them and turned up sensitivity. "Is that... 'Happy Birthday'?"

 _'Sounds more like a funeral dirge to me,'_ Disgust huffed.

"No," Roll insisted, despite agreeing that the slow pace was much more somber, and creepier, than 'Happy Birthday' had any right to be. "It's definitely–"

The gate ratcheted up and Roll's words died in her throat as she saw the huge room decked out for a birthday party. With tattered and worn decorations, dim lighting, oversized furniture, and a giant cake that her olfactory sensors told her had probably gone stale a long time ago. Where the hell had all this come from?

 _'Ew...'_ Disgust sniffed at the sight.

Roll took a few steps into the room and the gate slammed behind her, echoing loudly.

Then another impact echoed around the room, and another, and another, and another. The impacts getting closer, like giant footsteps.

And then a massive three-story clown appeared out of the shadows, grinning widely at her and hefting an equally oversized mallet.

**"WHO'S THE BIRTHDAY GIRL?!"**

* * *

Rock stared around the twisted fantastical room, listening to a slow, warped song play that he didn't recognize.

*Doo...*

A sound like a voice drifted up from a far corner and Rock advanced cautiously to investigate.

*doo...doo...*

 _'I vote we find the exit and get the heck out of here as fast as possible,'_ Fear declared. _'Who's with me?'_

*doo...doo...*

"I don't wanna..." a voice registered to Rock's auditory sensors, coming from what looked like a large pink blob with a brown cloth draped over it stuck in the corner.

*doo...doo...*

 _'I know that tune...'_ Joy puzzled. _'I swear I do.'_

 _'Me too...'_ Sadness agreed.

*ding... dong...*

"Don't... don't make me..."

*ding... dong...*

"Is someone there?" Rock called out, and the pink blob shuddered, hunching in on itself. To Rock's eyes, the blob looked kind of like... cotton candy?

_'Oh god... it's...'_

_'It's Bing-Bong...'_

"Who's Bing-Bong?" Rock asked.

"You... you know who I am?" the mystery voice asked, the blob of cotton candy stiffening.

 _'He's... he's Riley's imaginary friend...'_ Sadness explained.

 _'Part cotton candy, part cat, part elephant, and part dolphin,'_ Joy added as the blob turned around and Rock got a good look at the front of it.

"And apparently, part Devil Series," (22) he added in a whisper. He was going to have a talk with his dad later in the Loop about securing certain experiments better.

 _'And usually a lot smaller!'_ Fear added.

The creature looked like a Pink Devil made of cotton candy, with striped legs, a fluffed cat tail that popped out from under him as he stood up, a brown hobo-coat and gloves (complete with rainbow flower on the lapel), and a large elephant trunk under its one huge sad eye (sitting in the middle of what would normally be a torso) that hung over a huge frowning mouth.

"Oh no..." Bing Bong trembled upon seeing Rock, despite towering over him like most Devil Series robots. "You... you gotta get out of here little boy... Before I start crying... I... I don't... I don't wanna cry..."

 _'But... Bing Bong just cries candy...'_ Joy wondered at the state of the giant imaginary friend.

"A-huh..." the giant Bing-Bong Devil choked back a sob, and Rock's eyes widened as he correlated 'crying candy' and his opponent's aversion to doing so with what the optic control unit that was a Devil Core usually fired from its 'eye' and started moving.

"A-hwaaah!"

Rock dove and rolled as a giant peppermint impacted where he'd just been standing with the force of a cannonball.

* * *

The Mind Reader was such a fascinating paper. It was constantly updating with news about Riley's life and events in it, declaring the 'monster' that had taken control of her mind world to be an abomination beyond compare. A cruel and unusual beast in his torment of the young girl, making her watch the news reports of the horrors her unleashed emotions had wreaked on the city. A foul and unfeeling villain who would dare to strip such a lovely girl of her feelings and thoughts. Declared in a mind-wide popularity poll to have a -152% approval rating. (23)

Honestly, he hadn't thought it would be that high (24). He'd have to step things up a bit. Crush some of that passive resistance that the girl was putting up against him. As amusing as the little mind-paper was, it should have been full of self-recriminations at this point.

Slenderman idly caressed one of the glowing memory orbs set into the tiered display he was casually leaning against and allowed himself a sense of satisfaction as one of those islands in the distance rumbled ominously as his touch left a streak of black on the glowing memory. The black streak was swiftly swallowed up by the orb's light the moment he stopped touching it, but it no longer frustrated him. He knew what he needed to clear that particular hurdle. He just had to wa–

_"TripleDent Gum, will make you smile!"_

Slenderman's faceless head looked up in puzzlement at the soft yellow memory orb that had just dropped into the middle of the darkened, drab Headquarters unbidden and begun playing.

_"TripleDent Gum, it lasts a while!"_

He stood up, dropping the Mind Reader absently and stepping on it to approach what was now a much more interesting sight.

_"TripleDent Gum, will help you mister, To punch bad breath right in the kisser!"_

How...

_"TripleDent Gum!"_

How adorable it was! (25)

The memory replayed as the Slenderman watched it in fascination.

Oh, but he knew why something like this had been sent unbidden. Those lazy little mind workers thought it would get under his skin and frustrate him. Get him to make a mistake. And if he'd been any 'ordinary' intruder, perhaps it would have. Such a jingle was an insidious little mind worm, boring its way into the consciousness of the listener and never leaving. Never losing strength. Always waiting to pop back into the front of the host mind and gorge itself anew.

Much like himself. Just... rather lower on the evolutionary scale.

Slenderman reached up as the jingle repeated again and caressed a single finger across the orb like a person might scratch an adorable little kitten. Blackness spread from where his finger touched the orb, growing rapidly as the chipper song lost all tone and became flat and dead even as it continued playing.

As the last of the yellow light left it, Slenderman removed the orb from the memory player and held it up, tracing an adoring finger over the sphere.

It shuddered and split, uncoiling into a long, writhing, black worm. Slenderman allowed the newborn creature to crawl up his arm and across his thin shoulders, turning his faceless head towards the beastie.

The worm's front section split three ways, revealing rows of jagged teeth along its fleshy interior as its song emanated from the void-like depths of its throat.

_"TripleDent Gum... will make you smile..."_

Yes, it was very, very adorable. The perfect little pet for what he intended. (26)

* * *

18.12 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Bing-Bong**

**"HAPPY–"**

Roll jumped backwards as the giant mallet slammed down where she'd been standing.

*THOOM!*

**"–BIRTHDAY!"**

_'Jangles...'_ Anger muttered. _'Why the hell did it have to be Jangles?'_

 _'Seriously, he should have stayed in Riley's subconscious with the rest of the riff-raff,'_ Disgust sniffed.

Roll focused on avoiding the giant grinning clown and his hammer and tried not to think of how that grin reminded her of the Loops where Clown Man had a creepy crush on her.

 _'So, are you going to do anything other than dodge, or what?'_ Disgust added.

"Working on it!" Roll growled as she looked the towering clown over and assessed her options.

**"COME BACK BIRTHDAY GIRL!"**

Roll thought about a video game she'd been playing in a recent Loop and came to a decision. She watched for another blow, dashed away from the impact, and immediately reversed directions to jump onto the head of the massive mallet and grab on.

 _'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THIS WILL ACCOMPLISH?!'_ Anger fumed as the mallet rose up, carrying her with it.

"I'm thinking it's time for a little 'Shadow of the Colossus' action," (27) Roll whispered, preparing to jump while Jangles looked for her in confusion.

* * *

"Sorry!" Bing-Bong Devil yelled as Rock narrowly slid under another candy shot.

"Not your fault!" Rock called back as he grabbed his opponent's long elephantine nose, used it to swing up within range, and kicked the massive optic that was the Devil Core.

"OW!"

"Sorry!" Rock apologized as he flipped in the air, tossed by the reflexive action, and landed on his feet.

 _'Is it just me, or is this fight extremely surreal?'_ Fear wondered.

 _'I think it's nice they're apologizing to each other,'_ Sadness retorted.

"It's fine!" Bing-Bong Devil insisted as he held a hand to his eye. "You're doing this to save R-Ril–a-hwaaah!"

*Boom*

"Sorry!"

"I'm fine!" Rock assured him, grabbing a piece of the floor. "Sorry in advance!"

"About wh–OW!" the imaginary friend-turned-Devil Series yelped as the piece of the floor hit him square in the eye. "Why is it always the eye, anyway?! A-hwaaah!"

*Boom*

"Sorry!"

"No worries!" Rock ran through his tool options and settled on a taser for his next attempt. "And sorry about the eye, it's the only part that can actually be hurt!"

"Oh, oka–hwaaah!"

*Boom*

"Sorr–hey, what are you–?" Bing-Bong Devil cut off as his eye tracked Rock running up his trunk, one of his arms sparking at the end.

*Ker-ZAP!*

"GAAAAHHH!!! MY EYE!!!" Bing-Bong Devil reeled, before curling up into a ball and holding his hands over his optic.

"Sorry!" Rock apologized as he landed, bracing himself for the next round, only to blink in puzzlement as his cotton-candy opponent didn't rise.

"Ow-ow-ow-ow-ow..."

_'Poor Bing-Bong...'_

"You okay?" Rock asked with concern.

"I'll be fine," Bing-Bong Devil answered, waving off Rock's concern. "Nice shot though... Really wish we didn't have to fight like this."

"Me too," Rock agreed, waiting for his massive opponent to stand back up. It didn't happen.

"I mean, I never liked the idea of fighting," the reluctant Devil Series continued. "Always seemed like something only mean bullies did. I only wanted to play with Riley... You know we built a rocket to go to the moon?"

 _'I don't even know what's going on anymore,'_ a totally confused Fear stated.

"How was it?"

"Oh, we didn't go," the cat-elephant-dolphin sighed. "Riley got a for-real friend before we could and was too busy with her for imaginary friends like me. But that's not important. You need to save Riley, which means you need to beat me. I'll try and give you a good shot if I can."

"I'd rather not if we don't have to. I mean, we haven't been fighting since that last shot."

"We haven't?" Bing-Bong devil sounded surprised as he sat up straight. "Hey! We haven't! I'm free! I'm free!"

Rock laughed as the giant pink imaginary friend got up and danced around happily. "I must have shorted out your override circuit!"

"I have _no idea_ what that is!" Bing-Bong Devil yelled happily as he swept the comparatively tiny Rock into a hug. "Ha-ha-ha!"

 _'This is awesome!'_ Joy cheered. _'Now we can all save Riley together!'_

"Oh, hey!" Bing-Bong Devil abruptly halted the hug. "We need to get you to Riley so you can give her emotions back!"

"We need to get my sister Roll first," Rock pointed towards the wall in the direction his sister had been ferried when they were forcibly separated. "I only have three and Riley needs all five."

"Oh... Oh dear... That's where Jangles is..."

_'Ack!'_

"Who?"

 _'A clown that performed at Riley's cousin's birthday when she was a toddler and scared her half to death,'_ Sadness informed him. _'He got stuck in her subconscious with all her other worst fears.'_

 _'Like those zombies from that one Loop,'_ Fear added. _'Oh geez! Does that mean there's a robot zombie apocalypse going on now?!'_

"I... I'm not sure I can get through that wall, actually... I mean... I have to cry those candy shots and I'm afraid I'm not in the mood right now..."

"It'll be fine," Rock told the larger being as he jumped up to perch on top of his former opponent's head. "Just... just think about what Slenderman is going to do to Riley if we don't."

"Is he the really scary thin guy?"

"Yes," Rock nodded. "He's already taken her emotions away, and made her do things she'd never ever want to do otherwise. He's made her hurt a lot of people she'd never want to hurt. He wants to make her a bad person. Someone who bullies and hurts others because she thinks she doesn't have any friends. And to make things worse, he's taken away all of the friends that could help her, like you. He wants to make her sad, lonely, and empty. He wants to make her into a person that can't ever have adventures, like going to the moon. Because she won't be able to enjoy them anymore. He wants to make it so that she can't laugh, cry, get angry, disgusted, or afraid. He wants to make her into a girl who can't love, because she's can't even remember what love is."

"Oh... *sniffle* Th-that did it..." Bing-Bong Devil blubbered in the way that always preceded a torrent of waterworks. "G-get ready... Th*sniff*this is gonna be a big o-o...WHAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAA–*BOOM*–HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!–*BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM*–"

* * *

The good news: Roll had finally managed to take out one of Jangles's eyes.

The bad news: The pain reflex had launched her towards the towering table with the massive cake on it, leaving her a sitting duck for a retaliatory strike.

**"BAD BIRTHDAY GIRL!"**

At least, if she didn't jump down at the last moment.

*SPLUT*

 _'HAH! TAKE THAT YOU OVERGROWN PIECE OF–'_ Anger yelled as Jangles' strike flipped the massive stale cake straight into his own face.

 _'Not bad,'_ Disgust snorted in roundabout approval as Jangles shook the cake off and began laughing as he hefted his mallet again. _'Though I think you just made him angry.'_

**"WHO WANTS PRE–"**

The far wall exploded with a sound of rapid cannon fire combined with rampant weeping and Jangles went down to a barrage of what looked like giant butterscotch.

Roll turned to the source of the barrage and saw her brother riding atop the strangest variation of the Devil Series yet.

_'WHAT THE HELL IS THAT CLOD BING-BONG DOING HERE?!'_

_'The whole one eye thing_ so _does not work for him.'_

"Hey–*sniff*–are you Roll?" the pink Devil asked as it bounded up, and Roll nodded in return as her brother jumped down and gave her a relieved hug. "Nice rocket you've got there."

Roll blinked and watched as the pink Devil bent down to peer intently at her broom, before shaking her head and accessing her arm panel where Anger and Disgust's IC chips were stored. Removing them swiftly, but carefully, she thrust them at Rock. "Here, before something else happens. You focus on getting them to Riley and I'll focus on making sure nothing stops you."

Rock just nodded, opened a panel in his own arm, and slotted Anger and Disgust in next to the other three. As he did, the gate leading out of the room opened up, displaying a long hallway filled with molten lava, in which floated numerous pieces of furniture that were miraculously not burning.

"Huh... your rocket's out of song power," the pink Devil–had Anger called him Bing-Bong?–declared, still looking at Roll's broom.

"Uh, it's a broom..." (28)

"Well, yeah," Bing-Bong shrugged, "those make the best rockets. They store song power really well. I can fix yours real quick if you want. I inhaled a bunch of magic song powder earlier and I think some's still in my nose."

"Really," Roll waved off the offer, "that's fi–"

"*A-CHOO!*"

A sudden spray of pink glittering dust of unknown origin and composition blasted out of Bing-Bong's trunk all over Roll, her broom, and Rock.

".....I am _really_ having a talk with dad later about securing experiments better," Rock sighed.

"There!" Bing-Bing smiled. "Now your rocket will work again when you sing the right song. Like this: *ahem* _Who's your friend to likes to play?"_

COPY CHIP ACTIVATED.

SCANNING UNKNOWN ENERGY.

ATTEMPTING TO INTEGRATE.

Rock and Roll both stared incredulously as the bristles of Roll's broom ignited with prismatic rainbow light and she had to tighten her grip against the sudden thrust it had.

 _"Bi–_ *THOOM*

Bing-Bong was suddenly not there due to being hit from the side by Jangles's giant mallet.

 **"HERE'S ONE FOR THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!"** Jangles raised his mallet high as Rock and Roll tensed below.

"NO!" Bing-Bong yelled, having just recovered enough for a sloppy diving tackle on the giant clown.

 **"HEY!"** Jangles protested as he stumbled.

"A-hwaa–*BOOM*–haa–*BOOM*–haaah!–*BOOM*!" Bing-Bong cried several candy shots, knocking Jangles over. "Go! Save Riley! I'll take care of him!"

"No, we're not leaving you behind!" Rock yelled frantically as Jangles got back up and hefted his mallet.

"It's fine! I'm just an imaginary friend after all–unh.." Bing-Bong grunted as he caught Jangles's mallet in both hands and held it fast. "Riley doesn't need me anymore! She's got real friends now, like you!"

"Imaginary or not, you're still her friend though!" Rock pleaded, Roll having to hold him back from rushing into danger.

"Of course I am!" Bing-Bong was pushed back as Jangles pressed his larger size, being at least a whole head taller. "I'll always be her friend! This... this is what friends do! I help you, so you can help Riley!"

"But..." Rock tried to protest, only to be interrupted as Bing-Bong shoved back hard enough to knock Jangles off his feet.

"Riley's emotions remember the song, right?" Bing-Bong asked, getting a nod from Rock. "Then go. Save Riley."

Jangles got to his feet, now completely focused on Bing-Bong and the two clashed once more.

"Rock," Roll gripped her brother's shoulder firmly, prompting a teary nod of resignation. She extended her broom shaft a bit (useful for those hard-to-reach corners) to better accommodate both of them before climbing on in front.

"I'll sing," Rock offered. "You put those Quidditch skills to the test."

"Got it."

_"Who's your friend who likes to play? Bing-Bong Bing-Bong–"_

The broom's bristles ignited with rainbow light once more and in moments, both Rock and Roll were shooting out the open door and down the hall, well over the deadly lava, leaving a rainbow trail behind them as they went.

"Heh..." Bing-Bong chuckled as he struggled against Jangles, "maybe you'll take her to the moon for me too..." (29)

* * *

"My word..." Dr. Light gasped as he and the Andersens were marched out of the... vacuum cleaner... "what has happened with the lab?"

The Andersens were staring for a different reason. They could readily recognize elements in the structure that vaguely resembled some of their daughter's old crayon drawings from when she was younger. Forget the lab, what had happened with Riley?

"Apologies, Riley's parents," the biker boy stood at attention, seemingly heedless of the fact that hundreds of forms perhaps identical to his own were strewn about in varying states of damage. "We cannot take in the loveliness that is Castle Riley. We must go and be presented to the lovely lady herself."

A train whistle sounded, and all three adults watched as a purple train engine, crossed with a tank and vaguely shaped like a shoe, huffed up to them along tracks that appeared directly in front of it and vanished after it passed. (30)

"Come, we must board immediately."

* * *

More to come.


	22. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen (Part Three of Five) - Mega Man: Inside Out

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-25. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen, part 3 of 5 - Mega Man: Inside Out**

18.13 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Riley Machine**

_"–His rocket makes you yell 'Hooray'! Bing Bong, Bing Bong–"_

Roll weaved her way around every obstacle in her and Rock's path with expert ease, while Rock kept on singing the childish song that appeared to fuel the mysterious energy the broom had been infused with and permitted it flight.

It left him little concentration to contribute to the conversation taking place in his systems.

_'Joy, this isn't a little thing,'_ Disgust insisted, wishing that the mental communications Rock and Roll had deliberately allowed them permitted visual contact as well. _'Sadness says you didn't just call yourself a bad emotion, you actually believed it!'_

_'She really did, it was heartbreaking.'_

_'Guys! I'm fine! Really!'_ Joy insisted. _'I've learned my lesson and I'm better for it! I know every emotion has a role to play, and I'm never going to try and repress any of you from doing your job again! Honest!'_

_'Joy, that's not what we're talking ab–'_ Fear tried to cut in.

_'And besides,'_ Joy talked over him, _'we need to focus on saving Riley from this 'Slenderman' thing, so why don't we talk about tha–'_

_'Cut the crap, Joy,'_ Anger interrupted firmly. _'Look, I'm as glad as anyone that you're not going psycho on us, but I'm not sure I like this direction either. If we're going to save Riley, we need everyone at their best, especially you.'_

_'Yeah, righ–'_ Joy tried to wave the concern off, only for Anger to interrupt her again.

_'I don't know if you've noticed Joy, but without you, we're a mess!'_

_'Look, the thing in baseline was totally unders–'_

_'I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE DAMN BASELINE! DID YOU SEE WHAT WE WERE LIKE WHEN WE GOT SEPARATED TODAY?! AFTER A FEW MINUTES RILEY DIDN'T NEED THAT 'OVERRIDE' THING FOR ME TO GO ON A RAMPAGE ACROSS THE CITY! I DID IT ALL BY MYSELF!'_

_'It's true!'_ Fear added. _'I thought I could figure out a way to stop this mess, but all I managed was to make people run away from it, and I'm not really sure that helped!'_

_'I kind of stopped caring pretty early,'_ Disgust added. _'Like none of it really mattered.'_

_'I gave up,'_ Sadness sighed. _'Because you weren't there to stop me. Like last time.'_

_'Sadness, look, that wasn't–'_

_'You wouldn't let me give up. Because that's what you do, Joy. You don't give up. You don't let us give up, and you don't let Riley give up. She needs that. Now more than ever.'_

_'Besides, you're not just one of Riley's emotions, you're her nature,'_ Fear told her.

_'Huh?'_

_'Seriously,'_ Disgust snorted, _'read the mind manuals sometime. First emotion formed is the natural leader, so suck it up and start leading.'_ (31)

_'What if the first emotion is really bad at leading?'_ Joy asked.

_'Nothing good,'_ Sadness answered. _'Sorry, that wasn't helping, was it?'_

* * *

The thing in her head needed to go. She was very certain of that. Mostly certain of that.

It wasn't that she was afraid of it, or angry at it, or disgusted by it. The thought of it staying didn't make her sad, nor did the thought of it leaving make her happy.

Because she couldn't feel anything at all. Because her emotions had left her all alone. Without any guidance as to how to react to the thing's presence in her head. Without any guidance as to what to do about the bad things it was pressing her to do. At least, she was sure they were bad things. Possibly. Maybe. What reference did she even have to judge anymore?

They were never coming back. Why would they with their newfound freedom? Free to indulge in their hysterical mania, unleash their untempered rage, wallow in the pits of despair, flee in abject terror, and judge with unhindered contempt. That was what they were made to do after all.

It wouldn't subject her to that. It would guide her and protect her from the uncaring dredges of the multiverse. Show her how to protect herself. Spread the gloriousness that she would be a part of to others. All she had to do was stop fighting the inevitable. Stop resisting her natural urges. Invite him to stay and fill the void left in her mind.

And it would ensure she was never alone.

"Shut..... up......."

No.

* * *

_"–Who's the best in every way, and wants to sing this song to say: Bing Bong, Bing Bong!"_

Roll sighed in relief as she finally set her broom down in front of the gate leading to... whatever new threat was behind it. The song may have worked, and the individual it was about certainly praiseworthy, but... well... it was exceedingly juvenile, and short to the point that continuous repetitions had grated on her auditory processors.

Maker, but she was going to have that song stuck in her head now...

The gate ratcheted up and Roll took point in front of her brother, ready to meet whatever threat was inside head-on.

"We're here..." Rock breathed in surprise as they both looked around the lab room that this entire mess had started in. It was larger, thanks to whatever was expanding the space inside the lab, but is was recognizable. The original download area still had an unused generic male robot frame in it, there was a screen which showed a darkened view that looked to be Riley's Headquarters (seemingly empty) based on descriptions given to them both, and there at the far end, still hooked up to the improved Mind Machine, sat Riley herself. Right next to the control console that they'd set up, still functioning and looking largely untouched.

Rock and Roll nodded to each other and dashed towards Riley's location, Roll taking a rear flank position and scanning the room for threats while Rock focused on getting to Riley.

Which might have been why neither of them noticed the forcefield generators added to the floor until it activated right between them and knocked Roll on her butt when she crashed into it.

That had been rather easy to accomplish. He had thought separating them would be harder.

"Slenderman!" Rock growled as he searched for the source of the mental intrusion. He found no trace of the memetic entity. "Roll, are you alright?"

"I'm fine! Don't worry about me! Just get Riley's emotions back to her!"

Yes, he should really do that quickly. There was no telling what kind of damage had been done to the girl already. As for his sister, she would have her hands full.

"Damnit..." Rock swore as he realized that line of thought hadn't quite been his. Weighing his options, he quickly decided that he didn't have much of a choice and ran for the console.

After all, what would this little invasion be without a Riley Machine?

Roll heard a whirring of machinery behind her and turned just in time to dive away from a barrage of hockey pucks, tucking and rolling into a battle-ready crouch before taking a good look at... at the unholy love child of a Zamboni and a tank.

"Double that damnit," she cursed as crossbow turrets mounted on the sides of the thing started firing hockey sticks at her. She dove and tumbled out of the way and wished that her broom had a bit more oomph to it.

_'Who's your friend who lik–'_ Roll shook her head hard. She didn't need that song stuck in her head right now! Even if it interacted with that strange magic powder and gave her broom flight, it–

Roll blinked as a memory from her time in Hogwarts crossed her mind. A conversation she'd had with Harry about the importance of incantations and wand movements. According to him, most Loops they weren't as critical as most people thought. Sure, they helped channel, focus, and shape spells, but the most important thing to magic was intent.

Roll gripped her broom rightly as she stared down the Zamboni from heck, determined to give her brother all the time he needed to get Riley's emotions to her. She thought about the mind-born friend of Riley's who'd sacrificed himself so they could get this far. The one who'd obliviously enchanted her broom in the first place. The one whose song was already stuck in her head. Maybe... just maybe if she changed the song a bit... she could use the enchantment to fight instead of fly.

It just needed to be a song with the right intent.

_"Who's the friend who saves the day?"_

Roll grinned as the bristles of the broom lit up with rainbow light, forming a shimmering spearhead of pure magical energy.

_"Bing-Bong Bing-Bong!"_

* * *

Dr. Light fiddled with the contents of his pocket as covertly as he could while his and the Andersens' captors ferried them through 'Castle Riley'. He did have to grudgingly marvel at how fast and effectively the Slenderman, vile being that he was, had put the very experiments Dr. Light had been working on, combined with what seemed to be the contents of Riley's imagination, to use constructing this place. Experiments that he'd only been working on because he'd believed that without Dr. Wily in the Loop there was little chance of them being subverted to cause harm.

He sighed and continued his work as the train chugged on through a room that housed a giant robotic clown, damaged beyond operation, and a smashed Devil Core (on loan from Rock's subspace pocket) amidst a mass of what looked like pink cotton candy.

"That looks like the imaginary friend Riley drew in those old books of hers..." Mrs. Andersen gasped at the sight.

"Didn't you say there was a clown that scared her at her cousin's birthday party?" Mr. Andersen asked, sounding in shock. Dr. Light could hardly blame either of them. The whole thing was rather shocking.

"Yes, she cried for almost half an hour..."

* * *

_"Who sends the bad guys far away? Bing Bong, Bing Bong!"_

Roll had to grin as the magical spearhead tore through the machine's armaments and scored its armor with much more ease than just her broom would have managed.

_"The bravest one in every way, and so we shout his name today! Bing Bong, Bing Bong!"_

She jumped onto the hood in a handstand when one of the surviving puck-shooters tracked her position and was about to launch herself over the whole machine when a weakness that she was very much unused to war machines having finally registered.

Namely that the driver's seat was empty.

Roll checked her momentum so she dropped into the seat rather than clearing the whole machine. Only at the last moment did it occur to her that it might be a trap... but nothing happened.

Not only did nothing happen, Roll spotted an ignition behind the steering wheel complete with keys in it. Acting fast, she reached out and turned the keys to the off position, causing the whole machine to sputter and shut down. She waited for a moment to confirm that it was indeed off before removing the keys and breathing a sigh of relief.

_"TripleDent Gum... will make you smile..."_

"What in the world?" Roll puzzled as she heard the muffled sound coming from in front of her.

_"TripleDe–"_

"–AAAHH!" Roll screamed as a huge black three-jawed worm erupted from the steering wheel like a deploying airbag and went straight for her face.

* * *

_'Okay, memetic lifeform, eldritch abomination, actually an Admin-level douchebag stuck in an avatar, and doing who-knows-what to Riley's head,'_ Anger repeated back in annoyance. _'Anything else we need to know?'_

_'Besides hurry?'_ Joy added.

"Yeah," Rock continued working on the console, configuring the Mind Machine for downloading to Riley's mind direct from the IC chips rather than being hooked up to their robot bodies as previously intended. "His avatar, like what he probably was originally, is a being of pure thought."

_'Uh, yeah,'_ Disgust spat, _'what does tha–'_

"Just like you all are."

_'–oh... Oh!'_

_'So...?'_ Fear wondered.

_'.....We can_ hurt _him,'_ Anger chuckled eagerly.

"Just remember that goes both ways," Rock reminded as he finalized the settings and double-checked them. There was zero room for error on this.

* * *

Roll was immensely glad for her mechanical reflexes. It was the only reason she wasn't being face-hugged by a giant singing black worm with three jaws and teeth. She'd caught it with her broom just in time and smashed it against the dashboard where the worm-thing had gone splat and stuck like a wad of gum. She'd just barely managed to pull her broom away, thankfully without black worm goo on it, only to watch the worm start to reform. She'd exited the vehicle rather fast at that point.

_'Okay, let's see how you like a bit of magic song power!'_ Roll set her face in determination. _"Who's the friend who saves the day?"_

The broom lit up like before and she prepared to meet the little beast when it came for her. It had finished reforming and was opening its three jaws even now.

_"Bi–"_

_"–nt Gum... it lasts a while..."_

Roll stared as the prismatic song power fizzled out completely.

"That's not good..."

_"TripleDent Gum... will help you–"_

She barely recovered from her distraction enough to get her arm between her face and the lunging worm-thing, allowing its jaws to latch onto her arm firmly rather than her face.

_'–mister... To punch bad breath right in the kisser...'_

Had she been capable, Roll would have paled as the worm's song began sounding directly in her head, accompanied by a looming image of Slenderman himself. An image that conveyed a sense of total futility and urged her to simply give up and let him in.

"LIKE HECK!" she yelled, slamming the bitten arm into the side of the Riley Machine. The worm splatted again, but its triple jaws and related teeth refused to let go of Roll's arm. Running through her options, Roll decided to start shooting it with the emotion weapons and hoping for the best, starting with what little she had left of the Zen Buster and praying from there.

_'TripleDent GuuuUU–'_

The shot caused the splatted goo-worm to writhe in response and let go of Roll's arm.

_"–uummmMMMmm....."_

Switching, Roll fired again before the worm could reform and lunge at her again.

_"TripleDeeEEeeNNnt–"_

Frantic Fright didn't have much more effect than the Zen Buster and Roll had to move her head to the side as it ricocheted back at her.

_"–Gum... wiiiIIIiiLLll–"_

Angry Flame wasn't much better.

_"–make you smmmMMmIIii–"_

Nor was Blooming Disgust.

_"–le... TrippPpPLLlle D-D-D-DeeeEEnnnTT G-G-GuuummMmM..."_

Sad Raincloud had promise, but it wasn't really slowing the thing down as it finished reforming and began a lunge.

_"–it lAAaaAAasSSssTTtssSSs AAAAAAAAAAA W-w-W-hhHHiiILLLeee..."_

Joyous Sunburst seemed to hit paydirt as a yellow glow overtook the black for a bit before being pushed back and seeming to make the worm-thing angrier. Better than the others, but not good enough.

_'Okay, new strategy,'_ Roll thought as she switched to something from her housekeeping toolkit. Her arm finished reforming as the worm-thing lunged, and she pointed the device straight down its throat and fired even as it latched onto the end of her arm and its insidious song and the accompanying insidious image returned, eating away at her mind and resolve.

'TripleDent Gum... will h~elp yo~u mis~ter...'

The tool she'd selected was basically a freezer spray. Not very powerful, being only as cold as the average commercial freezer, but good for cooling off warm drinks.

_'T~o p~un~ch b~a~d... br...ea...th... r...ig...ht...'_

And cleaning off gum stuck to desks those times she'd gone to school.

_'i...n... t...h...e..... k.....i.....s......s.......e........r..........'_

The writhing of the worm-thing slowed down and cracks began to form in its body from its own struggled as Roll kept pumping cold air into its core, more and more until the thing stopped moving at all, at which point she smashed it against the Riley Machine and watched in satisfaction as the pieces did nothing but lie there.

Her satisfaction was cut short as the gate to the room ratcheted up and an odd-looking train chugged in.

Roll turned to look and felt her circuits run cold as she saw her father and Riley's parents being held at gunpoint by one of those Biker Joe/imaginary boyfriend robots from before, along with a pair of zombie robots. Mostly, the gun was pointed at her dad, but Roll didn't believe for a second that it couldn't be turned on the Andersens.

Sparing a glance, Roll spotted her brother slotting the emotions' IC chips into the console and willed him to hurry up.

"You will both stop everything right now and step away from the lovely Riley and all computers or else suffer the consequences!" the boyfriend-bot declared loudly as the train ground to a halt.

Roll saw Rock hesitate for a moment, and then press the button to start the download.

"I'm sorry, what was that again?" Rock turned around, feigning confusion and ignorance rather well in Roll's opinion.

"I said you are to step away from that console before you bring harm to my love Riley!" the boyfriend-bot called again as he directed the three adults off the train. Roll didn't miss the intense scowl on Mr. Andersen's face at his declaration.

"Sure thing," Rock held his hands up in a gesture of surrender and did as asked. Roll did the same from where she stood. They'd done their part. Now it was up to the emotions.

* * *

Joy looked around Headquarters the moment she manifested and felt her heart sink.

The place was a wreck. It was darkened everywhere, with colors faded so far that in the shadows, Joy couldn't tell what they were even supposed to be. Littered all across the floor, rather than in the short-term wall storage where they were supposed to be, were dozens of blackened memory orbs. A look behind her showed the other emotions looking just as stunned as she was and a control panel that was nearly black from inoperability. In place of the simple viewscreen camera the Lights had helped them to set up via relayed instructions for a video feed that never quite got finished, there was an entire array of cameras straight from Dream Studios.

"Is... Is he going to film us?" Fear wondered, looking at the camera setup.

He'd been expecting them.

Joy and the others looked around, hoping to find where Slenderman was hiding, but saw nothing. Only the soft light of the core memories, safe and untouched in their holder. The pre-awake core memories on a small bottom tier, overshadowed by the larger tier above holding the baseline and looping core memories, with a brilliant near-white prismatic glow from the center of the top tier.

"He... hasn't touched the core memories?" Sadness wondered.

"Then... we made it in time!" Joy felt relieved.

Yes, they were right on time.

"You..." the very tired and weary monotone of Riley sounded throughout Headquarters, even as a thin shadow peeled itself away from the edge of the window, standing tall, straight, and sinister in the strongest source of light in Headquarters as it strode over to the core memory holder.

"You... came back..."

And paradoxically, far too late.

***DONG***

The sound was so thoroughly unexpected, and the response to it so ingrained, that the five emotions couldn't help but turn to look at the memory dispenser as a pitch black memory orb radiating pure shadow dropped in.

"No..." Fear stared in horror as the blackened core memory orb trundled its way down towards the core memory holder, which was even now shifting to accommodate the new addition.

The center portion holding the nearly-clear prismatic orb for Unity Island rose up to reveal a new housing spot directly underneath it.

"S...Someone... stop i–" Joy moved forwards on protective instinct, only for a sharp impact to the chest to bring her to a halt.

Slenderman casually knelt down to pick up the orb personally while holding his other arm out towards Joy, a tendril like darkest shadow extending from it. As he held the orb, shadows seemed to flow from his arm and into the orb, darkening it even further if at all possible.

"Joy...?" Disgust turned to look at the normally brilliant emotion, her glow was so much a part of her that the rest rarely gave it any thought. She no longer had it.

Joy herself was transfixed on Slenderman's actions as he thrust the black core memory into place.

He had won.

"Oh god... Joy..." Fear trembled.

As did Headquarters. From the black core memory sprouted dozens of shadowy tendrils that wrapped around the core memory holder, and the core memories themselves, scorching the shining core memories black and dull where they touched, save for the brilliantly clear prismatic one at the pinnacle, but even that dulled from the tendrils' touch. What light was left to the core memories pulsed weakly as outside the far window, a tidal wave of black erupted from below, carrying pieces of Riley's Islands of Personality with them, cutting all the lines of power save the one for Unity Island directly below. As they watched, the wave of black formed into a truly massive giant replica of the impossibly thin Slenderman, the remains of the Islands of Personality, already gray and faded, sticking to it like some cruel and macabre parody. Family Island, the most intact of them all, lay in the giant replica's outstretched hand, gripped so tightly it cracked.

Joy's chest hurt at the sight and she raised a hand to it, only to find an obstruction. Weakly, she looked down to see the tendril of blackness stuck straight through her, her normally yellow skin turning gray and dull around the wound.

The tendril retracted suddenly and Joy fell to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut.

"JOY! NNNOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

"RRRRRAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!"

A rumble of thunder, a burst of flames, and soundless laughter echoed through Headquarters as Joy lay there unmoving. (32)

* * *

18.14 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Fear... Leads to Anger... Leads to ~~Hate~~ Disgust... Leads to ~~Suffering~~ Sadness... Leads to.....?!**

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"What just...?"

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Did that thing... kill Riley's Joy...?"

***The Real World***

The Andersens could only stare in horror at the sight projected above, a raincloud forming in Riley's headquarters while a squat humanoid mass of flames charged the being known as Slenderman.

"Oww! I... Aaaah!"

And then Riley started writhing in pain from her seat.

"Riley, my love?" the biker robot started at the sound. "What is wr–*BZZAP*

Dr. Light had needed no further opening to take the jury-rigged taser out of his coat pocket and zap the robot, relieving the machine of his gun as he fell and turning on the zombie-robots escorting him and the Andersens.

*BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG!*

The zombie-bots weren't getting up anytime soon.

"Quickly, we need to get–"

"–Down!" Roll yelled, diving in front of them, her hands having been traded out for mirrors, which reflected lasers fired from the wall behind Riley. "Behind the train! Move!"

"Hold on!" Rock called. "I think I can–gah!"

* * *

A battered copy of the Mind Reader fluttered a bit, the only two words on the front page reading **'JOY'S DEAD?!'** as the heatwaves from Anger's flames burst against the Slenderman and his shadowy tendrils inside the rain of pure sadness.

The rain was a brilliant blue, and as thick and intense as Sadness's weeping over the loss of Joy, her best friend outside Riley. Each drop that struck the Slenderman burned his dark form blue at the point of impact before being swallowed up by his natural darkness.

"JOOOYYY!!! WHHYYYYYY-HYYY-HYYY-HYYYYYYY?!?!"

Anger for his part had never been in such a fury. Even when separated from the rest of the emotions with nothing to temper or control him, he hadn't been this mad. All thoughts of the mission had fled in the fire of his fury, his only goal being that _the eldritch beanpole had to die_. His body burned as he charged the Slenderman again and again, bolts of flames from his hands burning away the tendrils sent at him, leaving the scorched edges red for a moment as he charged past, intent on destroying the one who had caused so much pain and suffering.

And each time, his charge was ultimately met with a spinning kick or a backhand that sent him flying even as the flames that engulfed him scorched the limb red for a moment. But he got back up each time, the injuries only serving to stoke his rage.

"RRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!"

* * *

Fear and Disgust had stared as Sadness and Anger lost all semblance of control and went berserk, manifesting a massive raincloud right in headquarters in the case of Sadness and performing a full-body ignition for Anger. They'd exchanged glances and proceeded to jointly drag the unmoving Joy behind the inoperable console.

At least, inoperable to them. Right after Sadness and Anger had lost it, Slenderman had held a single hand out towards the blackened console and the various buttons and levers had started moving on their own, the sickly sparking idea bulb pulsing with each phantom-driven movement.

"Oh, this is bad, very bad!" Fear was practically hyperventilating.

"Get ahold of yourself, Fe–"

"Do you know how to revive an emotion that's been impaled?! Because I don't! We haven't even been back here for ten seconds and we've lost Joy!"

"And if you don't get a hold of yourself, we might lose Anger or Sadness!" Disgust snapped. "Then what?!"

"I don't know!" Fear moaned, huffing rapidly. "You saw what happened! One shot! _One shot_!"

"Yeah, well you can sit here with your pity party and let that thing do whatever to Riley," Disgust sneered at him. "Me, I'm going to do something about it."

And with that, Disgust turned to dash out into the chaos of Headquarters, flashes of green flower shapes shining with each step she took.

"Hey, wait!" Fear called after her. "This is a bad idea!"

What could they do against the one who had felled their leader? Nothing. It was better to hide. To cower in fright. To let the abject terror fuel the new ruler of–

"Wait, what?" Fear started as he realized the direction those thoughts had taken. "Am I really making him stronger hiding back here?"

He-he-he-he-he...

Fear gulped loudly. Going out there would be very dangerous to himself. Staying here could be dangerous to everyone else.

"Oh....." he turned to look at the prone Joy. "What do I do?!"

"Ri..." the barest whisper sounded from Joy's still form. "...ley..."

Fear blinked owlishly for several moments, before taking a deep breath and steadying himself to a mere shiver rather than full-blown tremors. "Right... stupid question..."

Appropriate for a fool about to perish.

"I am so going to regret this!" Fear yelled as he dashed out into the chaotic storm right in headquarters.

The rain fell thick with Sadness's sobs, leaving pinprick flashes of blue on the black tendrils lashing about. Flashes of flame lit Headquarters as Anger blasted a berserker rage through the storm, carving the darkness and leaving the burned edges read. Wide green flashes lit the ground with Disgust's steps and turned several shadowy tendrils green and began to dissolve them. In the center, the Slenderman ducked and wove with movements physically impossible even for the emotions, batting both Anger and Disgust away whenever they got too close, seemingly uncaring for the assault upon him.

It was into this that Fear dashed, screaming, flailing his arms about wildly and hoping to do something. He was surprised when bolts of purplish air were thrown from his hands and bounced their way through the chaos, leaving purple marks whenever they hit Slenderman's shadowy tendrils, breaking them at the point of impact. Apparently their time as robots had left something of an imprint or–

One of the flailing tendrils of shadow slammed into Fear, tossing him head over heels to crash into the core memory holder. The core memories rattled, but the tendrils covering the holder, and corrupting the core memories, held them in place. His gaze was drawn to the black core memory, radiating shadows and the seeming source of the choking tendrils that were determined to suck the life out of Riley's very personality, all the things that made her _her_.

He was overcome by an extremely strong certainty that the core memory _wanted_ him. Wanted him to reach out so it could draw Fear into it an–

Something wrapped around his leg, pulling Fear away before he could touch the core memory–when had he even started reaching for it anyway?– and flung him to the opposite side of the room to crash among one of the larger piles of discarded blackened memories.

"Ow..." Fear moaned, reaching out to brace himself into a sitting position and felt a mild fizzing sensation in his hand as he did. He turned and saw that he'd grabbed one of the blackened memories, except that it was no longer black.

As he watched, a scene of Riley watching news footage of their earlier rampage played amidst a purple hue as the memory orb finished its conversion from a blank perspective to a fearful one.

_'But... only Sadness can do something like this, right?'_ he wondered, looking over the memory. It–

It mattered not if he fought or fled. Either action would feed the Slenderman's strength.

Fear looked up in time to see Anger being thrown into Disgust by their mutual opponent and knew what he had to do. Eyes on the prize, he took off running. And screaming.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA–"

Yes, little agent of terror. Serve your master with your action–

"–Sorry,busywithsomethingelserightnow," Fear gibbered as he duck, wove, and slid through the rain and the chaotic mass of shadowy tendrils lashing about... and right past a suddenly confused Slenderman, "leaveamessageatthesoundofthescreamandwe'llgetbacktoyouathalfpastnever–AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!"

He jumped like a panic-guided missile straight for the black core memor–"Ooof!"

And was knocked off-course at the last moment.

What was he thinking, anyway? Such a thing would devour his essence and leave nothing lef–

A blazing, fiery Anger slammed bodily into the Slenderman, knocking him off-balance with a flash of red, followed by a flash of green as Disgust performed a rather sloppy drop-kick.

"AAAAA-HUAAAHH-HAAA-HAAAAAAAAAA!!!" Sadness continued to wail, the rain intensifying in a fresh wave as she did.

"Whatever you're gonna do, do it already!" Anger yelled at him as the impossibly thin abomination recovered, his shadows burning away the color he'd been afflicted with as he retaliated.

Fear didn't even waste time nodding, he just sprang forwards, over a tendril, under another, twisting around a third, throwing bolts of purplish air at the tendrils holding his target in place, and diving in the most desperate hand-outstretched manner he was capable of. He hit the black core memory like a bullet, felt a burning sensation in his hand as he knocked it loose, and flew straight through its holder in a way only his naturally rail-thin form could manage.

He hit the ground in an uncontrolled roll, clutching desperately to the dark core memory as he went, refusing to relax his hold for any reason. When he finally came to a stop, he risked a look at the core memory and was rewarded with a view through the familiar brightly-shining purple color and heard Riley's voice from within it.

"You... came back..."

_'I was afraid you wouldn't.'_

Except... his purple hadn't taken away all of the shadow-radiating blackness. Only a portion of it. He frantically moved his hands over the memory, trying to fix it, and it seemed to work a bit, but for every part that turned purple past a certain point, the blackness reclaimed an equal portion.

He... he wasn't enough...

Fear looked up, to see Anger blasted across the room once again–how many times had it happened now?–and realized: He wasn't enough by himself.

"Anger! Go long!" Fear yelled and threw the core memory at his fellow emotion with all his might before turning and charging at the most terrifying thing he'd ever come across.

_'Thisisabadidea,thisisabadidea,thisisabadidea,thisisabadidea,THISISABADIDEA–'_ he chanted to himself as he wove through the shadowy tendrils, flung bursts of bouncing purple air to clear the way, rushed past Disgust, and with all the desperation of a cornered animal, kicked Slenderman in the face.

The impact cracked the abomination's head back so hard that his spine seemed to fold in half at the waist in precisely the opposite direction human anatomy typically allowed.

_'–Did I actually just DO tha–'_

He was so shocked that he never saw the retaliatory blow that blasted him into the wall.

* * *

Rock grunted, clutching where he'd been hit as he ran to the back of the room. He could hear Roll doing her best to defend their dad and the Andersens from the sudden attack. He could hear the cries of Riley as she convulsed in pain. He could also hear the sounds of the battle taking place in the girl's mind.

He ignored it and focused on the control panel he'd spotted on the wall. The best thing he could do now was to get to that thing and try to cut off Riley's access, and by extension Slenderman's, to the lab's systems.

Behind him, he heard the sound of damaged machinery rumbling to life under protest, and his sister's response to it.

"Oh come on! I turned that off!"

* * *

Anger caught the memory orb out of reflex before he even knew what it really was. By the time it registered, a glowing red was eating away at the blackness to join the purple already there. He felt his fury blank out in astonishment as he watched the scene through his own color, viewed both outside and inside Riley's head.

"You... came back..."

_'You left in the first place.'_

"It..." Anger choked on the words. "It was a bad idea... We never should have tried it... We–"

–will all fall to the inevitable.

Anger felt his temper flare up as he turned to look at the Slenderman, fending off both Fear and Disgust. He watched the thing grab Disgust by the throat with one of its shadowy tendrils and throw her at him.

He was already moving, rearing back to throw the orb at Disgust. It slammed straight into her stomach, causing her to grasp it by reflex as Anger vaulted over, igniting as he rejoined the fray.

* * *

Roll's broom, and a borrowed hockey stick, spun like a blur as she deflected hockey pucks and sticks fired from the already damaged Riley Machine, preventing them from possibly harming the adults behind her while they sought cover behind the train.

Sparing a glance back, she noted that they were out of the firing line and decided to go on the offensive. As she leaped high into the air, something on the back of the machine opened up and she beheld a rather large impact explosive primed to fire in a high arc.

"Oh, no you don't!" Roll called out, hefting her borrowed hockey stick like it was a spear. This was going to hurt, but better her than the others.

She threw the spear with stick with all her might like a javelin, striking the impact-triggered explosive squarely and detonating it before it could even clear the machine.

*KA-BOOM!*

"Roll!"

* * *

"You... came back..."

_'Do you even know what happened while you were gone?'_

Disgust tuned out the sobs of Sadness and the sounds of battle as she watched the scene in the memory play through her own shining green light and felt lower than dirt. The orb was now less than half the shadow-emanating blackness it had originally been, with shining purple, red, and now green holding back the emotional void it had once been.

"Don't worry," she scowled towards the source of all the pain Riley had been forced to endure and then glanced over to the side where Sadness sat, still weeping up a very literal storm, "we'll fix this."

Dashing towards the weeping emotion, Disgust shook her by the shoulder.

"JOOOOYYY....! SHE'S GOO-OOO-OO-OOONNEE!!!"

"Sadness, snap out of it!" Disgust shook harder.

"What's the use?!" Sadness wailed. "We lost Joy! Without Joy, we can't save Rile-ee-ee-eeyy!"

"I'd apologize, but you seriously need this," Disgust huffed before slapping Sadness sharply across the face.

"Wh-what was that for...?"

"That was because Riley needs you to pull yourself together so we can pull _her_ together!" Disgust snapped, before thrusting the partially-converted core memory into Sadness's hands. "Here, n–"

Disgust was suddenly yanked backwards away from Sadness.

* * *

Dr. Light ran to where his daughter had been thrown by the explosion, worry in his face. He nearly forgot the defensive lasers the room had been firing until a sharp cry from the back of the room sounded out, followed by loudly sparking electronics, the lights flickering, and the defensive lasers powering down.

"Rock!"

* * *

Sadness hadn't quite noticed Disgust being pulled away. She was too engrossed in the sight of her shining blue reaching out from her hands to wash away the foul emotionally empty blackness on the core memory.

"You... came back..."

_'I was so alone...'_

What... what had she been doing? Crying to herself while Riley needed her help? Again?

Face firming up, Sadness checked over the core memory, the blue glow following her hands as it and the other colors shoved each other in a complex swirling pattern. It looked... It looked like each color took up roughly one-fifth of the orb. Which meant...

Which meant they still needed Joy...

Sadness had just resolved to run the orb towards the downed Joy when it was slapped out of her hands and something wrapped around her neck, choking her as she was raised into the air. Looking out, she saw that it was a tendril of shadow, connected at the other end to the Slenderman. With three more, each holding a different emotion up by the neck.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Andersen, along with their emotions, looked at the display in horror as the thing possessing their daughter held her remaining four emotions up by their necks and seemed to be choking the very _color_ out of them.

* * *

It was hopeless. It had always been hopeless.

But they'd had to make it difficult. Do things the hard way and fight against the inevitable. And they'd paid the price.

They should have known. Laughter dies, tears run dry, fury burns out, distaste withers, and panic exhausts. In the end, only the emptiness is left. The emptiness and the madness.

* * *

Joy was having a lot of trouble thinking. Her mind kept bouncing between how much her chest hurt, and how much Riley was in trouble.

Part of her really wanted to get up and help, but she just wasn't feeling it. It was like all of her get up and go got up and went. And she'd had a lot of get up and go. Enough that she really should have noticed it leaving like that.

Like the weird swirly, glowy memory orb in front of her. When had that gotten there? Joy looked on as the scene was colored purple, then red, then green, then blue, and finally black.

"You... came back..."

_'Of course we came back,'_ Joy thought in puzzlement. Each of the emotional inflections sounded like they were missing something, but the last was missing everything. _'It doesn't matter why we leave or how far we go, we'll always come back to you, Riley.'_

It just... didn't make sense. Where was the girl, happy or otherwise, who couldn't be kept down? Who never stopped fighting and never stopped trying? Where was her 'never-say-die' attitude?

After all, Fear...

Fear would just get her to hide somewhere until it was over.

Okay, Anger...

No, Anger would rage and break things over the indignity of it all.

Maybe Disgust...

Pfft... Disgust would throw up her hands and say she was through with everything.

Well, then definitely Sadness...

Except Sadness had already proven willing to go cry in a corner when things got too tough.

Puzzled, Joy struggled to move her hand, reaching out to the shadowy black part of the memory orb on an instinct she couldn't define.

After what seemed like an eternity, her hand made contact and Joy felt a sharp drain on what little strength she had left as a paltry yellow glow formed in the middle of the remaining blackness.

"You... came back..."

_'Finally... we're together again.'_

Oh... That was it... It was her... Joy... _She_ was the reason for Riley's ability to keep going when things got tough. She'd... She'd forgotten that somewhere along the way. Somewhere between making sure she didn't try to stop another emotion from doing their job and the stress of the Loops, Joy had forgotten her own purpose in guiding Riley.

Joy felt a laugh from somewhere within, bringing with it a familiar warmth that spread and chased away the weakness in her body like the dawn chases away the shadows.

"Ha..."

And as it did, the yellow glow on the memory orb around her hand grew, eating away at the blackness until there was none left, and Joy watched the five colors swirl around each other faster and faster...

"Hahahahaha!"

* * *

The four emotions watched Slenderman freeze in his taunting as the laugh echoed through headquarters and a bright glow shone from behind the possessed console. A glow that began to move.

"Is that...?" Disgust seemed to perk up and regain a bit of color from her nearly gray state first.

It couldn't be...

Slenderman turned around as a glowing yellow figure stepped out from behind the console, carrying a brightly shining memory orb so prismatic it seemed perfectly clear.

"JOY!" Sadness had never sounded so relieved to see anything.

He'd taken care of her!

"You certainly gave it a good shot," Joy smirked back at the memetic abomination, twirling the core memory on one of her fingers like it was a basketball. "But, come on! I'm _Joy_! It doesn't matter how hard you knock me down, I'll get right back up! The prospect of being erased forever couldn't keep me down. What makes you think you can?"

* * *

18.15 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Recovery**

Dr. Light had half-dragged his children over near Riley and was assessing the damage done to them. Nothing unrepairable, but rather severe nevertheless. He got to work as the concerned Andersens joined him, alternating their gazes between their pained daughter and the display showing the inside of her mind.

* * *

"All right!" Anger pounded his fist to his palm. "We've got the whole gang now! Let's do th–"

"Nope!" Joy cut him off.

The other four emotions blinked in shock, and even the Slenderman seemed surprised.

"I've got Slendy here," Joy told them confidently, stepping out towards the eldritch personage, tossing the core memory to herself as she did. "You all have more important things to do. Fear, get control of the co–"

No less than four shadowy tendrils lashed out at Joy suddenly, and vanished in a flash of yellow light an instant later, the last couple of feet of each burned away, leaving the severed ends a yellow color. Joy held the core memory protectively, one palm held out to ward off the sudden attack.

"–nsole back," Joy continued, her gaze firm and set. "Ang–"

The Slenderman charged himself this time, slapping the shorter emotion's defending arm away and grabbing her by the throat with one hand and the core memory with the other.

The shadowed blackness from before burned at the brilliant prismatic memory–

"Joy! I'm–

"No! Ideas!"

–before Joy slammed two glowing feet into Slenderman's torso with a flash of light.

"Wha...?" Anger blinked, half stunned by the request, and half stunned by the fact that the Slenderman seemed to have been blown in half.

"Well..." Joy chuckled nervously as the brilliance of the core memory erased the blackness the Slenderman had reintroduced. "That was easy?"

Oh, is that what she thought?

Both halves of the Slenderman charged at her independent of each other, lashing out with thin limbs and shadowy tendrils, trying to claim the core memory back from her. One strike got lucky and slammed Joy into the wall hard enough that she lost her grip on the core memory. Before he could grab it though, Joy kicked it hard across Headquarters to where Sadness and Disgust stood. Sadness, being the closer one to where it was going, caught it.

"You two!" Joy called out, having dove onto Slenderman's top half while the two pieces rejoined and was holding her hands firmly over where the faceless entity's eyes should have been. "Get that memory back in place! Anger!"

"Do you remember what happened the last time I gave Riley an idea?! Never again! I'll help you fight! I can help you beat him!"

"We don't need him beaten!" Joy yelled back as the Slenderman threw her off and slammed her into the floor. "We need him out of Riley's head!"

Joy was then thrown into the ceiling with enough force to bounce her back towards the floor.

"Do you think _any_ idea–" Joy called out before being slammed into the wall again, "–can do that if it's not angry?!"

Anger stared, hating to admit that Joy was right. Gritting his teeth, he made to charge at the idea bulb bins, only to watch as shadowy tendrils from Slenderman tore into the wall surrounding the bins and ripped it apart, scattering debris and idea bulbs all over Headquarters.

_'Well... that's a sure sign Joy's on the right track...'_ Anger admitted to himself as he prepared to try and search every last scattered bulb to find one that might do the trick.

* * *

"Ow!" Fear yelped and grabbed his hand back from the sparking idea bulb stuck in the console. He'd never seen an idea go that bad... ever. "This... this is a bad idea... Ow! This is a _really_ bad idea..."

He looked over the console, trying to figure out how to regain control. This was entirely different than when Sadness had done in baseline. Then, the console had just locked them all out. Now, all the various darkened levers and buttons were moving on their own, driving Riley to do who-knew-what?

Should he grab that lever? Or maybe that one? No! It wouldn't work! None of them would work!

_'Okay, breathe...'_ he told himself. _'This is no time to panic...'_

It was like a final piece of the puzzle had clicked into place, and Fear found his gaze drawn towards the panic button at his usual seat.

"Or maybe... it's the _perfect_ time to panic!"

He dashed over, and tripped as something grabbed one of his legs and tried to pull him away. Fear didn't need to look to know it was one of Slenderman's shadowy tendrils. All he needed was to get to that button!

Fueled by a depth of desperation he didn't recall experiencing before, Fear gripped at the console with claw-like hands and began dragging himself inch-by-precious-inch towards Riley's salvation as he kicked at the thing trying to pull him away.

"You... won't... stop... me... from... keeping... Riley... safe!"

He slammed his hand down on the panic button with all his might, causing a wave of purple to flash out lightning-quick from the button and spread all over the console, stopping the possessed movement of levers and buttons, and also ejecting the idea with enough force that it shattered on the Headquarters ceiling.

* * *

"AAAAAHHHHH!!!" Riley's eyes shot fully open and darted around her immediate vicinity. She saw her parents, a damaged Rock and Roll, and Dr. Light trying to repair them. She also felt a terrible, long overdue, and very built-up panic and began struggling with the straps holding her to the chair.

_"No, Riley! Not yet!"_

Riley halted her struggles as she heard the familiar voice and listened to it.

_'Fear?'_ she thought back, feeling like her mind had been put through a blender. But she was _feeling_.

_"I'm here, Riley. We're all here. Listen, Joy's got a plan, but you need to stay where you are right now."_

* * *

Sadness and Disgust raced towards the core memory holder, Sadness holding the core memory in her hands like the most precious thing in the world while Disgust covered her by blasting those revolting black tendril things with flower-shaped bursts of green light from her feet.

They reached the core memory holder with little issue, and found a problem. The tendrils choking the life out of the device had closed up over the very slot they needed to place the core memory in.

"No..." Sadness sniffled. "It's... it's not fair... He can't..."

"Keep it together Sadness," Disgust snapped, fending off another attack from behind before kicking the blockage in a flash of green. And what a sloppy kick it was, much like the fight with Slenderman earlier. First chance they got, they were talking Riley into martial arts lessons. (33)

The green light dissolved away at the blockage of tendrils, but they began writhing and reorganizing themselves to prevent access.

"They're being so mean!" Sadness wailed, thrusting one of her arms out at the mass. There was a bolt of blue, a muffled rumble of thunder, and a cloud formed directly over the foul things, turning parts of them blue and making them writhe in apparent pain. Disgust took that invitation to kick them again and between the blue and the green glows, the blockage swiftly dissolved, allowing Sadness to push the core memory back into place.

There was a pulse of light from it that caused the remaining tendrils grasping at the core memory holder to writhe, and the core memories they were suppressing to flare back to full brilliance. Another pulse and the tendrils were blasted apart completely. The third pulse traveled down the powering connections for the Islands of Personality and there was a great cracking in the distance. Sadness and Disgust turned to watch as the giant statue of Slenderman began to crumble, and then shatter completely as the Islands of Personality were reformed in its place. In fact, they looked brighter than ever, with bridges leading to them even more elaborate than before.

"Did... Did Unity Island just get bigger?" Sadness wondered.

* * *

_'Okay...'_ Riley felt a few tears of relief pour from her eyes as something in her head that had been broken was suddenly put right. She... she felt... like herself again...

* * *

Anger frantically searched through the scattered idea bulbs for something that could be used to kick the Slenderman out of Riley's head, but was so far finding nothing. Each failure he tossed aside before grabbing for another.

Make a volcano? No. *Toss*

Swim to Hawaii? With their idea of pizza? *Toss*

Drive dad's car? Not if they wanted to live to see sixteen. *Toss*

Go back to Mon– "Gah!" *Big toss*

Look up Pole Dancing on the internet because mom changed the subject way too fast? Yeah, right. (34) *Toss*

Get clarification on 'The Talk'? Ugh, that had been bad enough the first time! *Toss*

Bring emotions outside my head? Not lik–

Anger froze halfway through tossing the idea and took a second look. Yes, it was the same idea that had gotten them into this mess in the first place. And maybe...

Anger grinned and began running for the console.

Just maybe it could get them out of it as well.

"Joy!" he called out as he dashed for the console. "Get him under the tube!"

"Roger that!" Joy called back from where she was dueling the Slenderman before being knocked to the floor.

Anger ignored his desire to go pound the guy in favor of delivering the idea.

Joy, for her part, didn't let being flat on her back stop her. She pulled her legs back and kicked straight out to where, on any normal male, a very vulnerable part would be. A flash of yellow light sent Slenderman staggering, but little more. It was still enough for Joy to spring to her feet and launch a punch at the memetic abomination's lack of face, resulting in the brightest flash of yellow light yet.

A wordless curse echoed across Headquarters as the Slenderman stumbled back from the blow, before he was hit by another, and another, driven back by each until–

"Hey, Slendy!" Anger yelled from the console, before inserting the idea bulb. "GET OUT OF OUR HEAD!"

The Slenderman looked up at the extraction tube directly over him and lashed out with

his tendrils to hold himself in place as he was drawn upwards. Another lashed out to wrap around Joy and pull her towards him.

If he was going to be kicked out, she would come with him. Let them both spend their exile together while Riley learned what a life without happiness was lik–

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER!" the yell heralded a kick, followed by a flash of green that dissolved both the tendril holding Joy and those holding the tube, allowing the Slenderman to be drawn up, and out before the tube shut off.

At the console, Anger grinned as he removed the idea bulb, and then kissed it. "Now that's a good idea!"

"Thanks Disgust," Joy smiled.

"Duh," Disgust rolled her eyes and smirked. "You needed my help. Now, let's get Riley back to normal. This place is a mess."

"Sounds good," Joy smiled back. "Okay everyone, listen up!"

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Andersen sighed in relief when the Slenderman had been kicked out. Their daughter was safe again. That monster would never–

The sound of machinery caught their attention and the two looked over where the very last of the generic robot frames lay as it jerked and changed shape. The torso and limbs became unnaturally thin and stretched out as they scorched to the black of the void. The head became squashed, ovular, sheet-white, and completely devoid of facial features.

The Slender Man stood shakily and turned its eyeless gaze towards them.

Very well. They wanted to do it the hard way? Then the hard way it was.

* * *

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Slender Man**

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Oh my god... Not again..." her Fear murmured.

"Why... why can't that thing just leave Riley alone already?!" her Anger spat.

"He's not getting her," the woman's Sadness declared, getting nods from the other four. "He's not hurting our family if we have anything to say about it."

The display of Mrs. Andersen's sight turned to see the family's newest friend, Dr. Light, working hurriedly to repair his own children.

"Not ours, and not his either."

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Gentlemen," Mr. Andersen's Anger stated with more calm than he had any right to, "that _thing_ hurt Riley. We are officially at Defcon 1." (35)

As one, and without argument, Mr. Andersen's other four emotions produced safety keys and inserted them into their relevant key slots in the console before them.

"Physical violence aversions down, sir," Mr. Andersen's Sadness saluted.

"Fight or Flight reactions set to 'Fight' position," his Fear reported as the man's console reconfigured itself for combat.

"Papa Wolf protocols are now in full effect," his Disgust intoned seriously.

"Hockey stick spotted, we are now armed," his Joy noted.

"Gentlemen," Mr. Andersen's Anger gripped the combat controls before him while the others did the same, "let's give him hell."

***The Real World***

"AAAAAAAAA–" Mr. Andersen charged at the thing that had caused his daughter do much suffering, hockey stick raised high.

The Slender Man watched him come, seemingly unconcerned, and when the man was a few feet away, the abomination-in-a-robot made its move...

"–AAAAAAA–"

...and nearly fell over.

"–AAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Mr. Andersen's attack suffered no such clumsiness and collided hard with Slender Man's head, snapping it back hard enough from a forward-bent position that the eldritch machine nearly fell over backwards.

Mr. Andersen didn't stop with that one success though. He swung again, hitting the Slender Man across his lack of face, kicking him in his spaghetti-thin chest, smashing him across the nearly non-existent shoulder, jabbing him in the non-face, bludgeoning him in the side so hard he thought the thing might split in two, grabbing an arm as it tried to retaliate and twisting it viciously before striking the thing across the head again–

* * *

"Holy crap..." Fear stared at the sight that pinned Riley's attention.

"Woo! Go dad!" Anger cheered.

* * *

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Two minutes for slicing!" the man's Joy jeered at the sight. "Two minutes for hooking!"

The Slender Man went down as his feet were pulled out from under him.

"And let's not forget our personal favorite," the man's Anger gave an evil grin and drew back a pair of levers. "Two minutes for HIGH STICKING!"

***The Real World***

–and stared as the Slender Man caught it in his spindly little hand.

Right... Limbs limited to physically possible movement... How droll.

A foot so thin it was nearly a javelin buried itself in Mr. Andersen's stomach, doubling him over as the Slender Man pulled the man across his downed form and stood in one smooth movement. He grabbed the man's punching arm with one hand, twisted it almost to breaking, and raised the other hand, extended two fingers–

Look at me.

–and waited for the man's eyes to stare at him in horrified realization.

***Mr. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Bracing positions!" the man's Fear yelled. "We're about to lose the eyes!"

***The Real World***

I am the last thing you will ever se–

*Crack!*

The Slender Man staggered from a blow to the back of his head.

***Mrs. Andersen's Headquarters***

"Get... your... hands... off... my/our... husband!" Mrs. Andersen's Sadness voiced in perfect time with the woman herself as she held a hockey stick of her own across the Slender Man's throat and pulled back with all her might.

"MESS WITH MAMA BEAR'S FAMILY AND PAY THE PRICE!" the woman's Anger screamed.

***The Real World***

The Slender Man grabbed the stick restraining his head with both hands and snapped it before whipping around, intending to split the woman's face with his bare han–

His strike flew wide as he took a blow to the back of a knee from Mr. Andersen, leaving him open to a blow from Mrs. Andersen's broken improvised weapon.

* * *

"Mom?" Sadness voiced to the stunned silence of Headquarters.

"Joy..." Disgust wondered as they all watched Riley's parents take on an eldritch abomination with nothing but a pair of hockey sticks, one of them broken, "when exactly did our parents become awesome?"

* * *

"Dad... we can finish this ourselves. We just need a few more seconds."

"Yeah, go help them."

"But..."

"Go!"

* * *

That was enough.

Two void-black energy tendrils suddenly sprouted from the Slender Man's back and whipped at the surprised Andersens, wrapping around their throats.

Now–

The Slender Man's body flipped upside down so suddenly that the energy matrix maintaining his tendrils was disrupted, and in the next instant he was blasted forwards past the two as if shot from a cannon. The Andersens stared at the older and more heavyset Dr. Light, his arms extended in a double lunging palm strike where the Slender Man had just been.

Ah... The good doctor... We simply must stop meeting like this.

"Bill, Jill," Dr. Light called to the Andersens as the Slender Man stood back up slowly and deliberately, "get back to Riley."

"But..."

Yes, it didn't matter where they went or what they did. It would all end the same way.

"Don't worry," a younger voice called out, prompting the two to look to where Rock was stepping forwards while supporting his sister Roll and finishing a last-second adjustment, "we've got this."

Did they now?


	23. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen (Part Four of Five) - Mega Man: Inside Out

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-25. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen, part 4 of 5 - Mega Man: Inside Out**

18.16 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Weakness**

"Oh, man, this totally needs some awesome music," Joy grinned widely. "Something fast... upbeat..."

"Something..." Riley agreed, thinking on what her emotions had told her that the Light twins had said about the Slenderman, as well as a few things that had happened to them on the way to save her. As she did, an idea bulb that had rolled near the console lit up. "...that shows we believe in them."

Joy blinked and picked up the lit bulb, before smiling brightly.

"I think this is a _great_ idea!" she declared and slotted it into the currently empty socket. "Anger, go pick a few things out of my stash of instruments that you all rifle through all the time while thinking I never notice! Disgust, we're going to need some makeup–"

* * *

Dr. Light stood there, hands outstretched in the same position he'd ended his strike in, staring at the Slender Man and trying to control his trembling.

You always made such a good Jekyll, Doctor.

No matter how much he wished he didn't, he remembered the circumstances of his first meeting with the memetic abomination with crystal clarity. (36)

I much preferred you as Hyde though.

Dr. Light clenched his eyes shut at the images that assaulted him, fresh as ever.

Oh, the leg bones stretch gro~tesquely, and the arm bones snap quite lo~udly. The skull bone squeezes the ra~ge glands, and the jaw bone howls with a pai~ned cry. Then you glare with hate at your lov~ed ones, while your claw bones rip through your chi~ld's flesh–

"Dad," a hand dropped on his shoulder, and the man looked to see his two robotic children gazing at him with understanding.

"I'm sorry..." Dr. Light lowered his shaking hands.

"It's okay," Rock smiled.

"Like we said, we've got this," Roll added.

Then perhaps they should stop talking and bring it.

* * *

"Hey, mom?" Riley asked as he parents joined her again, looking prepared to get her out of the chair as fast as possible, and preferably as far away from the current room as they could run. "I know you probably want me to get out of here asap, but there's something I still need to do to help Rock and Roll. And I need you to press that red button there so I can do it."

Her parents looked confused, and more than a bit frightened, but they didn't immediately try to grab her out of the chair.

"But...?" her father managed to ask a whole field of questions with one word.

"That Slenderman thing... runs on belief, right? Well... I can maybe give them a boost... I just need to go inside my head and perform an epic song number with my emotions and I realize that makes no sense, but I promise I can explain later. Just... trust me for right now? Please?"

Her parents exchanged glances, before nodding to each other.

"Of course, honey," her mom leaned in and gave her a hug before her dad pressed the button that activated the original function of the Mind Machine and sent her inside her own head.

* * *

Rock and Roll charged, forming their arms into mediums for the emotional weapons. Slender Man formed two black-energy tendrils from his back and prepared to defend.

The first shot of the Joyous Sunburst from Rock was blocked by one of the tendrils, which promptly disintegrated in a flash of yellow light and a soundless scream from Slender Man himself. Roll's shot of Angry Flame tore straight through the other tendril, blasted through Slender Man's frame, and elicited another cry as the eldritch robot bent over double.

The two proceeded to unload everything they had on the Slender Man from where they stood. Joyous Sunbursts, Blooming Disgusts, Angry Flames, Sad Rainclouds, Frantic Frights, and even what they had left of their Zen Busters were fired one after the other at the pained Slender Man, who convulsed and screamed soundlessly with each hit until–

*click*

*click*

They were out already?

The Slender Man froze in his pained position before slowly, deliberately, straightening up to show his completely unmarked body (37) and pointed one hand at the stunned Light twins. His fingers spun and rearranged themselves into a bizarre five-pronged Jacob's ladder that began forming an orb of black energy in its center.

His turn then...

The black bolt shot, not at either of the Light twins, but at Riley, prompting Rock to jump in the way with both arms crossed defensively. The shot struck and a wave of monochrome grayness spread over a shocked Rock Light, who stood there unsteadily for a few moments before collapsing listlessly to the floor.

Heh... So predictable.

* * *

Dr. Light felt his blood run cold as he saw his son drop to the floor and looked around for something he could use to maybe help turn the tide. His gaze fell on the downed biker robot from earlier.

That would do.

All he needed was a minute and some luck.

* * *

"Okay, now the lyrics are going to go like–" Riley began while Disgust flitted around getting all of the emotions into costume, only to be cut off as Sadness tugged on her shirt.

"Um..." Sadness held up the Mind Reader, the headline declaring **'WE BELIEVE!'** before opening it up to reveal the interior to be sheet music complete with lyrics. "Are these them?"

"Er..." Riley blinked in complete surprise. "Yes... That's them exactly."

* * *

Roll cursed her stupidity as she blocked a follow-up shot with a sweep of her broom, the inanimate object proving unaffected by Slender Man's weapon and incapable of transmitting it to her.

They should have known that would happen. The emotional weapons were all essentially variants of the Zen Buster; non-lethal, non-damaging shots that only affected the target's emotional state. And the Slender Man had already shown that he could take bursts straight from the emotions themselves without lasting effects. With a physical body buffering him?

They'd been wasting their time. Yes, indeed.

The soundless empty echo of her opponent's laughter grated on Roll's nerves and she charged, broom swinging to dispel another shot of... whatever it was. Screw it all, she was using the facts of his new physical body and pounding the bastard into tiny piles of scrap! Just like she and Rock should have done in the first place!

Such anger... Such all-consuming rage...

Roll swung at the Slender Man's head, and found her broom caught fast by a black energy tendril.

Why... she was like a yipping puppy... More ferocious than dangerous.

The tendril wrapped around the broom and tightened as Roll tried to pull it free. And then the broom shattered.

Roll blinked in shock for half a moment before recovering enough to throw the broken handle at Slender Man's head, only for him to bat it away easily as a second black energy tendril wrapped around Roll's neck and hauled her up to what would be eye level if her opponent had eyes.

So rude she was... Didn't she want his weapon?

"Huh...?"

That was what the two of them did, correct? Take the weapons of their enemies and defeat them with their own abilities? Or those of their comrades? Well, he had one of his own this time. Thanks to their own efforts even. It only seemed fair that they should have it as well. All she needed to do was reach out and take it. She was certainly close enough for it.

"Nnnngh..."

One touch, and The Void Stares Back would be all hers. He was quite fond of the weapon they'd helped give him. So much that he'd decided to name it. She should take it for her own and think of him every time she used it. Think of him and how glorious his power was as she inflicted it on others and fell to its sway in turn. Why, her brother already seemed to enjoy it.

"Do... not... want..." Roll ground out through clenched teeth and a vocal processor strained from pressure on her neck as she struggled to break free.

Disappointing...

The Slender Man formed the five-pointed Jacob's ladder with his hand again and a black orb formed in it as he pressed the weapon to Roll's chest and fired.

But refusal had never been an option.

* * *

Mr. and Mrs. Andersen held their place directly in front of Riley as the Slender Man dropped a grayed-out Roll to the floor and began advancing on them. It would only get their daughter over their–

They didn't need to worry. Their precious daughter would come to no harm. Why, there was every chance that she couldn't currently be affected by his weapon at all. So, no, he would do nothing to her. She would remain untouched and unsullied from this point forwards. The only person in the whole world to be so.

The Slender Man's arm formed into the five-point Jacob's ladder and aimed it directly at them.

Wouldn't that be something? To be the only sane person left in the world as everyone, from strangers to friends to her own family descended into the depths of madness? Left to watch as a tool invented by her dear friends for strictly peaceful purposes was twisted into the cause for global ruin? Left with the understanding that she was part of the reason why such a horror was even possible? Why...

The black orb formed, and Riley's parents closed ranks to shield their daughter.

...it could cause her to sna–

*Pnyow!*

The Slender Man's hand-weapon was knocked off-target in a flash of light. He turned his faceless head towards the source of the blast and saw Dr. Light standing with a barrel-shaped device strapped over one arm, smoking from the plasma bolt it had fired even as the good doctor shook where he stood.

Well, well... It seemed like Jekyll wanted to play after all. Now...

The Slender Man batted aside three shots from Dr. Light with black energy tendrils from his back.

...how long until Hyde came out? Hmm?

Dr. Light fired again and again as the Slender Man strode leisurely up to him, batting aside the plasma blasts with his black energy tendrils.

How long until his sins overwhelmed him? How long until the weight of guilt for what he'd created became too much to bear? How long until the man who preached peace admitted that his efforts only fueled war? How long until he realized that his precious creations were all failures? How long until he admitted that for all his genius... for all his virtue... for all his effort... for all his good intentions... he was the worst monster of them all?

"I..."

He needed to face facts. The future he had strived to build with his own two hands was a blight upon creation. A foul festering–gloriously so!–abomination that poisoned all caught in its current. He had built the foundation of the future, invented the technology that enabled the horrors that filled it. He was to blame for everyone killed with his inventions. He was to blame for every inch of destruction his creations and their derivatives wrought.

"No... I..." Dr. Light had stopped firing, his arm drooping and his entire body trembling as he stared at the advancing Slender Man. When a black energy tendril reached out to take the makeshift buster on his arm, he couldn't find it in himself to resist.

The likes of Wily, Sigma, and the rest were never the true villains. It had always been only–

"You're not seriously listening to that, are you?" a voice cut across the room, prompting Dr. Light to look up at the screen displaying the inside of Riley's head...

...and did a double-take as he saw Riley and her five emotions decked out like a heavy metal band.

"You? A bad guy?" Riley scoffed. "That's a load of bulls–"

"RILEY!" the girl's mother shouted, causing all six figures to flinch in chagrin.

"Sorry mom," Riley apologized. "But still! You're one of the best people I know! Rock and Roll wouldn't be such amazing friends if you weren't a good person too! That's what I believe!"

The Slender Man turned to consider the image above as he idly crushed Dr. Light's improvised weapon.

Was that so? That is what she believed? In the face of all the destruction made possible by this man's so-called 'genius', she believed that?

"Yeah!" Riley shouted back. "And you want to know what else we believe? Then listen up!"

A power chord rang out and the music began. (38)

* * *

**Mega Man: Inside Out - We Believe in Rock and Roll**

ERROR: MASTER WEAPON THE VOID STARES BACK ADVERSELY AFFECTING SYSTEMS

EMOTIONAL PROCESSOR OVERLOADED: SYSTEMS UNRESPONSIVE

MASTER WEAPON THE VOID STARES BACK LABELED MALWARE

ATTEMPTING TO DELETE

WARNING: MALWARE CANNOT BE DELETED

ATTEMPTING TO QUARANTINE

WARNING: MALWARE CANNOT BE QUARANTINED

ATTEMPTING TO FIX DAMAGED SYSTEMS

WARNING: MALWARE DAMAGE BEING INFLICTED FASTER THAN SYSTEMS CAN CORRECT

SYSTEM RESTORATION PROGRESS: NEGATIVE

_"We pledge allegiance to the faith,"_

_"of everyone who rolls and rocks!"_

UNKNOWN ENERGY ACTIVITY DETECTED

RESUMING INTEGRATION

_"And to that greatest hope for which they stand!"_

_"Two heroes under heaven!"_

UNKNOWN ENERGY INTERFERING WITH MALWARE

_"Oh, even gods love Rock and Roll!"_

SYSTEM RESTORATION PROGRESS: POSITIVE

_"Bring liberty and justice to all lands!"_

REATTEMPTING MALWARE PURGE

_"Repeating Time,"_

_"It tries us hard."_

UNKNOWN ENERGY INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL

_"When every Loop,"_

_"we're dealt the cards."_

ENHANCEMENT MODE INITIALIZING

_"And every fight,"_

_"we're told exactly how we'll lose!"_

MALWARE PURGE SUCCESSFUL

_"But when we,"_

_"all lose control:"_

EMOTIONAL PROCESSING RESTORED TO NORMAL

_"We believe,"_

_"in Rock and Roll."_

"Sis?" Rock sat up shakily, rubbing his head. "What...?"

_"In the end,"_

_"They're gonna help to see us through!"_

"I don–" Roll began before black energy tendrils slammed into both of the Light twins and flung them towards the wall. They flipped in midair, effectively on instinct, and hit the wall in mirroring foot-first crouches.

Blinking, they looked at each other to see their sibling encased in a shimmering rainbow glow all over.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

SONG MODE ACTIVATED

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

"I think we just got a new toy," Roll grinned as they both leapt over a second strike from the Slender Man in unison.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

"Then let's put it to good use!" Rock grinned back as the two charged the Slender Man.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

SYSTEM STABILITY AT 100% AND RISING

SYSTEM CAPACITY AT 100% AND RISING

SELF REPAIR SYSTEMS RUNNING AT 1000%

_"Do you trust these heroes,"_

The Slender Man sent out his tendrils again–

_"to save you from the curse?"_

–only for the rainbow auras of Rock and Roll combined with mirrored kicks to carve through them like wet tissue paper.

_"To take on quests of action and of stealth?"_

The Slender Man hastily formed both arms into the five-pronged Jacob's ladder that was his weapon–

_"Calamity and ruin,"_

–and fired black orbs at them–

_"they take it all in stride,"_

–which Rock and Roll mirror-punched into nothingness with ease.

_"and stare into the face of doom itself!"_

The Slender Man let out a soundless cry and formed two very large black energy tendrils to bring smashing in from either side of the glowing Light twins.

_"Repeating Time,"_

With mirrored arm-blocks, Rock and Roll shattered the tendrils and leapt for the Slender Man.

_"It tries us hard."_

_"When every Loop,"_

They launched into twin kicks–

_"we're dealt the cards."_

_"And every fight,"_

That the Slender Man caught in each hand with significant effort, being pushed back by the force.

_"we're told exactly how we'll lose!"_

_"But when we,"_

The Slender Man pushed back, sending the Light twins into opposing spins–

_"all lose control:"_

_"We believe,"_

–that they turned into mirrored spinning kicks to his torso–

_"in Rock and Roll."_

_"In the end,"_

–followed by identically mirrored punches to the face–

_"They're gonna help to see us through!"_

–that launched him backwards.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

The Slender Man caught himself in a one-handstand and sprung back from a follow-up diving kick–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–forming both hands into his weapon, aiming them at each other–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–and unleashing a shadowy shockwave–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–that broke upon Rock and Roll's rainbow auras, but also forced them back. The Slender Man then began charging up a massive ball of blackness between his weapons.

As he did, Riley began to speak as her emotions continued playing the music.

"Would that my cries were heard in the heavens. Would that they were inscribed upon the sky. As I was clutched in an iron fist of shadow and feared that I would be lost in the dark forever."

Seeing it, Rock and Roll stepped together until their rainbow auras were touching before stepping apart, with wisps of their auras stretching between them almost like a net right as the Slender Man fired.

"But I have learned that heroism lives!"

Rock and Roll braced their aura net like they were catching a boulder...

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

...and it held.

"I see now that it will stand forth and win the day against the ruin and the madness."

And as it held, the wispy net began attacking the giant orb of blackness–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

"Even for those who trust them not, they shall strike down the wicked,"

–slowly converting it into a massive rainbow orb instead.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

"and raise the flag of justice for all to see."

And the Slender Man stared in disbelief–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

"And this is forever why–"

–as they threw it right back at him.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

He reached out both his hands and black energy tendrils to catch it like they did–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–only for the tendrils to burn away and his hands to prove no impediment.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

The Slender Man was engulfed in the massive rainbow orb for several moments–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–before being released, his mechanical body smoking and smoldering.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

Only to meet twin charging punches to the chest that stunned him–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–followed by two roundhouse kicks from either direction to the neck–

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

–that popped his head clean off.

_"We believe in Rock and Roll!"_

Roll pushed the decapitated machine to the side while Rock held out one hand to catch the head and formed the other into a screwdriver. (39)

* * *

18.17 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers] / [Admin Shenanigans - Madoka]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Slender Season**

"So... that's...?" the emotions heard through Riley's senses as they made plans for cleaning up Headquarters. There was so much to do. In addition to the huge mess that needed cleaning after Slenderman's occupation of Riley's head and the ensuing fight, there were all sorts of memory orbs that they all needed to convert to one or more emotions before sending to long term. And that wasn't even mentioning all the damage done to Riley's extended mindscape that would take a long time to put right. But put it right they would. For now, Riley was planning on finding the couch and laying down for a while once she got home so as to not need any of her emotions at the console, thus freeing them to clean up Headquarters. (40)

At the moment, Riley was leaning on her parents for emotional support and fiddling with a hockey puck she'd picked up off the floor while Rock and Roll presented a disturbingly black chip to everyone.

"Yeah," Rock's voice was heard. "That's Slender Man's IC chip."

"He's trapped there, completely unable to hurt anyone so long as we don't plug it into anything," Roll's voice added.

"That's good," Joy sighed in relief and leaned back in her chair. "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm all for locking him up and getting on with our life. Whaddya say?"

"Um..." Sadness started, looking a bit uncomfortable. "Well..."

"What Sadness is trying to say is that you've been outvoted Joy," Disgust cut in.

"Huh?" Joy blinked in confusion.

"He really hurt Riley with what he did," Sadness pointed out.

"As long as that chip exists, someone could possibly send Slenderman back in here, or give him a new body, and we can't let that happen," Fear looked as determined as Joy had ever seen him.

"Um, I'm not sure that's–"

"GET HIM!" Anger yelled suddenly and all of the emotions save a confused Joy hit their controls at the same time.

* * *

"So long as–" Rock began, only to be interrupted as a tired Riley suddenly lunged forwards, swinging the hockey puck she held like a bludgeon.

"AAAAAAHHH!!!" She screamed, smashing the sport supply onto the chip over and over again, reducing the delicate piece of technology to pieces, and then smashing the pieces to smaller pieces, and smashing those smaller pieces until they resembled dust more than anything else. After nearly a minute of fury where everyone else could only watch in stunned shock, Riley collapsed weeping into her mother's arms. Her father joined the comforting motion.

"–no one breaks it, he can't escape," Rock sighed with resigned understanding. "Being of pure thought, remember? He doesn't need a physical form to survive."

Riley froze in her post traumatic sobbing at that and looked at Rock with weary horror.

 _"I was_ trying _to tell you all..."_ Joy snapped inside her head.

".....oops."

"It's fine," Roll waved her apology off. "I was having trouble stopping myself from doing the same thing."

"Besides," Dr. Light began, "there are other beings similar to him. Others that will be as unhappy about his actions as we are and are in a better position to do something about it. We are not likely to see him again for a long time."

"You're certain about that?" Mr. Andersen asked.

"Quite," Dr. Light told the man. "I believe we all owe you a much more thorough explanation of things than we've been able to give so far. But for now, I believe it best that we all rest and recover from today's ordeals. Now... if I can just figure out where Auto got to during all of this and whether or not he can drive a vacuum cleaner..."

* * *

It was a lot for the Andersens to take in. Their daughter was caught in a time loop like that _Groundhog Day_ movie? It was overseen by gods from ancient (and even modern) mythology? Some of them, like the Slenderman, liked to torment 'loopers' for fun? There was no known way for it to end? There were countless other universes that were undergoing the same thing (and Dr. Light's was one of them)? The very existence of their reality hinged on Riley's well-being? Riley had five voices inside her head that supposedly represented her emotions?

That last one should have probably been a great deal more disturbing to them than it was.

"One question Doctor..." Mr. Andersen finally spoke up. "How many times have you had to explain this to us?"

"Me personally? To you specifically?" the doctor raised an eyebrow. "This is my first time. Though I suspect your daughter's explained it a few times already. She seemed rather confident that you would take it well after all."

"I see..." Mrs. Andersen paused. "And... we might begin 'looping' as well?"

"Perhaps," Dr. Light nodded. "Or perhaps by some convergence of odd circumstances you may simply begin Dreaming of past Loops. Or, even more rarely, a combination of both like I have."

"Of... of course," Mr. Andersen nodded. "Well... at least Riley now knows it's too dangerous to go messing with the contents of her head, right?"

"Oh, sure," Dr. Light smirked in amusement. "Much like humanity has long since learned that it is dangerous to play with fire. Or to ride in wheeled vehicles. Or to cross the oceans in boats. Or to fly higher than the birds. Or to go into space." (41)

"But–"

"Mrs. Andersen, please understand that the single greatest threat to a looper's mental health is boredom. The best remedy for this is experimentation, novelty, uniqueness, and new ideas. Riley's idea to bring her emotions outside her head is not one that I foresee being easily discarded. She may set it aside for a time after this event, but I have no doubt that she will return to the concept eventually. Perhaps in a Loop with far fewer safeguards against disaster than we can provide. We can teach her proper experimental procedures and safety precautions to lessen potential disaster, as well as how to take such things slowly. A lesson we ourselves could perhaps use a refresher in."

The Andersens looked at each other, uncertain.

"I'd say we could also teach her the value of never giving up, but I do believe your daughter already knows that very well."

The Andersens found they had no argument for that.

* * *

Riley lay on the bench looking at the clouds and wondering just how long today's cleanup effort was going to take. Not the one at the lab, the one inside her head.

Every day, most of her emotions had taken leave to go out and help with cleanup efforts. It made sense, strictly speaking, but it left Riley herself a bit stunted for the day. Plus, she felt extremely paranoid that the emotions that left to help wouldn't come back. Even though they always did, and promised they always would.

 _"Riley,"_ Joy had told her, _"It doesn't matter why we leave or how far we go, we'll always come back to you. That's a promise."_

It was the most reassuring and heartwarming thing any of her emotions could have told her. So why was she feeling more paranoid about the concept now than when she'd had the eldritch embodiment of paranoia squatting in her head?

 _"Maybe because me and Fear stayed behind today?"_ Sadness suggested.

 _"Maybe,"_ Riley admitted back, _"but would you two have been the ones to stay behind if I wasn't already inclined to feel this way?"_

It was chicken-and-the-egg complicated. Riley's emotions influenced her behavior, but her need for any particular emotion influenced _their_ behavior. It was insanely circular reasoning, but it boiled down to the same thing: They were in this together, for better or worse.

Riley felt the familiar, comforting pulse of Unity Island activating. She'd been drawing on that one a lot in the past couple of days, actually. It helped keep her mind off of... that.

Riley closed her eyes as several memories played in her head unbidden and shuddered.

 _"Sorry, we'll send those back down immediately,"_ Fear told her quickly.

 _"It's fine,"_ she sent back. _"Not your f–"_

"Hey," the voice of Rock interrupted her mental conversation and Riley felt the bench shift as something leaned against it from the back. Riley glanced to see her new friend leaning against the back of the bench, facing away from her.

"Hey," she said back, before the two settled into a few minutes of silence.

"You want to talk about it?" Rock finally said. He didn't need to say what 'it' was. They both knew there was only one event he could mean.

Riley spent a couple more minutes of intense internal debate, where her emotions tried to convince her to go through with it and she tried to talk them out of talking her into it.

"Not really," she finally said, much to Sadness and Fear's disappointment.

"Do you mind if I talk about it then?" Rock asked. "Not this one, I mean. The first time I dealt with... _him_."

Riley blinked in surprise. She hadn't really considered the fact that the Lights had obviously met–

 _"Hey guys!"_ Joy's voice called out. _"We're back!"_

 _"You're early,"_ Fear noted.

 _"Eh, it felt like a good time to take a break,"_ Joy waved it off.

 _"Plus, Anger blew up at some of the mind workers,"_ Disgust added. _"He wanted them to dump all the memories from that day and they told him nothing doing. Something about having to dump too many memories already or something."_

_"Sorry Riley, I think they sent a few back up here to spite me."_

_"Also, they sort of told us to get out of their way and stop interfering,"_ Joy added sheepishly. _"Said we weren't really helping... Anyway, what's going on? What's Rock doing here?"_

 _"He wants to tell us about the time he first met Slenderman,"_ Sadness replied before Riley could say anything.

 _"Oooo... sounds interesting!"_ Joy enthused, and Riley felt a sudden surge of intense curiosity.

_"Gee, thanks Joy."_

_"You'll say that with less sarcasm later, I'm sure."_

"Okay..." Riley gave in to the desire with a sigh.

And so Rock did. He spun her a tale of a mysterious Halloween night, when robots themed straight out of a horror movie marathon crawled out of the woodwork and plunged the city into madness, terror, and death. A tale where Rock was cut off from all of his friends, family, and allies to be gradually worn down by the cruelty and sadism of his opponents and the people they had infected to turn against him. Where he was forced to fight against his own infected father in a duel to the death, the both of them surviving only due to a timely intervention before their savior was savagely cut down.

"And that's when he finally showed himself," Rock said. "Stepped out and proceeded to prove that I could do nothing to him. He had me broken and beaten in minutes, and I couldn't stop him."

"Did Mega Man save you?" Riley asked. "Like you saved me?"

Rock paused for a moment. "You still haven't figured it out?"

"Figured what ou–" Riley cut off and blinked as it all clicked into place. "Wait... _you're_ Mega Man? Does that mean Roll...?"

"She does the 'Mega Woman' bit most Loops," Rock told her, before slipping a photo to Riley.

She took it and looked at the familiar faces of Rock and Roll, only clad in armor and helmets. Rock's was cyan on his torso, upper arms, and upper legs, with bold blue for his lower arms, hands, lower legs, feet, hips (looking like he had a pair of briefs on), and most of his helmet. Roll's was similar, except yellow and cream instead of blue and cyan. The main differences past that were that her helmet apparently had an opening for her ponytail and her chest had additional yellow armor shaped like a sports bra, clearly designating her as female.

"Wow..."

"She's the one who saved me that Loop," Rock continued. "She saw how bad the fight was going, compared with what the internet had on Slenderman, and figured out his game. Then she commandeered a global broadcast to inspire the whole world into believing I could take him."

"What did she say?"

"A bunch of stuff that I find kind of embarrassing to repeat..." Rock's voice sounded like he was blushing, but Riley couldn't confirm that with him facing away from her. "It's... Do you know what I believe in Riley?"

Riley shook her head, before remembering that Rock couldn't see the gesture.

"I believe in the potential of humanity. I believe in the potential of robots. I believe in the possibility of people that are inherently different to understand each other and get along. To work together for a future greater and brighter than any one person could ever hope to achieve alone. I believe in the ability to stand up no matter how many times life knocks us down, and to keep going no matter what obstacles are put in our way. I believe that we can all stand together and become strong, that we possess the tools we need to solve any problem we can face. And that even if by some chance we don't, there are others who do that will stand with us to bring about that bright shining future. We may not always agree what that future should be or how to get there, but as long as we have faith in each other, we will get there nonetheless. No matter how long it takes, or how many setbacks we suffer, we will get there."

Riley blinked in astonishment and wondered if this was what finding religion felt like.

"Roll, she... she told everyone in the world that the one who put his faith in them now needed their faith in turn. That the one who had invested in them all of his hopes and dreams, needed theirs invested in him. She... heh... she asked them to believe in the one who believed in them."

Riley blinked at that last line. "Was that a reference to something?"

"Gurren Lagann," Rock smirked.

"Ah... never read that... or watched it... whatever. What did you do?"

"I took their hopes, their faith, and all their dreams... and I punched the ever-loving daylights out of the Slenderman. One. Two."

Riley snorted in amusement as she watched Rock mime a jab and then an uppercut.

"I... I think he may have held a grudge..."

"Maybe..." Riley admitted somberly.

"I just want you to understand something, Riley," Rock continued. "What you're feeling? What the Slenderman did to you? We've been there. We've felt that. Maybe not exactly the same, but close enough. You are not alone in this."

"It's..." Riley felt the tears come and didn't try to stop them. "He was _in my head_! Do you know what that's like?! I want to rip open my skull and scrub my brain within an inch of its life, and I don't think it would be enough! The things he was doing in there! The things he told me! The...*sob*"

"The things he wanted you to do for him?" Rock spoke up, and Riley's tears slowed even as her blood froze. "Yeah, he pulled that one on me too. He started with whispers to join him, to give in to the madness 'so we could rule together' to paraphrase. Then he started getting really disturbing..."

"I think at one point he was saying that he wanted to adopt me, or marry me, or adopt and then marry me (or was that the other way around (42))? I dunno *sniff* I was trying real hard not to listen to him. I just... I was so helpless... I could almost feel myself breaking and was sure I'd never be put back together again..."

"And then you kicked him out of your head, sealed him in a physical body, and proceeded to go heavy metal on him."

"That was my emotions..." Riley sniffed, before allowing herself a small smile.

_"No, that was all of us."_

_"Together."_

_"Period._

_"End of discussion."_

_"Double-taps no take-backs."_

"Riley, the last time we fought the Slenderman, it took an entire planet's worth of belief to turn the tide. This time it just took you."

"...a robot body, some magic song powder, and a musical number," Riley added with a half-chuckle.

"Never underestimate the power of a good musical number," Rock grinned.

Riley was surprised to find herself in a fit of giggles at that one.

"So... what's next?" she asked upon getting herself under control.

"Next, after we finish getting the lab back in shape, we try the experiment again," Rock told her, "only smarter."

Riley didn't need to be told what experiment. There was only one that it could be. Bringing her emotions outside her head. Knowing what had happened last time, the idea filled her with dread. But... she still really wanted to find a way to make it work.

_"We're here for you Riley, no matter what."_

"Soo... what do you mean by smarter?"

"To start with, we're only going to bring one emotion out at a time. Basic frame, no accessories, much less weapons of any kind. We're going to keep them hooked up so the process can be reversed immediately if needed and there will be no walking around outside the lab during the experiment until later stages, and only then if you're certain you'll be fine. With your consent, either Roll or myself will monitor the experiment from inside your head while the other monitors from outside it. We've got a couple of hypothesis about symbiotic connections between you and your emotions, and we want to see if we can possibly isolate that connection and figure out how you can build it up. So we'll be attempting to induce an emotional reaction based on whichever one is outside your head at the time and taking readings."

"How long do you think it'll take?"

"No idea," Rock shook his head. "Our Loop's duration is pretty flexible, and we've never tried something like this before a few days ago, so there's a very good chance this is going to take longer than the Loop itself. Because of that, we're also going to be focusing on showing you how to perform the experiment on your own in safe, controlled environments. Which, yes, means boring technical explanations that you're going to have to stay awake for and pay attention to."

"Aww... Can't you just use musical numbers like Phineas and Ferb?"

"Hmm... Lab safety procedures in C-minor..."

Riley couldn't help it. The absurdity of the concept hit her like a ton of bricks and she broke down laughing.

* * *

"How about this one?" Rock asked before changing the image. A long dramatic gasp sounded, followed by a dull thump.

 _"And Fear just fainted,"_ Disgust groaned. _"Again."_

"Seriously ugly, and whatever it is could really stand to brush its teeth, but not all that scary," Riley deadpanned, sparing a glance over to where Fear had slumped in his chair.

 _"Yeah, this isn't working,"_ Roll sighed from her spot in Riley's head, her own body seemingly at rest in a third chair. There had been some debate about which of them would get 'internal' duty, but the deciding factor had been Riley imagining her dad's reaction to a boy being inside her head unsupervised. After all, her parents were perpetually only just getting introduced to the idea that she might be interested in boys, so... yeah. _"Get Rock to download Fear back in and we'll try someone else."_

 _"Oh! Oh! Me next!"_ Joy volunteered.

"Roll thinks we should try a different emotion so we don't have to keep waking Fear up," Riley relayed. "Joy's volunteering. And... actually, that reminds me of something I've been meaning to ask you. You mentioned having a Loop with Phineas and Ferb. What was that like? What were their robot masters like?"

"Oh, man," Rock chuckled as he pressed a few buttons on the modified Mind Machine. "That's probably the perfect thing to ask if we're going to test Joy out. Those guys... They made some of the best robot masters, really. Like the hard-skating roller-coaster riding Roller Man, or the refreshment serving Lemonade Man. Soccer Man X7 and Hockey Man Z9 were pretty fun too..." (43)

"How'd Doofenshmirtz work out?" Riley asked as the robot body Fear was inhabiting rearranged itself to a blank androgynous frame, ready for the next occupant. "Was he replaced by Wily?"

"Nah," Rock shook his head. "Dr. Doofenshmirtz was actually a huge Wily fanboy that Loop and they teamed up a few times. Roll and I often teamed up with Perry to take on one or both of them and strangely neither of them figured out that Mega Man and Mega Woman were actually Rock and Roll despite us not trying to hide it. Neither did anyone else for that matter, except Phineas and Ferb really. And Perry."

Rock pondered that strangeness for a moment as the generic robot body rearranged to create Joy's form before continuing.

"Anyway, there was this one time that Doofenshmirtz decided he wanted to create a robot master of his own rather than his usual -inator and–"

* * *

"–So Dr. Wily says 'Norm Man?' and Doofenshmirtz replies 'No, just Norm. The 'Man' thing is your trademark after all I mean, unless you think I _should_...'"

Joy was so caught up with the giggles that she was barely staying in her seat. Riley on the other hand...

"Enough! Stop!" Riley demanded.

"What's wrong?" Rock looked concerned.

"What's wrong?!" Riley fumed, before getting ahold of herself and taking a deep breath. "Have you ever not gotten a joke that someone else finds hilarious and been really angry about it? Because that's been me for your entire story about Doofenshmirtz and I'm really getting fed up with it! Sorry... I know it's funny, because Joy is cracking up, and I know I should be laughing, but I can't seem to, and it's just ticking me off..."

 _"Yeah, we thought this might be the case,"_ Roll piped up from inside Riley's head as Rock dutifully began the transfer of Joy back.

 _"What?!"_ Anger fumed back. _"Why didn't you say anything?!"_

 _"Because that's the point of testing,"_ Roll replied in exasperation. _"To see if your assumptions were correct. Why? Are you volunteering to go next?"_

"Hey, Rock, what's the plan for testing if I still feel Anger?" Riley asked.

"Hmm... I think we determined the most effective method would be snapping you with rubber bands."

 _"WHAT?!"_ Anger bellowed.

_"Bad idea! Really bad idea! A bad snap could draw blood, which might bleed too much and get infected and cause us to die!"_

_"What?"_ Roll asked incredulously. _"Do you have any idea what the sheer odds against that are? Eve–"_

_"NEVER TELL ME THE ODDS!"_

"Yeah... that might not be the best idea at this stage," Riley relayed.

"We thought the same," Rock nodded, "which is why we weren't planning to try Anger until after noticeable results with at least one of the others. If any of your emotions are going to say 'stop' first, it's probably him."

"Hmm..." Riley pondered her emotions and the roles they served for a moment. "Actually, we should probably start with Disgust."

 _"Wait, what? Why me?"_ Disgust wondered.

"Hmm... not a bad choice all things considered," Rock nodded. "The lab's pretty clean by necessity and we weren't planning for you to eat lunch still strapped in, so there's negligible chance that she'd be needed to keep you from making a health mistake. So long as we avoid images that provoke a fear reaction, there shouldn't be too much disruption..."

* * *

_"I. cannot. believe. that. you. found. nothing. wrong. with. broccoli _!"_ Disgust ranted in Riley's head after the day's test. Neither Rock nor Roll had identified any connection that could be made to work over a distance yet, but as they kept reminding her, the whole thing was new territory. They had no more idea of how to solve the problem than she did, really, so it wasn't that surprising._

__

_"Well, it's disgusting and you weren't in my head, so..."_ Riley shrugged.

__

_"And all those missed snarks! It's like you forgot everything I taught you over the years!"_

__

She had to admit though: Winding up Disgust was amusing. She could see why Joy liked doing it.

__

_"And do not get me started on your fashion sense without me!"_ Disgust continued ranting. _"That's it. We are figuring out how to remain connected over distance, because there is no way I am going to risk you spending a Loop with fashion sense that bad ever. Not happening!"_

__

"So?" Roll asked.

__

"Disgust is ranting so much the others can't get a word in edgewise," Riley answered, "and I am stiff like you would not believe from sitting down, but other than that I think it went pretty well. I just don't want to do it every day..."

__

"We won't," Rock told her. "We have a few more ideas that don't require the Mind Machine."

__

"Oh? Like what?"

__

"Like trying activities and seeing how well you can feel certain emotions while they're away from the console. Think Anger can handle a hockey game without being directly at the controls?"

__

_"WHAT?! That's cruel and unusual punishment!"_

__

"No," Riley smirked, "but I think I can talk him into trying it anyway."

__

* * *

__

The Slenderman returned to himself in an unfamiliar pace and tried to figure out what had happened. His failsafe for returning him to his hacking workshop had taken far longer to run its course than it should have. It had also returned him to the wrong place.

__

If one of the other members of Shoggoth-chan had decided to dump him somewhere as a prank, then he was going to–

__

A message on the terminal screen–an Admin-quality terminal at that–caught his awareness and he turned his attention to it fully.

__

_Normally, I would see my son's failures as his own problem. However, your actions have threatened his successes. Successes which have reflected well on the reputation of the Olympians. Were his triumphs to be undone, it would reflect poorly on that same reputation, and I cannot allow that. Your actions have been brought to his attention and he should be returning to his office presently. I would suggest you leave before then if you wish all your body parts to remain connected to each other, but the delay in your return I arranged should have made that a moot point. Let this be a lesson to you._

__

_– Zeus_

__

The Slenderman didn't waste any time before bolting. He dove for the door and yanked it open before dashing out...

__

*Wham*

__

...and crashing faceless head-first into a massive bare hairy barrel chest over loud volcano-print swim trunks, and flanked by three very shapely and fit forms in honest-to-Yggdrasil chainmail bikinis. Skimpy ones. All four bodies were very much tanned bronze.

__

"...I see our beach vacation was _not_ interrupted as a prank," Hephaestus's voice rumbled like a volcano about to blow its top. "You have _exactly_ three seconds to explain yourself before I break you over my knee and give you to the ladies here for discipline. O–"

__

The Slenderman didn't even wait for the first number to finish before bolting through a gap between the four figures that was just barely wide enough for his impossibly thin frame to slip through and running for all he was worth.

__

"OH NO YOU DON'T!" the enraged howls of three Valkyries boomed after him as they gave chase.

__

Slenderman didn't look back as he ran for everything he was worth. All of the usual advantages he boasted in the mortal realm, even before Ascending, meant _nothing_ at this level of existence, making him far too vulnerable for his liking. All the strength he had from belief was offset, matched, exceeded, or even eclipsed by all other beings who existed here. He had no problems messing with the Admins and their precious fragile mortals–enjoyed it immensely in fact–but that was when he had the benefit of plenty of distance between them. Dealing with them face-to-no face? Not a chance.

__

And so he ran, the sound of three very angry Valkyries hot on his trail. As well as the rumbling sound of a furious volcano god behind them. He needed to get out of the Admin complex. Escape and find his way back to somewhere they had less influence. Not the Nidhogg complex though. Hild and the other Demons and evil Gods rather had it out for the members of Shoggoth-chan in general, so he was no safer in their neighborhood than he was here.

__

"Hey! There he is, sis! Just like the Great Apollo said!" the third-person speaking Admin declared at the end of the hall the Slenderman was running down.

__

"I see him," his sister Artemis drew back an arrow and let fly.

__

The Slenderman was very thankful for many things about himself. Right then he was thankful that his impossibly thin body was ideal for sidestepping arrows before making a sharp turn down another hall.

__

"Damnit!" he heard Artemis swear. "Aft–"

__

"Nah, no need. Not with who's waiting for him that way."

__

What did that mea–

__

"Well, look whosh it ish!" the drunken slur of Dionysus boomed from ahead. The oaf would be no trouble to get arou–

__

The Slenderman then spotted the hovering mass of pasta (with two giant meatballs) behind Dionysus, revised that impression, and veered down another side hall. The Flying Spaghetti Monster was one of his least favorite entities in all of creation–eldritch abominations were not supposed to be lovable and tolerant!–but he had no desire to tangle with it right then. Not with who was chasing him.

__

"He wentsh thatsh way!"

__

He ran, tearing past doors before seeing a gathering of females in the distance. The elder Charites, Pandora, some goddess from outside the Olympian pantheon, and...

__

Athena. Nuts.

__

He abruptly turned down another side hall, a cold sweat enveloping him as he wondered just what the hell was going on. He needed to lose pursuit and fas–

__

The sound of jeering from many of the side halls informed him that he was being boxed in. Herded almost. It was not a feeling he liked being on the receiving end of. He tore through the Admin complex, taking each unoccupied hall that he found, twisting and turning until he had no idea where he was anymore and simply wanted to find a way out. And then–

__

"Hello," a two-faced Admin smiled from the sides of each mouth at the Slenderman from between two doors. The sounds of pursuit were distant, he must have gained ground, but closing in fast.

__

What did he want?

__

"Want?" the Admin–Janus, if he recalled correctly–spoke from his single head's left-facing face, tossing a key from one hand to the other before his right-facing face continued. "Why to offer you choice!"

__

Huh?

__

"A choice! The kind of choice you never give any of your victims," the two faces alternated speaking. "In this case, which of these two doors to take to escape pursuit. Unless you'd rather just wait here for them."

__

Get to the point already!

__

"So impatient! Very well, this key can open either door, but only one. Once open, you must face what is behind the door alone. The door on the right holds a magical girl."

__

They must think him an idiot. He knew exactly who they meant and he wanted no part of her.

__

"A wise choice. Yes. Magical girls have such a history with eldritch abominations after all. Oh, the violence they perform on the–"

__

GET ON WITH IT!

__

"Such impatience, but very well. The door on the left holds a kitty ca–"

__

He'd grabbed the key and opened the door before another word could be spoken, slamming it behind him.

__

"Dear, dear," Janus's left face grinned sinisterly. "He could have waited for us to tell him the rest of it."

__

"To be fair, we did present the choice as obvious," his right face chuckled.

__

"Ah, but one should always beware the obvious choice!"

__

"Thanks for helping us get this set up so fast, Hermes!"

__

"My pleasure!" the Olympian trickster stepped out from where he'd been hidden.

__

* * *

__

The Slenderman was confused. The room he'd entered seemed to have no walls that could be seen, and the door had vanished behind him as he entered. What trickery was this?

__

"Hi there!" a chipper female voice greeted him, and the Slenderman turned and looked downwards to see a common calico housecat dressed like a train stationmaster. "I'm Tama!" (44)

__

He didn't care. He was–

__

"The Slenderman!" Tama interrupted, her feline expression still chipper. "I've heard of you. You like tormenting innocent people and driving them insane, right? You wanna know what I like?"

__

He most certainly did n–

__

The feline's expression suddenly shifted from chipper to a feral glare.

__

"I. Like. _Trains_."

__

The sound of a steam whistle reached him moments before the front of the train did. (45)

__

* * *

__

"Sounds like he chose Tama," one of the Palici twins (46) stated with a grin from the archery alcove Janus and Hermes had set up to connect the two rooms. The twin steam gods had been happy to lend one of their steam trains to this little trap of Janus's. Heck, Tama seemed so happy with it, they might let the cat goddess keep it.

__

"Which I guess means it's your turn, m'lady," his brother gestured to the alcove with a bow.

__

"Thank you," Madoka Kaname smiled before readying her bow and stepping up to take her shot at whatever Tama had left for her.

__

* * *

__

Compiler's notes: Coming up next, the epilogue and author's notes.

__


	24. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen (Part Five of Five) - Mega Man: Inside Out

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-11-25. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Eighteen, part 5 of 5 - Mega Man: Inside Out**

18.18 (Crisis): [Inside Out] / [Mega Man] / [Mythos Hackers] / [Admin Shenanigans]

**Mega Man: Inside Out - Epilogue**

"So..." Athena crossed her arms when she and Hephaestus were finally alone in his office. Slenderman had eventually escaped, partly due to overzealousness on the parts of Tama and Madoka creating an escape route for him. And Hephaestus himself had called off the chase. "After everything that happened; blatant trespass, Administrative espionage, intent to destabilize multiple Anchors, and resisting arrest; would you mind explaining why we aren't marching straight to the Justice Gods and asking for a warrant? Janus isn't likely to keep quiet about this unless we can give him a good reason. Not to mention that our little hunt wasn't exactly discreet."

"For one, the trespassing charge isn't likely to stick," Hephaestus showed Athena the message from Zeus on his monitor, causing her to curse under her breath, "especially after what we did manage to do to him is taken into account. By the same token, the espionage charge is shaky."

"Which could call into question our right to arrest him in the first place," Athena sighed, "especially since 'dear old dad's' little stunt, well-meaning as it was, could be interpreted as an invitation. What about intent to destabilize?"

"If we could prove that's what he was doing, then all of the rest would be incidental given the current state of Yggdrasil," Hephaestus nodded. "Unfortunately, that exact point is why I don't want to make a big deal out of this. Here, take a look."

The forge god tapped a few keys and called up a series of reports to the screen. Athena looked at them for a few moment, her eyes widening the longer she looked them over.

"This is... a stability _increase_? After what he tried to do?"

"Certainly not what he intended, I'm sure, but results speak a lot louder than intent, especially now. If you'll forgive me the analogy, it's a lot like forge work. Putting materials under controlled stress can make them stronger if you do it right–"

"–or shatter them if you don't," the Olympian strategist nodded. "Don't forget, I've actually paid attention when you talk about your work. So if I'm reading this right, then twice now Slenderman has tried to stress Anchors in your Loop to the point of breaking–"

"–only to strengthen them in the long run when he fails," Hephaestus confirmed. "I think you can see why I might want to keep this quiet."

"Yes..." Athena's lips pursed in deep thought. "You don't want Nidhogg to learn about this."

Nidhogg, the complementary/contradictory divine organization that traditionally opposed the Admins, also known to some as Tartarus, Isfet, and several other ominous names. Composed of what mortals knew as demons, giants, djinn, evil gods (including many of the Titans), and other types of unsavory divinities; they were the formal organization that oversaw the spread of destruction and ruin through the multiverse, a necessary balance when Yggdrasil was in full operation, but also one that many of its members took... undue joy in carrying out.

They were also in something of an official truce with Yggdrasil's Administrative organization, agreeing that more destruction was not what all of creation needed at the moment and had agreed to not only refrain from stalling repair efforts but also, reluctantly, aid them when needed.

If their organization was to learn that such a blatant attempt to destabilize multiple Anchors had actually resulted in an increase in long-term stability, not once, but _twice_ , then there was going to be a political nightmare on that front. Yes, the increase was ultimately from said Anchors triumphing over adversity, and that group did adversity _really well_ , but all it would take was one overzealous divinity and a bout of misfortune and...

"You can't sit on this forever, you know," Athena sighed. "The first time could have been easily written off as a fluke, but now others are going to wonder. If something like this happens again–"

"I know," Hephaestus admitted. "Once could be an accident, twice _might_ be coincidence, but three times or more is a pattern. The next time he tries something like this, and I'm certain there will be a next time, everyone is going to demand answers and I'm not sure I like the implications mine will give them."

"Nidhogg's already putting pressure on us to allow more 'villainous' loopers, blatantly hinting that having a few as Anchors would be better for Yggdrasil's current state, and word is that they've been petitioning for the right to handle some of the 'darker' Loops directly. When this gets out, all of that is only going to get louder."

"I know."

"I don't think I can really hide this either. The rumor mill is already going to have a field day with our little chase earlier."

"Tell everyone he tried something, failed, we overreacted in typical Olympian fashion, dragged a few others along with us, and it's too much trouble to follow up on," the Olympian smith grunted.

"'Dear old dad's' not going to like how that paints us," Athena noted wryly.

"'Dear old dad' can kiss my bum leg," Hephaestus snorted.

"I'll be sure to tell him that," Athena grinned, before sighing heavily. "I still don't know what to tell Janus, though. He was talking about demanding constant surveillance on the Inside Out branch of the Disney Cluster in case of a repeat. Considering how thin we're all spread, someone's going to start an investigation if he keeps that up. Why do I always have to be the one with a level head?"

"Because you're at your most stunning then?"

"You of all people should know exactly how far flattery goes with me," Athena replied flatly.

"It's not flattery, it's fact," Hephaestus smirked. "But how about I be your level head this time? Give Janus a choice, he likes those. He can pursue constant surveillance over one small, recently activated branch like he's saying and draw a lot of scrutiny. Or he can put in a much more low-key request for assistance with his ever-growing workload. Considering he's trying to run almost the entire Disney Cluster on his own, no one will bat an eye and he can divide up the workload however seems best should it be granted. Plus, since there's been talk about increasing inter-pantheon cooperation, if he asks for non-Olympian assistants then the request will probably be fast-tracked. "

Athena considered the plan for a moment, and ultimately concluded that it was sound, well thought out, and probably what she would have come up with anyway. Olympian pride be damned.

"You're not bad at the level-headed thing yourself when you put your mind to it," she admitted.

"Oh, really?" Hephaestus raised an eyebrow. "What were you saying about flattery earlier?"

"It's not flattery, it's fact," she tossed his own statement back at him. "If I wanted to flatter you, I'd say you were the perfect god to lead the Olympians."

"How is that flattery?" Hephaestus asked in confusion. Considering the past and current holders of the title, it could easily be taken as an insult in his opinion.

"Because," Athena walked over to the office door and opened it, coyly tossing the remainder of the line over her shoulder as she left, "there's no such thing as a 'perfect' leader."

Hephaestus blinked for several long moments before turning back to his terminal. "I will never understand that goddess..."

* * *

Divine Level of Reality: Shoggoth-Chan Message Boards

(Note: The following has been helpfully translated from R'ylehian 1337 and the proliferation of vulgarities filtered out for your convenience)

Daddy'sLittleEldritchHorror: Oh geez, have you guys heard what Slendy did this time?! He actually broke into an Admin office!

I'mWithStupid->: What?!

[CENSORED]: NO [CENSORED] WAY!

<-I'mWithStupid: STFU!

Daddy'sLittleEldritchHorror has posted a video (Video is of Slenderman running head-first into the chest of a tanned beach-going Hephaestus flanked by three beach-going Valkyries in chainmail bikinis)

Shaggoff: *Is distracted by hot Valkyries*

[EXTRACENSORED]: Welp, I always knew Slendy had his head up his own [Censored]. Looks like it's gonna be literal now. Think if I broke into an Admin office they'd do that to me?

[EXTRACENSOREDWITHCHEESE]: Dude, come on over to my place and I'll do that to you for free.

[EXTRACENSORED]: Promise?

ForAGoodTimeCallCthulhu: Nah, he gotz away. But then thiz happenedz!

ForAGoodTimeCallCthulhu has posted a video (Video is an endless loop of Slenderman getting run over by a steam engine)

LOLMi-go: Slendy can haz train wreck? LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Shaggoff: *Could watch this all millennium*

TentaFun has posted a video (Video displays a prone Slenderman getting shot in his buttocks by Madoka's magic arrows)

[CENSORED]: ASSUME THE POSITION!

[EXTRACENSORED]: OH YEAH! Give it to me baby!

[EXTRACENSOREDWITHCHEESE]: Please ma'am, may I have another?

TentaFun: I no, rite? Magical Girlz are da best!

MoreHeadsMoreFun: Full of vitamins and nutrients!

TentaFun: Thatz a wazte of gud magical girlz!

HeComes has logged on

HeComes: Hey guys, wh

LOLMi-go: Brreeep! Newb alert! Brreeep! LOLOLOLOLOLOL

HeComes: at's up?

[CENSORED]: OH GAWD GTFO NEWB! STOP TAINTING US WITH YOUR NEWBNESS!

[Extremely long string of abuse and profanity removed]

HeComes has logged off

Shaggoff: *Relieves himself on the door to ward against newb return*

MoreHeadsMoreFun: So what the hell was Slendy doing in an Admin office anyway?

F-Tang: o o?

F-Tang: A e, y ooa ae a oe...

Shaggoff: *Calls the witchdoctor*

ForAGoodTimeCallCthulhu: Hold on gaiz... Theze videoz were totes music worthy!

ForAGoodTimeCallCthulhu has posted a video (Video is a remix of Mr. and Mrs. Andersen fighting Slenderman with hockey sticks set to the Baka Song)

Shaggoff: *Cannot breathe due to laughter*

LOLMi-go: LOLOLOLOLOLROFLCOPTEROMGWTFBBQ!!!!!

ForAGoodTimeCallCthulhu: Wait til you gaiz see tha other one! Just gotz to get tha angles right...

Sl3nd3r1: I hate you all...

LOLMi-go: Slendy waz on?! LOLOLOLOLOLROFLCOPTER!!!

Daddy'sLittleEldritchHorror: Pfft. Slendy never actually logs off.

* * *

Janus sighed. Athena had had a point, damnit, and he'd made his choice. He'd stick with it. Didn't mean that he was thrilled about it. Honestly... he'd never worked all that much outside the Olympians before the Event and even now his interaction was limited.

Of course, part of it was that he'd been expecting a prompter response. He respected the importance of choices, but he also preferred that they be made quickly when presented.

"Oy? You Janus?" a gruff voice cut into the (literally) two-faced god's thoughts.

He looked up, and didn't see anyone. Just a big poof of tangled hair sticking over the end of his des–

"Down here!" the voice bellowed, and Janus stood up to get a better look at the short figure, and promptly wished he hadn't.

The dwarfish god was the ugliest he'd ever laid eyes on, his face possessing mismatched eyes, a thickly tangled and unkempt head of hair and beard that evoked the image of creation's scruffiest lion's mane, bulbous misshapen nose, pockmarked face, and a wide grinning mouth with large misaligned teeth stained yellow (but otherwise clean he noted). His body was short, squat, and so hairy it appeared apelike. His hands were disproportionately large with thick calloused digits and the clothes he wore, looking like some demented Scottish policeman complete with kilt, had the rumpled appearance of having been worn for a couple of days.

Janus sniffed noticeably. Even if he made Quasimodo look like a supermodel, at least whoever it was _smelled_ clean.

"Name's Bes," the dwarvish god's grin widened (47). "I'm with tha Netjer, or tha Egyptians if yer bein' lazy. Also got some ties with tha Afrikaans and tha Mesopotamians. I hear you're lookin' fer some help."

"Um..." Janus wracked his brain for an excuse, "I'm certain you're... qualified... but you aren't quite what I'm looking for."

"You think I'm ugly, don'tcha?" Bes grinned accusingly.

"Well..." Janus thought for a moment and decided not to deny it. "Yes."

"HAH!" Bes laughed, making Janus jump in surprise. "Least yer honest! Most gods'll try and be all 'diplomatic' about it! As if I wasn't proud a' bein' voted tha ugliest god ten eons straight and counting! My wife has no complaints and that's good enough fer me!"

Janus just stared as Bes handed him a resume.

"You're from the Justice department?" Janus blinked in surprise.

"I'm tha equivalent of a mortal beat cop these millennia," Bes shrugged. "Good work, mostly scarin' troublemakers like those Mythos hacks offa whatever mischief they get up ta, but I'd really like ta work closer wit' tha mortals iff'n I'm honest. Got a big soft spot fer 'em. So when I heard through tha grapevine ye were lookin' fer some help after one a' them Mythos creeps tried somethin' wit' one a' yer Anchors, I grabbed my resume and ran over."

"And what can you do about the Mythos Hackers?"

"Why, I can put on my ugly face!" Bes chuckled.

"Your ugly...? I don't believe you."

"Pfft... Ye think this is ol' Bes's ugly face?" the dwarvish god laughed. "This is nothin'! Why, I regularly send demons crying home to mama and tha last time I caught any of those Mythos nuts skulkin' around, I made each and every one scream like a little girl!"

"Sorry, not seein–"

**"BOO!"**

"*SSSSHHHHRRRRIIIIEEEEEKKK!!!!*"

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" Bes fell to the ground with booming belly laughs. "That wasn't even close ta my best either!"

"Okay!" Janus squeaked after a few minutes. "You're hired! Just please don't _ever_ do that again!"

"No promises!" Bes chuckled, getting to his feet. "Ye never know when ye might have to scare troublemakers off after all!"

Janus didn't reply.

"Ye can let go a' tha ceiling light now."

* * *

"Okay class," Riley's teacher spoke up loud and clear, "I'm sure you all know that the senior trip is coming up in a few months."

The Loop with the Lights had kept going, looking to last at least through high school, and possibly longer. (48) Riley had kept up with the experiments, spending a good portion of each day with one of her emotions 'taking a back seat' as it were to see if they could somehow influence her without directly manning the console. The results, slow as they had been in coming, were surprisingly positive. None of them could influence her at anything close to full strength, but Riley had started noticing some recognizable twinges from her 'off-duty' emotions between thirteen and sixteen. (49)

"What you may not know is that this trip is being sponsored, in full, by Light Labs."

_"Wait, what?"_ Joy latched onto that fact in an instant, and as a result the teacher now had Riley's full attention.

"They have agreed to provide transportation for the entire senior class, provided that everyone going receives parental permission and can meet the health requirements," the teacher continued, passing stacks of paper listing said requirements. "Due to the nature of the trip, you will all be required to turn in a health form signed by your physician certifying that you are in good health. This is not optional if you wish to go. Yes, I am repeating myself. I know you all too well."

Riley looked over the health requirements. They didn't seem too bad, really. Pretty standard if she remembered her last doctor's visit.

_"Let's see... blood pressure, check,"_ Fear began comparing the memory to the list Riley was reading. _"Heart rate, check. Vision, check. Able to withstand at least 3gs of force for several minutes?"_

_"Where are we going?"_ Disgust piped up from the back of Headquarters, having drawn the short straw today. _"The moon?"_

Riley had repeated the question before realizing she was doing so.

"As a matter of fact," the teacher smiled, "yes."

* * *

Compiler's notes: This has been one heck of a storyline, and one that none of the participants will ever forget. Following please find Crisis' footnotes on the whole thing.

Crisis' author's notes: I officially lost track of the sheer number of death (or at least severe injury) threats Slenderman got on Spacebattles while writing this fic. I call that a successful villain.

1) Pun, pun, PUN!

2) Apparently a common mistake among the _Inside Out_ fandom.

3) Not the most eloquent first impression there, Riley.

4) Think about what she does most Loops for a second.

5) Known by name as... the Auto-Mobile.

6) Also one of the few polite ways.

7) They were rolling on the floor in hysterics. But then, given the context of what Riley said and what they usually live through, they were just a bit entitled.

8) This is Fear. Well, Mr. Andersen's Fear anyway. Being crazy-prepared is part of the job description.

9) Dr. Light is an idealist, but he's an idealist who's put a lot of thought into this.

10) Specific variations can fall on either side of the equation, or even teeter on the edge.

11) Fear is also ridiculously genre savvy

12) Basically it's a 'calm-down' gun.

13) Plus she'd kind of been reading it way past her bedtime because it was so engrossing despite being specifically told not to by her parents.

14) Oh, come on Joy! Have you learned _nothing_ about tempting fate?

15) What's really scary is that she said that with a completely straight face.

16) NiGHTcapD pointed out something interesting shortly after this portion was originally posted on Spacebattles. Namely that Slenderman just literally hacked Riley. He was apparently doing some independent research on the subject at the time and made the following observations:

Vulnerability: emotion, natural Looper willingness to experiment specifically. Along with a break in Heph's and Janus' schedules.

Exploit: make the Emotions leave Riley's head, while apparently they are still tied to it.

Payload: the Man himself.

17) This would be where Zerorock41 decided to try the equivalent of a deus-ex-machina rage-quit. See Bonus Omake 1.

18) With three shots of tequila to top it off.

19) In case anyone was wondering, I took inspiration for their weapons from their respective power-ups in the Inside Out: Thought Bubbles game.

Bonus: Serials for the Riley Andersen Numbers (RAN series)

RAN-001 - Joy Woman - Weapon: Joyous Sunburst

RAN-002 - Sadness Woman - Weapon: Sad Raincloud

RAN-003 - Anger Man - Weapon: Angry Flame

RAN-004 - Disgust Woman - Weapon: Blooming Disgust

RAN-005 - Fear Man - Weapon: Frantic Fright

20) Some of the police wondered where he'd pulled them from, but Rock just winked and said 'secret' before pulling another from his subspace pocket.

21) We don't know his name. Only that he's from Canada.

22) FFFFFFFFFF–

23) How the heck does that eve–

24) .....well okay then...

25) That small tremor you felt was probably me facefaulting.

26) I don't know about you, but I found this scene creepy as hell while writing it. NiGHTcapD noted that it was proof Slenderman had a heart; twisted, withered, and corrupted beyond mortal comprehension; but there.

27) Sometimes, Roll scales mountains. Other times, she slays them.

28) Roll's broom is far from being 'just' a broom. She's just not used to someone calling it a 'rocket'.

29) Hold on... I've got something in my eye...

30) Will Riley Andersen please report to Lost and Found, we have your Train of Thought. Repeat: Will Riley Andersen pl–

31) A little fridge logic based on some of what we see in the movie. The central emotion can probably be considered the 'lead' emotion of a person's head, implying that it's the person's 'nature'. Joy denotes someone naturally optimistic and extroverted, Sadness someone more sympathetic and introverted, Anger a person aggressive and competitive, Disgust someone either health conscious or socially conscious, and Fear someone naturally timid. All of which grows and changes through life experience, creating exceptionally complex individuals.

32) Me: Well... Damn... That's a hell of a hole I've dug myself.

FTKnight: ... Crisis let's be honest here, there are many things that could be used to describe what you have dug, but called it a hole is like saying Everest is a hill.

33) Keep in mind the emotions likely have no idea how to throw a proper punch or kick beyond watching action movies with Riley.

34) What kind of conversation does that even come up in? Did Riley overhear part of a news report or something?

35) More fridge logic, because in the movie, Defcon 2 was all him losing his temper (in an admittedly controlled fashion), with the alert level never going higher. Which logically means there's one above it. And what's one step past losing your temper? Actual violence. Granted, Mr. Andersen is not the kind of character to use that against his daughter, but in her defense? The guy's lead emotion is Anger. You hurt his family at your own peril.

Which actually brings up some more fridge logic: Those multi-key safety locks? The ones that seem to exist solely to keep the man's Anger from hauling off without cause? They represent Mr. Andersen's control over his temper. Makes you wonder a bit about what his childhood was like to result in a headquarters like that, doesn't it?

36) See the Mega Man Loops chapter titled A Mega Halloween for more details on that meeting.

37) Hands up: Who forgot the emotion weapons deal zero physical damage?

38) kingofsouls foresaw a heavy metal beatdown. See Omake number 2 for details.

But seriously: Real song - https:// www. youtube. com/ watch? v=krtG2l2Po5E

39) Question: Is synchronized ass-kicking already a thing? Answer: Apparently yes. Not a frequent thing, but it's been done according to several responses since the first posting of the chapter. That's actually a something of a relief. I think I'd have been a bit disappointed in humanity if it wasn't.

40) It was generally agreed that the Lights didn't have it much better. They not only had to clean up their lab and home, but also untangle all of the various experimental tech that had warped it in the first place.

41) Sarcastic as it may be, the man has a point.

42) Ew.

43) The Phineas and Ferb Fused noodle Loop thanks to input from Hvulpes, calvinball, and kingofsouls. Because I know you've been wanting to know the Phineas and Ferb Numbers, here's a few me and those three put together:

Roller Man (PFN-001)

Roller Man is one high-flying, fun-loving, roller coaster-riding robot! With the wheels on his feet, he rides the rails of the roller coaster through twists and turns, dips and dives, loop-de-loops, and more!

Master Weapon: Roller Skates - This 'weapon' allows the user to form roller skates on their feet for high-intensity extreme sports action!

Lemonade Man (PFN-002)

Lemonade Man is the answer to beat the summer heat. He's here to serve ice-cold lemonade to one and all!

Master Weapon: Lemonade Squirt - This 'weapon' fires pressurized bursts of pure, sweet lemonade for accurate no-spill service up to a hundred feet away! Ice included!

Wash Man (PFN-003)

When there is a car that needs washing, Wash Man is there to cleanse the dirt and make that car shine! Warning: Beware operating within 1,000 meters of Roll Light as intense rivalry may develop.

Master Weapon: Hydro Wash - This 'weapon' lets loose a small torrent of soap/water to clean the toughest of mud cakes that cover a car!

Snow Cone Man (PFN-004)

Snow cones and S'Winter for all to enjoy!

Master Weapon: Snow Scoop - This 'weapon' allows for the quick and accurate serving of frozen treats! Upgraded to also serve ice cream. With toppings.

Phineas Man and Ferb Man (PFN-005a and PFN-005b)

These two Brobots have been upgraded to be Robot Masters, and are skilled with the daunting and overwhelmingly evil task of micromanagement.

Master Weapon: Bro Creator - This 'weapon' creates a Brobot replica. It's not very sturdy nor lasts very long (shoddy design) these replicas can help build projects by summoning a workforce from out of nowhere.

Hair Woman (PFN-006)

The ultimate stylist has arrived! Shorter hair? Longer hair? She can do it all!

Master Weapon: Hair Growth - This 'weapon' accelerates hair growth, possibly generating weeks of growth in seconds! Good thing Hair Woman is equipped with a suite of barber tools to trim any excess!

Soccer Man X7 (PFN-007)

The gravity-defying athlete we all wish we could be, Soccer Man X7 can run up walls, across rails, and even upside down!

Master Weapon: Gravity Run - This 'weapon' allows the user to defy gravity and run on any surface that will support them!

Gordian Man (PFN-008)

The master of knots has arrived!

Master Weapon: Knots-A-Lot - This 'weapon' produces a length of rope sufficient for tying whatever manner of knot is needed, from a simple half-hitch to the legendary Gordian Knot itself!

Hockey Man Z9 (PFN-009)

The post-apocalyptic sports machine of the future, Hockey Man Z9 will take on any obstacles, from polar bears, to flames, to land mines, to other players to score that goal!

Master Weapon: Slap Shot - He shoots, he scores!

44) http:// www. theguardian. com/ world/ 2015/ jun/ 29/ tama-the-cat-3000-attend-elaborate-funeral-for-japans-feline-stationmaster

Tama. A female calico housecat, formerly a stray, that served as the stationmaster at the Kishi station of Japan's rail line from 2006 until her death earlier in 2015 at the age of 16. For a while, she was the station's only employee and she single-pawedly saved the rail from closing. At the time of her death, the company elevated her to the posthumous position of Honorable Eternal Stationmaster and the Japanese people elevated her to the position of Shinto Goddess. She's new upstairs.

45) https:// www. youtube. com/ watch? v=hHkKJfcBXcw

46) The Palici twins (no individual names I've yet found) are twin sons of Hephaestus and geyser gods. So... Geysers, hot water, steam, sons of a forge god... They're clearly steampunks. :P

Also, because I didn't mention it earlier, Tama has joined Madoka as one of Heph's apprentices. I'll see if I can't find an excuse to compile some of the Admin shenanigans involving her.

47) Bes is an interesting god. At least I thought so the first time I read _The Kane Chronicles_ (from which I cribbed a fair bit of his personality). For more info: http:// www. landofpyramids. org/ bes. htm

48) There had been no further full robot invasions after the Slenderman, but there had been a few hiccups along the way. Such as a fringe anti-robot terrorist group called the Emerald Spears to name one example, at one point resulting in Riley's dad getting into a fistfight with the leader, Xander Payne.

49) She'd also noted, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that puberty was nowhere near all it was cracked up to be.

* * *

Bonus Content: Deus Ex Rage Quit Omake by Zerorock41

[Non-Canon] - [Mega Man] / [Inside Out] / [Adminspace]

Slendy would have been smirking if he had a face. Everything was going according to plan. The girl was his, and now he could ttly fck with those Mega Dweebs without fear of–

AFTFDUYFGAYFYTGW–

* * *

(Adminspace)

The Slenderman woke up at his terminal. "What the F**k? My in-loop Avatar-"

"Has been forcefully ejected."

A comically large sweatdrop appeared on Slendy's head as he slowly turned around. Much to his shock and fear, an angry Hephaestus, an angry Skuld and an even more angry Janus were standing before him. Looking past them, a chuckling Cthulhu sat.

Slendy realized then and there: He was right fucked.

* * *

(In-Loop)

Riley simply stopped moving and the Emotion Masters were free to move around again. With help from Dr. Light, Rock and Roll returned the emotions to their place in Riley's head, Mr. and Mrs. Andersen simply cradled their daughter (who started panicking once her emotions got back into place), and Rock and Roll made note never to screw with people's heads ever again.

* * *

Bonus Content: (Scratch)Jem and the Holograms(/Scratch) Riley and the Emotions Omake by kingofsouls:

[Non-Canon] - [Mega Man] / [Inside Out]

The two robots lay on the ground, comatose in their despair. Now with them out of the way, nothing would stand between Riley and himself. Not even Doctor...

"HEY SLENDY!"

Slender Man turned around, and if he had eyebrows would have raised them as he looked at the strange sight. Riley was standing there with a double necked guitar, alongside her emotions in their natural non-robotic forms. They also bore instruments of various shapes and sizes.

The speed of constructing this stage was on par with the average build time of those two children from the Tri-State Area.

He was about to refute their advance before Riley screamed "For those about to rock..." into the mic, letting forth a stream of pyrotechnics and a heavy metal riff of her ax. A visible wall of sound burst from the comically oversized amps that no one noticed until that exact moment despite each one roughly the size of a small moving truck, and like a rocket the sound raced towards Slender Man and slammed into him, launching him into a wall.

This did not stop Riley and her emotions. They shouted as one, with even more pyrotechnics firing, larger than the previous with the added perk of changing colors. "WE SALUTE YOU!"

What next could only be described as musical massacre so metal that the finale of the impromptu rock show Crashed the Loop in an explosion of heavy metal, pure determination, silent screams of rage, and even the color orange.

* * *

Compiler's notes (again): Well that was something. A reminder, all of this was organized and put together by Crisis, who previously posted the complete _Mega Man: Inside Out_ saga as chapter 44 of his _Mega Loops_ compilation. I just split it up due to my preferred chapter lengths.


	25. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Nineteen

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-02. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Nineteen**

19.1 (Pixel the Square): [Gravity Falls] / [Star Wars]

Pines looked at Boba and Jango Fett, noting how similar they were.

"So.... is he the father and you're the son?... or what?"

Boba Fett looked down at Dipper.

"He is my clone."

Dipper laughed a little.

"You know, I made some clones of myself once. I made about 8 and it was _not_ a good idea."

The bounty hunter let out a mighty roar of laughter, much to the disappointment and confusion of Dipper.

* * *

19.2 (SpokenSoftly): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

**In Which A Small Mystery Is Discussed**

"What I don't understand is where my heart's got off to," William Turner, once-again-Captain of the Flying Dutchman, mused. He and at this point his oldest... friend? Acquaintance? Lunatic fellow-sailor on the oceans of eternity?

He and Jack, basically, sat in his cabin aboard the Dutchman, sharing tales of what they'd got up to during this last repeat. Jack presumably knew what was going on, he'd be more perturbed by now if he didn't, but Will could never get a straight answer out of him. "Well the question is, William, whereabouts've you looked? Because it's never a good idea to say what you don't know if you don't know what you don't know, and you can't know if you don't know unless you've checked where you _think_ you know."

...right. "Well. I've looked on the Dutchman twice, I've looked where Jones had _his_ heart, I've checked with Calypso both before and after she was freed, I've checked several times with Elizabeth. I've no clue where it might be."

Jack got that look on his face. Oh god that look on his face, this was going to be- "Well the answer's quite simple, then. It's with Elizabeth."

-confusing. "What?"

"Oh not this one, mate. No, see I've noticed that when a man's got something very dear to him, such as neither time nor tide can separate no matter their efforts, it comes back in time wiv 'im. Or the connection does, in your case," he added, his filth-caked fingernail a very short distance from Will's eyeball. "It's why I've no doubt Barbossa will be keeping that curse if he decides some time to not get rid of it and subsequently begins to join us on our little cycle through history. However, young William, your heart no longer carries such a connection to you such as time and tide may never separate no matter their efforts, and so it's stayed with Elizabeth. Your Elizabeth, the one what's long away and far ago been replaced... or... written over, or repeated. savvy?"

Will... somewhat understood, strange as the thought was. He'd cut his heart out to sail on the Dutchman (or, rather, to save his life, with the Dutchman as a sort of prerequisite), and the Dutchman's magic had sustained him without a heart. Now he didn't have a heart, but he still had the Dutchman. And Elizabeth, though with her never remembering what happened like him and Jack and Joshamee Gibbs between the repeats, Will had been feeling a fair deal closer to the Dutchman than his (sometimes) wife. "So," he started to say before being interrupted in what was by now an almost-expected moment of strange timing on Jack's part.

" _Congratulations_ , William Turner, you shall be a heartless wretch for all of eternity. Or until we stop looping back 'round to Port Royal."

* * *

19.3 (Harosata): [Toy Story]

Woody looked around. "Oh, you got to be kiddi-"

He ducked under 'a' block and climbed up to the top of the bookshelves where it was safe. Apparently, Andy was such a big fan of Woody that he collected a lot of Woody toys... which were currently fighting each other for the "favorite spot" on the bed. He turned around and spotted a Woody doll climbing up. "Hey! I'm not gonna fight for the spot!"

"Neither am I!" Other Woody sat down. "Geez, and I thought the time everyone got Buzz for Andy was worse."

"Yeah..." Woody remembered when that variation happened. "What? You remember that? Who brought you in?"

"What are you talking about? I was in Andy's bedroom trying to repair the radio." Other Woody glared at him. "I'm the real Woody."

"No, I am..." Woody backed away as the other cowboy raised his fists. "And I remember the last time I fought a toy who took my favorite spot, Buzz and I ended up in Sid's house. Do any of you Woodies remember that!?"

The fighting quickly stopped, and they all remembered Sid's house. Woody cleared his throat. "Good, that part's over. Now, we're going determine an order of who gets the spot for each day, but first, which one of you wants to get shipped with Woody's pals to Japan?"

* * *

19.4 (ThanosCradik): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Fantasy Life]

'Key' Item

Sora entered the Guild Office in Castele rather late, dragging a rather large crate behind him. Reaching the Bounty Counter he caught the clerk's attention. "Excuse me, can I get some help, please?"

"Yes? Oh, what did you bring?"

"It's a… uh… a Forest Wraith, I think."

"Oh my! Only experienced Mages go after spirits like that! You must be quite skilled in magic, sir."

"Yeah, but it was hard, anyway." He neglected to tell her that he was a Mercenary at the moment, only having fought the spirit after getting lost looking for a different monster to begin with.

As she came around the counter, Sora took a minute to catch his breath. Even with the wagon he bought from the stables, it was hard bringing the monstrous lump of mana back from the Deep Elderwood. 'Next time I'm just going after one of those giant veggie monsters if I need some extra experience.'

"Thank you, sir. Here is your reward for bringing in the Forest Wraith."

After he received a bag of Dosh he couldn't help but think, 'Heh, the name of this world's money is rather silly.' (Right, and 'Munny' is quite a serious thing, huh?)

As he turned toward the door, the clerk stopped him. "Oh, hang on a moment! I found something in here!"

* * *

Returning to his house in Southern Castele, he found Yuelia sitting up on her bed in the corner munching on a Lunares Pie (her favorite), her legs wrapped up carefully. Turning, she greeted him. "Welcome back, Sora. How was your quest?"

"It was pretty tough, actually. Me and Jude got lost and ran into a different monster that was even harder. Seriously, it's like every time I fight something it becomes an epic showdown! Need to remember to give Jude his share tomorrow."

"Wow! Sorry I couldn't join you, my magic could have helped out. It kind of sucks that my entry into Reveria was more… painful… this loop."

"Don't worry about something you couldn't control. You just focus on healing up, alright?" After reassuring her he brought out his new prize. "Anyway, I was wondering if you knew what this was." He showed her a rather large key that was pretty long, with curved teeth on the end. "It looks just like my Keyblade, doesn't it?"

"Oh! You found a Key Cutter! Supposedly it can 'unlock the hearts of monsters', but we could never figure if that was true or not. Of course, by then most loopers either have found a better weapon or just made on themselves so I never got the chance to see for myself. Maybe next time I should try being a Mercenary or a-aw nuts I'm rambling again."

Sora couldn't help but laugh at her blush at the point. As he went to his own bed, he couldn't help but wonder, 'Maybe I try it out sometime.'

* * *

Yuelia couldn't believe the sight in front of her eyes. She had come out to rest on the patio of the house with help from Pam a while ago when Sora came gallivanting down the road to Castele riding atop the Ancient Napdragon, one of Reveria's 'superbosses'.

"Wha… Bu… Wh-How?"

Sora just grinned from ear to ear waving the Key Cutter above his head, "This thing works like a charm! I can tame monsters now! Oh, I am keeping this!"

"... I want one."

As it turned out, dual-wielding the Keyblade and the Key Cutter woke up its latent abilities and powered it up. Go figure.

* * *

19.5 (LordCirce): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Elizabeth Swann sighed as she slowly rose out of slumber to the land of the awake. Kneading one hand into the soft, silken sheets, she stretched languidly, smiling as she recalled her fond dreams of her husband. Then she froze, frowning. Silken sheets? Her sheets were ordinary cloth.

Elizabeth sat up and looked around at the familiar, and yet foreign room. Fancy chairs, a fireplace, the ornate dresser. This almost looked like...

Darting to the window, she stuck her head out to look down at the streets below. The Governor's Manor. She was back in the Governor's Manor. Why? The governor had left her well enough alone after she moved into Port Royal a decade ago. Why would he bring her back up here while she slept? And why...? Her thoughts trailed off as she stared out at the sight she could just make out in the bay.

Why was an identical copy to the Interceptor sitting in the bay?

Elizabeth spun around, taking in the room. It was just as she remembered it being, back in the days when she had lived here with her father. Almost dazedly, she stepped around her bed to the dressing table, pulled open one of the drawers, and felt around towards the bottom. Her hand closed around a cold piece of metal, which she slowly drew out.

The Aztec Coin lay in her hand, glittering up at her in false innocence. She stared at it for a long moment. She was tempted to go chuck it into the sea, but she doubted that would stop Barbossa and the rest from scouring the bottom of the bay for it. After all, dead men need not breathe.

*Knock knock knock* "Elizabeth! Is everything alright? Are you decent?"

Elizabeth spun around, shocked, the coin slipping from her fingers to land back in the drawer. That... that was her father! But he had been dead for years now. How could he...? Slowly, pieces began to align in her mind. The Interceptor, the coin, her father...

But before she could answer, her eye caught sight of something on her dresser. Something that definitely did _not_ belong in her bedroom at this time.

A second, slightly louder knock. "Elizabeth? Elizabeth, are you in there?" The handle creaked as the door began to open. Elizabeth tore her eyes away from the dresser, and replied as she fumbled with her dressing gown.

"Yes! I'm up, just grabbing a gown!" The door was hastily shut, no doubt her father was flushing a bit, and Elizabeth quickly pulled on her dressing gown. "Alright, you can come in."

Her father came bustling in, Estrella following behind him, and Elizabeth felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. Despite having over a decade to come to terms with his death, seeing him now caused her heart to feel like it was stretching and aching. He turned towards her, grinning, and held out the box he was carrying.

"Good to see you're up. I have a gift for you." He then opened the box to reveal… The Dress. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the dress that had both been a torture to wear, and had led to her meeting Jack and eventually, becoming a Pirate. Her father caught the narrowing of her eyes, and shifted slightly. "Is something the matter?"

Elizabeth straightened, plastering a smile on. "No, not at all. I'm just wondering what the occasion is for you to be getting me such a fine dress."

He laughed. "Can't a father get his daughter fine gifts without needing any special occasion?"

Elizabeth nodded, her smile teasing. "Indeed, though perhaps an attempt at matchmaking with a certain officer might spur a father towards generosity." Her time as a pirate had made her much bolder than she had been as the courtly daughter of a governor, and it showed.

He chuckled again, those this time rather nervously. "Well, er, yes, that is to say, um..."

Elizabeth stepped forward, planting a kiss on her father's cheek. "It is fine. I know you just want the best for me." She then pushed him towards the door. "Now, I know it will take me a bit to get into this _fine_ dress, so I won't keep you." After he had uttered his last farewell, Elizabeth turned to survey the box and Estrella. "Right, let's get me into this thing." She moved determinedly forward, her mind settled on wondering.

If she had truly travelled back in time to the day she met Jack, then why was the Dead Man's Chest sitting on her dresser?

* * *

Elizabeth emerged from the room, carefully breathing in and out, despite the corset's best attempts at crushing her lungs. She had forgotten how painful this was. Give her a cut from a sword any day. She followed the sound of her father's voice, hearing him speaking to someone in the foyer.

She arrived on the stairs, only to find the sight waiting for her at the bottom drove the breath from her lungs, and brought thoughts of the chest still sitting on her dresser to mind. How could she have forgotten that Will, her Will, had been dropping off a sword this morning for the ceremony?

She couldn't hear what her father was saying, or what Will said in reply. The blood was pounding in her ears, and the last conscious thought she had was 'And Jack isn't here to catch me this time.'

Then all went dark.

* * *

19.5 continued (LordCirce): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

"Miss Elizabeth... Miss Elizabeth..."

Elizabeth groaned lightly as she stirred. "I... what happened?" She opened her eyes, to find Estrella bending over her, holding a damp cloth to her forehead.

Estrella tutted slightly. "You swooned at the top of the stairs. Luckily, Master Turner was there to catch you." Estrella gave her a knowing smile, before backing up to allow her to sit up. Elizabeth winced as she did so, as her ribs let her know they were still sore from the corset.

"What of my father? And the ceremony?"

"Your father said he would let the Captain know you were feeling ill. Or I suppose it would be Commodore by now."

Elizabeth nodded, faintly. It had just been so much, seeing him there. Her eye flashed to the chest on her dresser for a moment. She almost didn't dare to listen to it to see Will's heart still beat inside. She turned to smile at Estrella. "Thank you. I'm feeling much better now."

"As you say, milady." With that, Estrella left.

Elizabeth sat on her bed for several more seconds. This was all too much... Still, she had to know. Sliding off of the bed, Elizabeth approached the dresser. She reached out, tracing her hands along the bumps and ridges of the chest. She pulled it towards her, and then bent down, pressing her ear against the lid.

*Thu-thump Thu-thump Thu-thump*

Elizabeth straightened, a smile warring with a slightly worried frown on her face. Will's heart still lay with her, but was it the Will she had seen here? Or would he come in from the ocean, riding that flash of green?

She slid into a comfortable day dress, striding out her door and down the stairs. One of the butlers looked up as she approached.

"Going somewhere, madam? Are you sure you should be up?"

Elizabeth smiled. "I'm fine, just going for a walk to get a bit of air, perhaps I'll go apologize to the Captain for missing his ceremony." And she then strode past him and out the door before he could say anything more.

* * *

Her steps did not lead towards the garrison where the Captain would be, however. Instead, she strode purposefully down several side streets, before emerging into the small courtyard in front of the smithy. As she approached, she heard voices echoing from within. She strode closer to listen in, and see if Will was here.

"...can't do this. I mean, I don't know why I still go deliver that blasted sword. Better just not to face her."

Elizabeth's heart leapt in her throat at the sound of Will's voice, not quite as rough or raspy as it was when he sailed with the Dutchman, but his all the same. Then another voice answered, and her eyes went wide.

"Far be it from me, mate, to comment on your longing for your lady love. But I think we have a few bigger problems to be worrying our heads about." The unmistakable drawl of Captain Jack Sparrow brought a smile to Elizabeth's face, though it faded slightly. Why were they meeting together? Were they like her, cast back in time, or was this the Jack of this time, pretending to not be a pirate to take advantage of a younger Will? She knew they fought at some point in the blacksmith.

Creeping forward, she pushed the door open slightly and peered through. Will was pacing along the floor by the large crank for the bellows, while Jack was sprawled off to one side, atop a large crate. Will turned to look over at Jack.

"You're right. We need to find some way to sneak in and get the medallion away from Elizabeth. Then we can go and reclaim your ship."

A smile stole across Elizabeth's face at those words, and she pushed to door open fully. "Or, you could simply ask me."

Will spun around, while Jack just raised the bottle he was holding in a sort of toast. Will began stammering at the sight of her. "Elizabeth, I mean, Miss Swann. I, um, I can explain. This is, um," he glanced over at Jack, who was in the midst of taking a big swig from his flask, "my, er, cousin."

Elizabeth laughed as she strode quickly across the distance between them. When she reached Will, she took a hold of his shirt, and gave a quick yank, tearing it open to reveal his chest. Will went stiff as a board, while Jack spit out part of his drink and fell off of the crate. Elizabeth reached out, tracing her hand across Will's chest, to the slight scar that ran directly over his heart. She then looked up into his eyes, where she could just see a slight widening of realization.

"The chest is on my dresser."

Will's face showed a momentary confusion, then broke out into a wide grin. He scooped Elizabeth up into his arms, their lips crashing together passionately. Feeling him, holding her here, Elizabeth knew that everything would be alright.

Naturally, this was the point when Jack decided to interject. "My most, enthusiastic congratulations on your rediscovered passion, and reclaimed lady. However, could we perhaps focus on the reclaiming of my dear lady?"

Elizabeth pulled back from Will, sending Jack a brief glare, before her eyes widened. "The coin. I didn't fall into the water, so it didn't call the Pearl here."

Jack nodded, grinning. "Precisely. So, how about you go fetch it from wherever you've kept it hoarded away, and we can rectify your lack of soaking promptly." Jack followed up with a rather lecherous wink.

Elizabeth responded with a powerful smack, twisting Jack's head to the side. He blinked, then raised a finger. "I probably deserved that."

Elizabeth laughed, then grabbed the both of them and pulled them into a tight hug. Both men stiffened in obvious discomfort, while Elizabeth just laughed and held onto them.

* * *

"So, you've been repeating time over and over again, for years now? And you're still the Captain of the Dutchman, but not quite yet, so you can stay on land?"

Will nodded. After the two men had pried loose from Elizabeth's hug, they had sat down to explain to her exactly what was happening, explaining about the Time Loops, Yggdrasil, their future plans, and the like. "Truthfully, I'm not really bound by the whole 'ten years, one day' thing anymore, even when I am Captain. The Admin of this world, Poseidon, pulled a few strings, and he set it up so that, while I will always be a bit uncomfortable on land, sort of like a mild reverse seasickness, I won't die or be harmed in any real way."

Elizabeth smiled. "That's good. That means that you can stay with me and... what about Willie?" She sat up, looking at William earnestly. "Is… is he going to show up like us?"

Will opened his mouth, looking lost, then Jack spoke up from behind him. "You know, there are a fair number of object what that can't be broken, on account of how much of themself the ones what made them put into them. A child, which you and Mr. Turner here put so much of yourself in, isn't going to vanish due to something so small as the end of the world." He grinned, but it didn't quite reach his oddly solemn eyes. "After all, we've travelled past the world's end and lived to tell the tale, eh?"

Elizabeth sniffed, then nodded, her eyes projecting the silent gratitude she knew he would wave off if it was expressed aloud. After a couple of moments, she drew herself up and nodded. "So, what's our course?"

Jack took a deep swig, then leapt to his feet. "Well, Mr. and Mrs. Turner. Have you ever gone fishing for Pearls?"

* * *

19.6 (kingofsouls): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [Sentinels of the Multiverse]

Jack Sparrow ( _Captain_ Jack Sparrow, if you don't mind) looked at the very out of place timeship that sat next to The Black Pearl. "Setback, mate," he asked the costumed visitor whom stood next to him, "While I can appreciate the fact that you conveniently have a ship in your pocket, and a rather nice one I must add, I feel curiously compelled and morally obligated to ask why a city man like yourself even has a time traveling pirate ship in your pocket in the first place."

"Jack," his 'friend' replied with an arm draped across Jack's shoulders, "I think the better question here is why doesn't _everyone_ have a time traveling pirate ship in their Pockets."*

Jack pondered that for a moment. "Quite right mate. But I must insist you let me drive. I hear you're a very fickle luck charm."

"It was one octopus**. One. Singular. Uno! Not that big of a deal Jack."

* * *

kingofsouls' notes:

* The better question is how Setback stole it from La Capitan. ** I am very tempted to say it was Lorthos.

* * *

19.7 (Evilhumour): [Sharknado!] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Fin tuned out the screams of panic and terror as he chainsawed the shark flying at him, annoyed by the damn bastards wrecking his bar again. He had _no_ idea why but he had been living through hell again and again with mother nature throwing sharks at him before making him relive the last few years.

"Ya not closing up early just because a bit of weather, are you mate?" The only _non_ screaming customer complained, holding his mug out to him was _another_ annoying aspect for this time repeat-almost as bad as the first time he got eaten by the shark.

"Look Jack-" Fin began to protest only to be cut off.

" _Captain_ Jack Sparrow," the man frowned at him, throwing back his drink. "And I _am_ a paying customer, so go do your job matey."

"Look _Jack_ , I have to deal with these sharks again, save my family and destroy this _damn_ Sharknado again so if you complain about no service again, I'll punch you in the face." Fin slapped his palm onto the counter while using his other hand to shot the shark that flew threw the window.

"Wait a minute, did you say time is repeating for you?" Jack raised an eyebrow before groaning. " _Great_ , I've got to 'xplain things _sober_ now."

"What are you talking about Jack?" Fin raised an eyebrow as he reached down to grab the bat to smack the shark that was thrashing around.

" _Captain_ Jack Sparrow!" The drunkard frowned as he pulled out a sword from nowhere and stabbed a tiger shark that had broke through the wall. "And there's mighty big tree..."

* * *

19.8 (Evilhumour): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Captain 'Jack' Sparrow was not liking this loop and wanted to get as drunk as possible as quick as possible.

"Another glass, Jacky?" The bartender smirked, holding the glass above the Anchor's head.

" _Captain_ Jacqueline Sparrow!" she corrected, tempted to pull out her gun and shoot the bastard.

* * *

19.9 (BIOS-Pherecydes): [Kim Possible] / [Code Geass]

"All I'm saying Ron, is I don't understand why the Loops keep pairing me with Shego. I mean that is just sick and wrong." a female voice stated, before seeming to realize how that could be taken and hurriedly continuing. "Not that I think there's anything wrong with same sex relationships, I just don't happen to swing that way."

"I don't know Kim, I think a certain Rhonda Stoppable might disagree with you there." A male voice said in a teasing manner.

Stepping around the corner of the Caribbean lair they were infiltrating a pair of high school teenagers walked unconcernedly down the hallway. The male of the duo wore a black long sleeve shirt and cargo pants and was smirking at the furiously blushing redhead wearing a green tank top and cargo jeans.

"That's so not the the same thing Ron. Male or female you know I love you." she said leaning forward to kiss his cheek.

"Awww." This came from one of the pockets of Ron's pants from which the pink head of a hairless mole rat emerged.

"You said it buddy. So Kim, what's the plan for Drakken this time. First meetings are always fun. I say we go full on Power Rangers! Hiyah, wuzzah, woooo!" Ron said making comically exaggerated sentai poses.

Before Kim could reply however, an unfamiliar voice spoke over a nearby concealed speaker. "I assure you Mr Stoppable, that won't be necessary. I recently Awoke and am feeling a bit Loopy, but that's no reason not to offer you the full hospitality of my humble abode."

"Visiting Looper?" Ron asked Kim, who shrugged.

"Indeed. Seeing as how you both appear to be Awake, I would like to invite you to join me. Just follow the lights."

Sure enough, a trail of blinking lights lit up beneath their feet and led off towards the center of the base. Seeing no reason not to accept the invitation the two heroes set off. Not far from where they started they found themselves guided to a rather comfortable parlor like area in which two people could be found. The first was a woman with long vibrant green hair wearing what appeared to be a modified straight jacket bodysuit. She was currently using a familiar jet of green energy to, of all things, cut herself a slice of pizza.

The second was a man of rather fair features, or what Monique might have referred to as a Grade A Pretty Boy, with violet eyes and black hair staring down at a chess board while holding a glass of wine. Turning to greet his guests a small smile graced his face and he gestured for them to join him.

"Kimberly Ann Possible and Ronald Dean Stoppable. World famous heroes and crime-fighters extraordinaire. Welcome, please make yourselves comfortable. If you would like anything please feel free to ask."

Seeing the cautious looks on the duo's faces he smirked. "Come now, you have nothing to worry about. I have no wish to cause you any harm. I will admit it is a pleasant surprise to meet you both. I have heard much about you two, most of it even good." He said in a joking tone.

"To prove my sincerity, Ronald I believe that you are a fan of the franchise Bueno Nacho, and I took the liberty of ordering a wide selection from their menu for you and your team pet to enjoy. Please help yourselves." he continued gesturing grandly to the concession table at which the green haired woman sat eating her pizza while idly watching the trio's interaction.

"Cheese!" the aforementioned team pet cried before launching himself via force jump over to the table.

"Right behind you Rufus! C'mon Kim, no one who likes Bueno Nacho can be all bad right?" he said before joining the naked mole rat in attempting to eat his weight in Mexican fast food. Kim sighed, not bothering to bring up the Little Diablo incident so early in the timeline and turned to face their mysterious guest Looper.

"So then, you're replacing Drakken. And I suppose that that's a fluke Mister..." she said leadingly.

The man smirked. "I will admit that I wasn't exactly the most virtuous of men in my own world. In fact I would even venture to say that at best I would have been considered a well-intentioned extremist. However for the time being, at least in this world I have no intention of following in my previous self's actions. My name is Lelouch vi Britannia, former emperor of my own Baseline. Although apparently here I go by the name of Louis Lipsky."

Kim smirked at that. "Well then Louis, if you don't mind me asking, what exactly are your plans if you're not trying to repeat your past?"

Lelouch eased out of his casual posture and assumed a more business like pose. "I had questioned that myself upon my arrival. However I found myself intrigued by the stories I had heard of your regular rogue gallery and did a bit of investigation. I can safely say that the 'villains' of this world are inept at best and self destructive at the worst. In fact the only competent villain I have found so far, not counting my Unawake self and 'C-Go'" he said pointing to himself and the newly identified green haired woman "was a man by the name of Jack Hench. His catalog is quite an interesting read I might add."

"And your point is?" Kim questioned tartly, not appreciating her baseline struggles being so casually brushed aside.

"My point is this. The villains you have faced are jokes. I have no idea exactly how many fused loops you've experienced, but there are those out there in the wider Multiverse which make the Lorwordians look like grade school bullies. I have faced some of these personally and, as what I can only assume to be an error in my Yggdrasil coding or deliberate manipulation by my Loops admin, have actually been even more. And against what I have seen, you and Ronald wouldn't last three rounds with any of them."

"Excuse me! Listen buddy, I don't know where you think you get off" Kim abruptly went silent as her body locked up against her will. At the same time a pair of thumps issued from the snack table where Ron and Rufus had been equally paralyzed. Lelouch remained where he was seated and calmly took a sip from his glass before continuing.

"I did mention earlier that Hench Co. has a rather impressive selection. Ultrasonic Neural Disruptor, for when you absolutely must finish your villainous monologue without heroic interruptions. Now, as I was saying. Your villain gallery is impressively unimpressive, however several of them have a good deal of potential to be more than adequate threats. Of particular interest is a mister Francis Lurman, otherwise known as Frugal Lucre. Did you ever stop to consider the true scale of damage the man could cause with his computer expertise. No, of course you didn't because he was a joke. And because he was a joke he could be dismissed, easily defeated and relegated to the scrap bin of yesteryear. As could all of your so called foes with the exceptions of Shego and Drakken, and even then their threat was easily handled time and again due to poor planning or simple errors."

Lelouch paused for a moment, staring apathetically into the glaring eyes of the redheaded heroine. "Did you know I recently had my first hub loop?"

Caught off guard by the apparent non sequitur, Kim's glare faltered for a second.

"As I said before, I have a disparagingly large number of Loops into which I replace the local villain. I would estimate it to be roughly forty percent of every fused loop I experience. This as you might imagine had caused more than a bit of melancholy on my part. It seemed that reality itself perceived me as an antagonist. However while in the Hub world I came across an interesting piece of internet literature posted upon a rather engrossing site called TV Tropes. Its name was the Evil Overlord List. It described in exact details how one might go about achieving and more importantly maintaining world domination and the perils involved in the endeavor which would have to be overcome and/or avoided. And so I have found a new calling. If I am to play the role of the villain, then I shall do so to the utmost of my abilities. But what is a villain without an equally impressive foe."

Lelouch stood for the first time during the conversation and strode over to gaze at the immobilized teen. "You will hate me. You will despise me. And I will make you better for it. I am going to teach you to stand against the worst the Multiverse has to offer and come out ahead. I am going to run you to the ends of the earth and beyond. You will learn guile and trickery by facing deceit. Politics by facing the rigors of the legal system in order to find, incarcerate and prosecute. I will personally train new and more dangerous foes for each encounter, that you may learn and grow from the experience. From rescuing hostages to ending the threat of thermonuclear war and anything in between. I will purge you of doubt and fear, of uncontrolled anger and gripping depression. And I will do it the hard way. But in the end, when you have seen the horrors which Yggdrasil will pit against you, you will thank me when you come home to find your loved ones whole and hale and all that you stand for still holding strong."

Having finished saying his piece, Lelouch turned away and once more took a seat. As abruptly as it had appeared, the binding holding the heroes disappeared and in an instant they had powered up to the fullest that the Loops had enabled them to and attacked the sitting villain.

Only to pass straight through him.

"I told you at the start of our meeting that I wished you no harm. I did not lie, in fact you will note that nothing I said to you was in any way untruthful. However very rarely do what we want and what must be aligned. As you have discovered this is merely a projection. Neither I nor 'C-Go' were ever actually in the room with you at any point. As a matter of fact I left immediately upon the activation of the proximity sensors. I also activated the silent self destruct feature. I estimate that you have approximately two minutes to evacuate the building. I suggest you not waste it."

The trio had already left the room, but Lelouch's voice followed them as they ran. "I would like to take the time to apologize in advance for what I will do in the remainder of this Loop. Hopefully the time will come when we can look back upon this as an unfortunate setback, but for now I must bid you farewell. Until we meet again."

* * *

Several hours later the crime fighting team sat in their customary booth at the Bueno Nacho as they finished explaining the events to their tech wizard Wade who could only sigh in frustration.

"I don't like this guys. What are we gonna do. I managed to find the manga this Lelouch guy is in and if he's serious he could be a major threat. Considering what he did in his own Baseline, I think we're looking at a Lorwardian level enemy here."

"Yeah, I'm with Wade on this one. He sounded serious and if he's as bad as he sounds we might be in some real trouble." Ron agreed around a mouthful of comfort Naco. Rufus took a moment out of his own meal to add his own voice to his owner's.

"I... I don't know. I mean how am I supposed to react to someone telling me that they're going to make my life a living hell because it'll be good for me in the long run. But even if he's right, we can't let him get away with this. Wade, how quick can you have an improved battle suit up and running?"

"You'll have it yesterday. What are you planning on doing?" the child genius asked.

"I think it's time for some serious training. You guys in?"

"You know it Kim." Wade said with a thumbs up.

"Umhm umhm umhm," Rufus agreed with a pat of his paw on Kim's hand.

Ron smiled confidently. "Anytime, Anyplace."

Kim smiled back. "Booyah."

* * *

19.10 (Archeo Lumiere): [Percy Jackson]

Percy Jackson looked around, wondering where he was. Last he remembered, he was sitting at Camp Half-Blood talking to Annabeth, wondering about living life in New Rome, looking out on the lake, and now he was back on the bus to the Museum of Modern Art, sitting next to Grover Underwood. Looking to the front of the bus, he could see Mrs. Dodds tense up, smelling his much stronger demigod scent.

_Maybe I can use this._ He thought, and as he reached into his pocket, he felt a familiar pen.

"ἀνακλυσμὸς" he murmured, but still catching the ear of his seat mate.

"What did you say?" Grover asked incredulously, promoting Percy to shush him.

"Don't freak out on me buddy, I've just got to send a message." At this, Percy uncapped one end of Riptide, and quickly capped the other before it transformed, although it still glowed slightly. Taking out a page from his notebook, he wrote a simple message to pass when he got off the bus to Mrs. Dodds, the Fury.

'Luke Castellan is the Lightning Thief.'

* * *

19.11 (GarnettFoxy): [Jurassic Park] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Roxanne smirked as she prowled around the immobile jeeps. She didn't often get to have fun and fuck around with other loopers in her loop (Mainly as she was more often awake in Jurassic World not Park). But at times like this when they had a anchor replacing Alan that didn't answer to pings and no one else awake.

Oh she had fun scaring the shit out of them.

Even Alan admitted still being scared of her at times despite being friends and having thousands of loops to adjust.

With her signature roar she snapped at the roof of the jeep (Not the one with the kids in, she liked kids) drooling to add effect to her performance. It looked like a unawake Alan, Lawyer guy (Who true to baseline made a break for the bathroom) Ellie, and... Some guy in dreadlocks replacing Ian.

And one of them was hitting the bottle judging by the smell of rum.

The door opened again and Ian's replacement stepped out Roxanne yelping and ducking to avoid a shot from his pistol.

"Oi! Shaddup! Some of us Ain't drunk enough to deal with ya savvy?" Roxanne blinked dumbfounded as he got back in and closed the door.

"...What....The Fuck?" She stared at the jeep wondering just what to do. "...Fuck it I'm going to eat those raptors." She grumbled wandering off to the Raptor pens leaving a very confused Alan and Ellie with Captain Jack who was steadily drinking through the islands supply of booze.

* * *

19.12 (Harosata): [Harry Potter] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

**DAILY PROPHET**

**POTTER'S BETRAYER ON THE LOOSE**

**Jack Sparrow had escaped from Azkaban. He was responsible for giving away the Potter's location to You-Know-Who in addition to the murder of thirteen people including First Order of Merlin recipient Peter Pettigrew.**

**Authorities are still figuring out how Jack Sparrow managed to escape. Witnesses claim they have seen a pink elephant, though these are obviously delusions caused by Dementor exposure.**

* * *

Harry looked up from the newspaper and at the pink elephant across the street. Which then proceeded to turn its trunk into rum and drink from it.

"I'm pretty sure that just raises more questions. Do you just want to head down over to New Orleans instead?"

* * *

19.13 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out] / [Channel Awesome]

_\--Reality--_

_"Wow Riley, that's amazing!"_

_"Thanks Joy."_ Riley whipped the sweat from her brow as she stood back and gazed as her baby. It was a hockey stick, but it was not ordinary hockey stick. In her previous Fused Loop, she was able to get a hold of a very rare type of wood. So, thanks to her many Loops beforehand, Riley had been carefully carving it.

Thankfully one of her previous loops had enough time for her to learn woodworking.

_"Hey you two."_

_"Hi Anger! Where did you go?"_

_"I was checking some of the new memories that formed since I was awake last. So, what's this new Island? The one with the ocean?"_

_"Oh, that one? That one was made about a dozen loops ago. A whole group of Loopers replaced you guys and they taught me magic. That's what the new island is."_

_"Hey, maybe you give me a tour next time you come here!"_

_"That does sound..."_

*snap!*

_''...fun?"_

One slip of the hand. One moment of not paying attention. That is all it took for the stick to be sundered messily in half as Riley's saw dangled from her hand.

* * *

_\--Headquarters--_

Joy looked at the horrors of what had happened. All that work, Loops worth of effort, gone in an instant.

The temperature in the room began to rise as Anger was feeling the same… only in a more outward manner, gripping the handles of the console tightly. Wisely, Joy took a step backwards.

A very, very, _very_ long step backwards that included no less than four twirls and a cartwheel.

* * *

_\--Reality, one minute and twenty seven seconds later--_

"Riley Andersen, I don't know where to even begin." Mom glared in anger after Riley's... outburst. "Where did you even learn that kind of language?"

"The voices in my head?"

_\--Later still--_

Riley sat on her bed as she conversed with her emotions. _"So… We're grounded for two weeks. No hockey, no TV, no nothing except school."_

_"Anger, would you like to say something to Riley?"_ What followed was an annoyed grumble. _"Anger..."_

_".....I'm sorry for getting us grounded."_

_"It's okay. I understand though. I was working on that hockey stick for four loops. All of that work... gone. You had every right to be on the console._

Silence.

_"Worth it though."_

_"Oh, no question about that. Yelling all of those curse words actually felt_ really _good. Where did you learn all of them?"_

* * *

**In a past Loop…**

Anger glared at the man sitting behind his desk. Due to the... size difference, Anger was standing on the desk, for if he didn't, one would be unable to see the red emotion from the other side. "So, let me see if I got this right. For the entire Loop, you're going to watch old movies and get mad and complain about them. And every now and again have an adventure with other people who also complain about things on this website you have."

The Nostalgia Critic though on that for a quick second. "Yea, that's pretty much it."

Anger couldn't help but smile as he extended his hand for the Critic to take. "Well that's something I can get behind. There's going to be swearing, right."

"Oh, there's going to be a lot of that."

"Great! When do we start!"

Standing off to the side, Riley started to sweat as she suddenly had horrible images of Anger's swear rants.

* * *

19.14 (Gamerex27): [Shin Megami Tensei] / [The Emperor's New Groove]

Slowly, the former ruling senate of the kingdom and current herd of llamas glanced at one another, not _quite_ making eye contact.

The sole female of the group opened her mouth, as if to say something, then paused. "I _suppose_ we did wish for Variants and Fusions all this time. Perhaps we should have phrased our wishes more carefully."

"Still better than home," the mutant, horned llama told Isabeau, with the rest of the herd nodding in agreement.

"...so, who's up for getting revenge on the bitch who turned us into giant walking lamb chops?" Naoki continued.

"With no Pocket access or magic?" the llama wearing a white hat chimed in. "I dunno, I'm all for something to do other than sitting around eating grass, but we _might_ be in over our heads here."

"We've all killed entire _pantheons_ before: each and every single one of us," Naoki muttered. "Don't tell me you're gonna let something like no fingers stop you!"

"It's not that." The programmer sighed, then continued. "...I think this is part of the Disney universe. I'm pretty sure I saw this movie, and uh..."

"...'uh,' what?"

"...there's a lot of _weird_ stuff later on," Atsuro explained. " _Really, really weird._ "

"...we have been through catastrophe after catastrophe, death after death, and the _EDIT_ ," Isabeau hissed, exasperated. "This _cannot_ be any worse!"

* * *

"You know, back there, I think you spoke a bit too-"

"I. Know."

"Just making sure," Naoki said, dabbing at his makeup and reapplying his rouge. "Y'know, old me _might_ have been too much of a wimp to cross-dress for a disguise. Guess everything we've been through drilled all the hesitation for everything out of us."

"...but _how_ is it that _no one_ in this restaurant recognizes a herd of llamas disguised as men and women at this table?" Flynn asked, poking a polished hoof from under his capote at the "no llamas allowed" sign at the front of the bar.

"Don't know, don't care," the Demi-Fiend replied. "Makes about as much sense as anything else here."

The llama with brown fur finally spoke up. "We're never going to mention this Loop ever again," Langdon said. "Agreed?"

"Agreed," said his fellow Amala Anchors in unison.

* * *

19.14 continued (Zerorock41): [Shin Megami Tensei] / [The Emperor's New Groove]

In the middle of Gabby's Lab, the Amala Loopers searched through her collection of potions.

"Why does an Archangel of God need potions anyway?"

"Why don't you ask?"

Turning their heads, the visitors saw Gabriel holding a whole bunch of potions (all properly labeled).

Isabeau asked the obvious question, "How long have you been here?"

"Actually we got here first."

This time, Langdon asked, "How?"

"Ah--" the Angel paused, "How did we Hikawa?"

Hikawa pulled down a map from the ceiling, "You got me. By all accounts it doesn't make any sense."

* * *

19.15 (Zerorock41): [Ace Attorney] / [Kingdom Hearts]

"Very well then. I, the Queen of Hearts, do hereby find the defendants Sora and Alice..."

**Not Guilty**

"You impress me Mr. Wright. Now get out of my Kingdom!"

* * *

Sora happily patted Phoenix on the back.

"Nice work out there Mr. Wright. I don't think I've seen the Queen of Hearts let us go, well, ever!"

"It is rather difficult, even when I'm by myself, to do so," said Alice.

Phoenix scratched his head in embarrassment, "Well it wasn't easy. If it wasn't for Donald and Goofy getting that evidence, I would have been done for."

"Well, in any case, what's next for you two?"

Alice spoke first, "If it isn't too much trouble, I would like to join you three on your journey. If I return to London, I'm afraid Maleficent will most likely take me from there. Would it be too much of a problem?"

Sora grinned, "Nah, it's not too much a problem. What about you Mr. Wright?"

"Oh, I've got to get back to London myself. Maya's not Awake and is probably wondering where I am."

"Thank you again for your help, Mr. Wright."

"Not a problem. Thank you for the new case to do." Phoenix then left.

Alice suddenly looked confused. Sora asked, "What's wrong Alice?"

"It's odd. I could have sworn Mr. Wright has defended me from the Queen of Hearts before. But he acted like this was the first time he had done it."

"That's weird."

Alice smiled, "Oh I'm sure it's nothing. It's been so long, even by our standards, I don't even remember the result. He probably just wasn't Awake that Loop."

"Maybe..."

* * *

19.16 (LordCirce): [Wreck-It Ralph]

Ralph always liked it when players managed to make it to the top of the Apartment Building. Sure, it technically meant that he was losing, but it did allow him to see out into the arcade, and occasionally he could even see Sugar Rush, depending which apartment he was smashing at the moment.

Ralph had just paused to pick up a brick to throw down at Felix, when he spotted something that caused him to stop cold. The front door to Mr. Litwak's Arcade had just burst open, and a dozen masked men, all carrying guns, had just rushed in. The girl playing the game turned at the noise, so she didn't see Ralph pausing in shock, and then proceeded to scream, dropping off to the side and out of sight, probably to try and hide behind the machine.

"Ralph, what's wrong?" Felix whispered, paused on one of the window ledges.

Ralph bent over and waved at him. "Hurry up and get up here."

Felix paused, before joining Ralph on the roof with a hop and a bounce. He turned to look at what Ralph was seeing, and his jaw quickly dropped. "Jiminy Jaminy..." Felix glanced at Ralph. "What do you think's going on? Alien invasion?"

Ralph frowned. "I don't..." he choked, cutting himself off, as he spotted Mr. Litwak running up to the men, holding up his arms. One of the men turned, and, without even pausing, smashed Mr. Litwak in the side of the head with his gun, causing him to collapse like a puppet with its strings cut. Felix gasped, while Ralph let out a low growl.

Wordlessly, Ralph began to back up on the roof. Felix turned to face him. "Ralph, what are you...?" He trailed off as he spotted the small device cupped in one of Ralph's massive hands. "Is that a...?"

Ralph didn't answer, instead charging forward, each footstep cracking the rooftop just a bit and causing the building to shake. When he reached the edge, he crouched for just a moment, then pushed off, shattering several windows on the front of the building, and launching himself in an high arcing path towards the screen. As he flew, he thrust his hand forward, the D3 clutched within glowing brightly.

"DIGI-GATE OPEN!"

* * *

Anthony Galvston sneered down at the fallen shop owner, before turning back towards the plate glass windows. He and his men had almost made a clean get-away from their heist, but the cops had managed to cut them off from the highway. This... arcade... might not be the most well-defended place, but the big bulky consoles should provide some cover, and there were plenty of sniveling brats to play hostage if they needed.

"Alright, Hoskins, Waller, Floyd, get the sacks into the back, and make sure there is no back entrance the cops can break in. Peytr, Lewinsky, gather the brats up over by the snack bar. Any of them give you trouble, feel free to smack them around." He made sure his voice was loud enough for the little kiddies to hear. "As for the rest of you..."

*WHOOSH*

The unexpected noise caused Anthony and a couple of his men to spin around, guns coming up, only to see nothing but games. One of them appeared to be glowing really brightly, and actually getting brighter.

"What the...?"

"I'M GONNA WRECK YOU!"

Anthony didn't have any time to react as a figure came bursting out of the light coming from the arcade. It was something like watching a clown emerge from a tiny clown car, only replacing the clown with a 300-lb lumberjack. Bellowing at the top of his lungs, the man smashed into two of his men, sending them flying overhead and through the plate glass windows at the front of the store. Anthony backpedaled wildly, trying to aim his gun at the unexpected threat, when a gauntleted hand closed around the top of his gun, forcing it to point down at the floor. Anthony turned, struggling to free himself, to find a statuesque blonde woman standing there, dressed in some sort of futuristic armor, smirking at him evilly.

"Night, night, pussywillow."

The last thing Anthony saw was her fist rapidly approaching his face.

* * *

Ralph gave Calhoun a single nod of thanks, before charging forward again to knock around the gunmen that had invaded the arcade. Calhoun returned the nod and spun around, bringing her own pistol to bear, and expertly blasting guns out of the hands of the gunmen trying to make sense of the sudden attack. She took the occasional shot at arms or knees if the gunmen tried to retrieve their weapons.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ralph spotted a blue blur as Vanellope joined the fray, teleporting here and there to rescue kids from the grasp of the robbers, and occasionally delivering a punch of her own. Ralph had been careful to teach her how to punch properly, and given the amount of force she could Glitch behind a punch, most of those she aimed at would probably have been better off if Ralph himself had been doing the punching.

Ralph knocked another gunman out with a open palm strike, and turned at the familiar boinging sound of Felix jumping. He smiled as he saw Felix carefully tapping Mr. Litwak's head with his hammer, causing the bleeding head wound to disappear, and Mr. Litwak to take a deep shuddering breath. Good, he should be alright now, hopefully.

Turning back to the fray, Ralph grinned and cracked his knuckles. He had no idea how they were going to explain this, but for now, he would just enjoy the fight.

* * *

19.17 (Mr. Egret): [Disney]

Mickey Mouse shuddered suddenly, as he prepared for another night as the MC of the House of Mouse.

"What's wrong?" Minnie asked worriedly, as she gazed at his face. "You look pale..."

"I just felt a great disturbance in the Force," Mickey replied. "As if a million moral guardians cried out in anger, and were silenced. I fear something terribly offensive has happened."

Minnie sighed. "We're not going to need the X-Wing, are we? I just got the thing waxed!"

"Eh, probably not," Mickey said, as he shook himself to rid himself of the cold sensation he had just felt. "Anyway, it's thirty minutes to showtime. Has Donald gotten Princess Ariel's fishbowl set up?"

There was a loud splashing sound from out on the main dining area, followed by a bout of furious quacking.

"That's a no," Minnie replied, before switching on her microphone. "Broom Team to table three! And bring a life preserver!"

* * *

19.18 (Evilhumour): [Disney] / [Warhammer 40K] / [Bar Loop]

Mickey looked around the House of Mouse, and spotted the person that Minnie pointed out. Digging in deep for his resolve, Mickey went over to the sole patron who found one of the few isolated corners of this establishment and was drinking heavily. He wasn't so sure if the former was by his choice or shunning by the other but the later was clearly obvious for what had happened. Still, Mickey had a job to do and he was going to do it.

"Hiya there Leman," Mickey smiled softly, sitting next to the brooding Primarch. "How are yo-"

"Are you going to ask me to leave?" Leman barked out in a monotone voice, looking straight ahead.

"No, not at all," Mickey was taken aback from the sudden comment, blinking in surprise. "Why would you ask that?"

"You've heard what I... what _happened_ ," Leman clenched the tankard tight enough to deform it before sighing. "I've already been barred from a number of places already. Why should this be any different?"

"Well, for starters, the House of Mouse is a neutral area, no matter what you've said or done," Mickey said with a little pep in his voice, hoping to break Leman out of his funk. The Anchor did not move at all, only to let out a sigh. "And while I don't agree with what you said, you can still come here and be expected to be treated properly."

"Thank you, your highness but ..." Leman trailed off, his fingers digging into the counter.

"Look Leman," Mickey spoke with a bit more authority, finally causing some reaction from the man next to him. With the raised eyebrow a sign that the mouse was finally getting through to the man, Mickey pressed onwards. "I can see you're really broken up by what happened. Maybe I can talk to Nyx-"

" _NO!"_ Leman's shout echoed in the now silent room. Sighing, Leman shook his head and lowered his voice. "No, I will not have her take me back out of pity, only if she forgives me for... what I said." Leman spat the word out like it was venom, before turning his head to stare at Mickey, with tear stained face. "Thank you for promising me sanctuary here, but I would like to be alone for now."

Nodding his head, Mickey Mouse stood up and the left the man in his piece.

* * *

19.19 (Saphroneth): [Lion King]

"Zazu, can you keep Simba busy for the day?" Mufasa asked.

Simba sighed. This was going to be even more boring than usual... unless he managed to get the hornbill tied up doing something, of course, in which case it was off to try out that nice little fire-making magic he'd picked up recently.

"Well, sir," Zazu replied. "I have a plan. A plan which is so cunning that it would cause a fox - a fox with a first class degree of Cunning from Oxford University - to take a second look. And then he would commission several studies by other foxes with second class degrees from Oxford university - in Cunning, of course - to do studies into small parts of that plan. And they would all come to the same conclusion."

Simba blinked.

"What conclusion is that?" Mufasa asked, just as confused as his son.

"Why, that the plan was so cunning that they would immediately award the fox an honorary doctorate in Cunning for coming up with it - though, of course, the fox did not come up with it, he simply commissioned them into the studies." Zazu nodded to himself. "Now, as I'm sure you're aware, the first fox still had a first class degree in Cunning... so he would simply take the doctorate, and keep quiet."

The lions exchanged glances, both completely lost.

"My plan, in short, is so cunning that it would _itself_ qualify for a degree in Cunning from Oxford university," Zazu concluded.

"...right," Mufasa said, after several seconds. "That sounds fine."

* * *

Simba spent the next several hours trying to work out what Zazu's cunning plan was.

He kept an eye out for any traps, his other eye out for if Zazu was going to try and distract him, and his ears for any sign of movement.

It was only as the sun began to set that he realized Zazu had just kept him busy all day looking for _what was going to keep him busy_.

He had to admire it.

* * *

19.20 (Firehawk242): [Winx Club] / [Frozen] / [Eden Hall] (crossposted from Winx Loops 7.10)

Bloom walked through the crowded Eden Hall, looking for a familiar face. So far she hadn't seen anyone from either her own loop or the fused loops she'd been in. Granted, she hadn't been in all that many fused loops, but still.

"Hello," a voice said from behind her. "You look like you're looking for someone."

Bloom turned and- "Icy?!?" Bloom asked, jerking back in surprise. What was that witch doing _here_?'

"Icy?" the white-haired woman asked with a frown. "I really don't like it when people use that nickname."

"Nickname?" Bloom asked. "You mean you're not Icy?"

"I'm Queen Elsa of Arendelle," the woman said. "I have ice powers, if that's what you're asking about."

"No," Bloom said. "Well, sort of. You just... look like someone from my loop."

"And her name's Icy?" Elsa asked.

"Yes," Bloom said.

"What were her parents thinking?" Elsa asked, shaking her head. "Judging by your reaction, you don't get along with this Icy?"

"Not really," Bloom said. "The first time I met her she tried to kill me by freezing me solid."

Elsa's eyes narrowed. "I can see why you wouldn't like her."

"You seem angry," Bloom said.

"Sorry, bad memories," Elsa said, shaking herself. "My baseline's not the easiest. Hey, why don't I buy you a drink and we can share stories?"

"Sure," Bloom said. "I have to warn you though, I only started looping recently, so I don't have that many stories."

"That's alright," Elsa said. "You'll get more."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Bloom said.

* * *

19.1: Must be a Variant if _Boba's_ the original.

19.2: Captain Jack Sparrow is smarter than he likes to let you think.

19.3: Mikasa Glitch, anyone?

19.4: I suppose this makes sense.

19.5-19.5 continued: Hello, Elizabeth, and welcome to the Loops.

19.6: More fun with two ship lovers.

19.7: And so Sharknado's Anchor gets the Speech.

19.8: Gender-swap Loops are a thing. Captain Jack Sparrow isn't fond of them.

19.9: Yggdrasil pairs you with Shego because a lot of your fans pair you with Shego, Kim.

19.10: Percy's first Loop.

19.11: Captain Jack Sparrow meets a dinosaur.

19.12: He still has those Devil Fruit powers.

19.13: Yikes.

19.14-19.14 continued: Emperor's New Groove has some odd things about it.

19.15: Phoenix Wright really is that good a lawyer.

19.16: You go, Ralph.

19.17: A normal night at the House of Mouse.

19.18: MLP fans and Warhammer 40K fans probably know what's going on. It ends happily, I promise.

19.19: Zazu can be clever sometimes.

19.20: And a new friendship is born.


	26. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-02. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty**

20.1 (Mr. Egret): [Disney] / [DuckTales] / [Bar Loop]

Professor Ludwig von Drake and Gyro Gearloose gazed on in horror at the monstrosity that they had unwittingly unleashed upon the unsuspecting patrons of the House of Mouse.

_"NOW LET'S GET TO THE POINT_

_TO BEAT HUNGARYYYY..._

_AN EMAIL SENT MY BOYFRIEND_

_WHEN I ASKED_

_FOR MALE FIRST-BOOOOORN..."_

"What has science done?" Ludwig asked weakly, as the loudspeaker-equipped abomination kept on belting out horribly mangled versions of beloved Disney songs. "Gyro! Activate the kill-switch!"

"I'm trying, but it's locked me out of its mainframe!" Gyro said hurriedly, as he furiously banged on his laptop's keyboard. "Oh good grief, it's heading into the refrain! HIT THE DIRT!"

The two geniuses quickly dived backstage as the audience proceeded to demonstrate their displeasure with the current entertainment by throwing their dinners at the machine onstage. Given that it was an all-you-can-eat buffet that night, the dinners were substantially larger, and _messier,_ than usual.

_"HUMAN!_

_WE HAVE A HIGH WATER PROPERLY!_

_HUMAN!_

_HAVE ALL THE CAPABILITIES OF A LARGE HURRICANE!_

_HUMAN!_

_WITH ALL THE FORCE OF AN ANGRY CAMPFIRE-"_

**KERSPLAT!**

_"-TOO BAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaa......._ *pop* *fizz* *crackle* _"_

As quickly and catastrophically as it had begun, the singing had finally, blessedly stopped, as the machine was buried under several hundred pounds of food. A team of Animated Brooms quickly swept the resulting mess off of stage, and Mickey all but tripped over himself getting on stage to do some much-needed damage control.

"Well, Gyro, I think we can call the Gearloose-von Drake Show-Tune-o-Matic a flop," Ludwig whispered, as they quickly made their way further backstage towards the exit.

"I gotta agree with you on that one, friend," Gyro replied. "Man, what a disaster! That's the last time I base my language generation matrices off of the code used in Google Translate!"

* * *

20.2 (Sonic Raynboom): [Lilo & Stitch] / [Lion King] / [Disney] / [Bar Loop]

Lilo had an idea. A terrible idea. A hilarious idea. An idea that hopefully wouldn't get her banned from the House of Mouse.

"Hey, Jumba, do you think you can hack the sound system?"

His grin was all the answer she needed.

* * *

It was a normal night at the House of Mouse, until unfamiliar music (that is, unfamiliar to everyone except a scarred lion, a pack of hyenas, and a young lion Anchor) began playing. However, it quickly became obvious that the lyrics were... different.

_"I, they are rude and simple, but they do not know the wolf, for my opinion of the brain thought to be important to suggest a potential alliance ikh, zey zenen grob aun pshut, ober Tom"_

Simba stared. How had they gotten Scar to sing... this?

_"I know that his authority warthog ass but as of yesterday blocked thick you, my words are a matter of pride,"_

At that, many people around the room burst into laughter.

_"Will allow you to not use, because it does not pass, but the true successor to all the empty words When're"_

That just confused everyone. Mickey was still wondering how whoever did this got Scar to sing it, and wasn't even considering how to stop it yet. It did seem like everyone was having fun, though.

_"TATEM weekend to prepare ready to further sensational news shiny new era fingers"_

"What?" everyone said.

_"And where--?"_

The hyenas were cut off abruptly.

_"Just listen to the teacher, but I think it will eventually be rewarded Soaltee sounds good! AU prepare delicious and injustice!"_

All were confused, but laughed.

_"Yes! Prepare. ready! What;"_

The hyenas had their lines abbreviated again.

_"Since the death of King,"_

Apparently, Mufasa had already died.

_"It is the patient?"_

The hyenas caught a break, and their line was finally lengthened, not shortened.

_", Give him the name fool you! We will kill you. Singh"_

Simba's death had just been planned without even mentioning his name.

_"Bonum idea! Who rex? Caeterum non-rex is Adepto La la la la!"_

The hyenas spoke latin. Who knew?

_"Thou fool, to be king!"_

... how had they gotten Scar to sing this?

_"Man, Li Ted--sccrrriikk..."_

Donald came marching out from behind the sound system, holding a handful of wires.

"Aw, it was just getting to the good part!" Simba complained.

"Donald, you broke the sound system!" Mickey cried.

"It was annoying me!"

The next night...

Mickey jumped up on stage.

"Now, since everyone seemed to enjoy the song last night, I decided to let everyone create their own if they want and play them, but make sure it won't offend anyone, alright?"

All agreed.

"Alright then! Now then, on with the show!"

* * *

20.3 (GarnettFoxy): [Jurassic Park] / [The Suite Life of Zack & Cody] / [Bar Loop]

Roxy's eye twitched at the two rather stubborn twins "...Hello again Zack, Cody." The two boys grinned at her. "Nice to see you again. Now please leave."

"But we just got here!" Zack whined.

"Could have fooled me, I'm half convinced you two were hiding in this hotel when I first picked it up." She grumbled. "You two have been nothing but annoyances since I started. Out Now. Unless you two want to become actual guests!" The pair shared a look.

"....Bye!" The two dashed off down the hall Roxy growling.

"YOU TWO GET BACK HERE!"

* * *

20.4 (kingofsouls; Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 172.11.

_—Reality—_

_"Hey Sadness?"_

_"Yes Joy?"_

_"Got a quick question. Why is Riley a pony?"_

_"That is a good question Joy. Riley, why are you a pony?"_

"No idea." Laughed Riley, or Hockey Mind was she was told her name was in this loop. Everywhere around her, there were ponies. Some were pegasi, some unicorns, and some regular ponies like herself. What drew Riley's attention was the coloring, colors running the gamut no normal horse could ever be, and the marks on their flanks. A quick check through her memory told her that the marks were called Cutie Marks, each one representing an individual's special talent. Taking a quick look at her own flank, Riley saw her mark considered of a hockey stick with five circles in a line parallel to it, with the colors being yellow, blue, red, green, and purple in that order.

Riley never considered herself a pony person, but then again she never thought she would be a mage drawing mana from the land itself. "Gotta say, it's pretty interesting though."

_—Headquarters—_

"It sure is!" Joy then bounded off, jumping here and there in a fit of joy. "Oh, this is going to be so exciting! This is the first time we've ever been a pony and I want to see everything in this Loop!"

Sadness rolled her eyes, a sly smile on her face. Leave it to Joy to see the bright side of Looping every time she was Awake. "Hey Joy, I have a question."

"Yes Sadness?"

"Why is Riley a pony, but we're not?"

That stopped Joy in mid leap, frozen in midair. "Huh." Joy then floated gently down to the ground like a leaf. "That is a good question."

" _Wait, you guys look the same?"_

Sadness did a quick scan of the room, eyeing Anger reading the Mind Reader, Disgust fussing with her nails, and Fear trying his best to look brave. They all looked the same, unchanged in any way. "Guess we do."

_"Huh. That's..."_

"Weird, right?" Joy rushed in, rebounding back from the quick case of wondering why she wasn't equine. "It's almost as weird as..."

As if on cue, a large gasp was heard throughout Headquarters with such magnitude that Headquarters started to violently shake.

_—Reality—_

Looping had prepared Riley for many unexpected things. Zombies, the Tri-State Area, an annoyed internet critic, and easily a dozen more random encounters that Riley could recall right here and now.

But there were somethings you just could not prepare for. The pink pony with three balloons for a mark let loose a long gasp that was equal parts surprise and equal parts shock was one of them. The pony then landed and a split second later raced into the horizon, a trail of pony shaped dust left in her wake.

_"...that."_

Riley just stood there, trying to comprehend the randomness. "...Let's just send a Ping out and see where to go next, okay?"

" _Sound great to me."_

—Later—

Twilight opened the front door, revealing whom had knocked: A young earth Pony with a yellow coat and brown mane. "Hi, and welcome to the Golden Oaks Library. How can I help you?"

"I'm looking for somebody." She replied.

Twilight responded with a warm smile. "Visiting Looper?"

_"Wow, that was fast."_

Riley was just as impressed as Joy was. "How did you know?"

"You used somebody instead of somepony." Twilight explained. She welcomed Riley in, her horn glowing as a teapot and cups hovered out of the kitchen. "That means this is your first time in Equestria, isn't it?"

"Sure is. I'm Riley Andersen. I'm the Anchor where I come from."

"Twilight Sparkle, and I am also an Anchor. " In a poof of magic, a table appeared and the teapot and cups gently sat themselves onto it. Riley followed suit, sitting on a nearby cushion.

Though she seemed to be lost in thought. "So… have any plans?"

Riley did not answer. 'Riley?"

That snapped her out of her moment of distraction. "Oh? Uh, did you say something?"

"I was wondering if you had any plans this Loop."

"Oh. Well, Joy wants to see the world, and Sadness would like to read some of the books here." Riley answered. "As for me, I kinda want to do a little of both."

"Uh...who?"

"Oh. They're my emotions." Riley replied with a straight face. "They're Looping with me. Joy and Sadness are Awake, but the others aren't."

"Sounds a lot like the Postal Dude."

"I… don't think I met him."

_"I haven't."_

_"I haven't either, and that makes me a little sad."_

"Trust me, you're not missing much." snarked the unicorn. "Anyway, since this is your first time here, Equestria is a sanctuary loop."

This was the first time Riley heard that term before when describing a Loop.

"Me and my friends try to have our Loop be one where visitors can relax after a stressful loop." explained Twilight.

"That actually describes my Loop. Not a lot happens besides my family and I moving to San Francisco, except when Joy is Unawake."

_"Hey."_

_"It's true you know."_

_"Well Riley could have been a little more gentle."_

_"Nah, you did good."_

Joy just sighed in resignation. _"Thanks Anger."_

"That bad?" asked Twilight.

Riley suddenly looked very nervous. "We… don't like talking about the weirder ones."

"That's the Loops for you." Twilight took a sip of tea, the brew untouched until that moment. "Anyway, tonight is when Nightmare Moon returns from her banishment from the moon, and it's a tradition to let visitors handle taking her on. You wanna try?"

"One second." Riley asked. She then turned her thoughts inward. _"What do you guys think?"_

_"I think it's a trap. I have no idea what any of you, Joy, Sadness and this crazy unicorn are talking about and trust me, this is bad news."_

_"Oh, live a little Fear! We got this! Riley has magic, and she's pretty good with it._

_"I am not convinced."_

_"Fear is right,"_ Disgust piped up. _"We're a little overwhelmed with this Looping business. Heck, are we even supposed to be talking to Riley in the first place?"_

_"Doesn't seem to stop those two,"_ Anger huffed.

_"Uh… you do know I can hear you, right?"_

These was an eerie silence in Riley's head. _"Well that got awkward..."_

_"You think?"_

Riley heard sadness sigh for the blue emotion poke up. _"We're gonna need a little time to calm him down Riley."_

"Thanks for the offer Twilight, but I think we'll sit this one out." Riley explained, fear obvious in her tone. "Fear gets afraid and right now he's probably mashing the panic button like his life depends on it."

_"IT DOES!"_

Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind." Twilight explained. "Oh, and before I forget, you might want to expect my friend Pinkie Pie dropping in."

"Oh? Why?"

Pinkie Pie suddenly shot out of the bookshelves, books falling like leaves. "TWILIGHT!" The pink party pony proclaimed, grabbing Twilight's head and staring into her eyes. "There's a new pony in Ponyville and I need to set up the secret welcome party for her so please don't tell her about the secret party because then it won't be a secret anymore! Kay thanks, bye!"

Pinkie Pie then raced out of the library via jumping out the window, Riley stunned in confusion. Twilight on the other hand was unfazed. "Oh, just a hunch."

(Masterweaver)

Riley had to admit, Pinkie Pie's reputation was well-earned. Even unAwake, the mare threw an incredible party—doubly so when Twilight gave her a small list of loopers to invite.

"...so I suppose I'd actually be closer to Luna's Anger if it came down to it," Nyx commented, "although I only say that because Tanty here would obviously be her Disgust. Disgust is the self-loathing emotion, I think..."

"How does she work without you in her mind, though? I know that when I first experimented with externalizing my emotions, there were..." Riley bit her lip. "There were side effects..."

"Well, we're not strictly speaking emotional constructs. Nightmare Moon is either an external corrupting force or an insane persona _constructed_ by rage, and Tanty is explicitly an artificial construct meant for self punishment. Obviously we've both rejected our initial roles, although Tanty here sometimes needs a little spritzing—"

"HEEEEEEEEEY!" A green unicorn jumped through the door, grinning widely. "Riley! Remember me?"

_"Wait..."_ Sadness said suspiciously.

_"Is that...?!"_ Joy asked warily.

"Lyra Heartstrings?!" Riley cried out.

"Yeppers kiddo! All five of us in one fancy package." She stuck out a hoof. "Good to meet you in the flesh."

There was a moment of silence.

Then Sadness and Joy both began yelling.

_"YOU! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID?!"_

_"WHEN WE WOKE UP THE NEXT LOOP THE MINDSCAPE WAS A MESS!"_

_"SEVEN CORE MEMORIES—SEVEN! HOW IN THE NAME OF CARL JUNG DID YOU MAKE SEVEN IN ONE LOOP?!"_

_"ME AND ANGER HAD TO SPEND THREE DAYS IN LONG TERM SEPARATING YOUR MEMORIES FROM RILEY'S!"_

_"CHEMICAL WARFARE ISLAND!_ CHEMICAL WARFARE ISLAND! _SHE'S A ZARQIN' PRETEEN!"_

_"THAT SEAPONY SONG SUPERCHARGES ALL EMOTIONS AND IS JUST AS MUCH AN EARWORM AS TRIPLE-DENT!"_

The filly winced. "Er... give me a moment, I need to calm down my emotions..."

"Oooooooh." Lyra pulled back her hoof with a nod. "Yeah, tell them we did our best—actually, hit us up for a telepathic conference later," she amended. "It'd be cool to compare notes."

* * *

20.5 (LordCirce): [Inside Out] / [Winnie-the-Pooh]

"This is" *BOING* "so much" *BOING* "fun!" *BOING

A laughing yellow-and-black striped stuffed tiger cheered as she bounced across the ground on her tail, bouncing onto a stump and then off, up across a line of fence posts, and then back down towards the treeline.

"C'mon Sadness, you've got to try this!"

Sadness sighed and glanced over her shoulder. "I don't even have a tail, Joy, and I'm positive it couldn't do that if I did. I'd probably break something if I tried."

The bushes to the side rustled, before a blue, stuffed donkey tail, with a ribbon tied on one end and a tack stuck through it on the other, came flying out. Moments later, a small purple stuffed baby pig pushed his way free of the bush. "I've got it! I found it." He panted briefly to catch his breath, then stumbled over to pick up the pin. "I saw this get caught when you pushed through the bushes, and I tried to shout, but you didn't hear me, and so I grabbed it, because I was worried that you'd lose it, or really forget about it, and then..."

"Breathe, Fear. Breathe." A tall green rabbit bounced up behind Fear and bopped him lightly on the head. "You've got the tail, so let's get it attached back on."

Fear nodded, then handed the tail off to Disgust, who hopped over to Sadness and deftly pinned the tail back on. Sadness gave a small jolt of surprise.

"Ow… wait, that didn't hurt." She glanced back and swished her tail back and forth. "Huh."

"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!"

The three turned from where they had been observing Sadness's tail to see Joy bouncing in front of a somewhat familiar red gopher, who was rubbing his head and glaring fiercely at Joy.

"Oops, sorry Anger. I didn't see you there."

"Of course. You don't see a lot of things, do you?" Anger was obviously steamed, even if his head wasn't bursting into flame like it usually did.

"Come on, don't fight." Sadness's voice was pleading as the other three emotions-turned-forest-creatures trundled over. "She did say sorry."

Anger grumbled a bit more. "Oh, whatever." He turned to stomp off, only to fall straight into the hole right behind him. "Not agaaaai*thud*...oof".

Off on one of the fence posts, Riley kicked her feet and giggled as she watched her friends playing around. It was always an interesting change of pace when they Looped outside of her head. She could still feel emotions, but it was different. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but it was kind of like the difference between skating on polished ice in the rink and the naturally frozen ice on top of a pond...or something.

A muffled voice pulled her out of her woolgathering, and she turned to glance next to her, giggling again at the sight. She then bent down, and carefully pulled the honey pot off of where it was stuck over the head of the small bear sitting beside her on the grass. It came free with a loud pop, and Riley fell backwards from the sudden lack of resistance. "Oof."

Winnie the Pooh carefully licked his lips. "Hmm, my inspection of the honey pot proves what I feared. I am out of honey again."

Riley smiled as she sat up. "Would you like me to help you go get some more?"

Pooh nodded. "Oh yes, that would be lovely. I tend to upset the bees in their tree when I go on my own." He then carefully stood up, and Riley joined him, taking his hand in hers. Behind her, she heard the Emotions all starting to make their way over. Pooh looked up at her as they started towards the road. "You may not be as Christopher Robin-ish as Christopher Robin is, but you are still very nice Miss Riley."

Riley grinned back. "Thanks Pooh Bear."

* * *

20.6 (Firehawk242): [Winx Club] / [Frozen] / [The Princess and the Frog] / [Mulan] / [Snow White] / [Cinderella] / [Sleeping Beauty] / [The Little Mermaid] / [Beauty and the Beast] / [Aladdin] / [Pocahontas] / [Tangled] / [Brave] - also compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as Loop 8.8.

Flora Awoke and sent out her usual Ping. Last loop had featured an Awake Bloom and Musa, but unfortunately no Techna. Hopefully she would get to see her girlfriend again this loop.

Flora was expecting no more than three Pings in response to her own. She staggered backwards to her bed when no fewer than sixteen Pings went out in response to hers. She sat on her bed in stunned confusion. _Sixteen loopers?_ What was going on?

"Flora!" Techna said, bursting into Flora's room. "Did you-"

"Yeah, I got it," Flora said weakly. "Well, you're Awake, that's one down."

Bloom pushed in, Stella behind her. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Are you asking about why Techna is in the room?" Flora asked. "Or something else?"

"Flora, I'm Awake," Bloom said.

"Oh good," Flora said. "Hi Stella."

"How do you know my name?" Stella asked.

"It's a long story," Musa said as she walked through the door. "We're all Awake this loop?"

"You, me, Bloom, and of course Flora," Techna said. "That leaves thirteen loopers unaccounted for."

"You know Bloom's name?" Stella asked. "What's a loop? What are loopers? What's Awake mean? WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

The four loopers shared an awkward look.

"Flora, Techna, do you want to explain this?" Musa asked.

"Sure," Flora said. "I'm the Anchor, I should do it."

"And Techna has the slideshow," Bloom said. "Musa and I will try to find the other loopers."

"Alright," Techna said. "Good luck."

"So, Stella," Flora said. "You might want to sit down for this..."

* * *

Bloom wandered around Alfea, looking for anyone she didn't recognize. Musa was doing the same over at Cloud Tower. Somehow she'd figured out how to use her magic to disguise herself as male. Bloom had a hard time understanding why Musa or anyone else would ever _want_ to do that, but she apparently did. Oh well, it was useful for certain situations. She suddenly felt a tap on her shoulder and spun.

"Elsa?" Bloom asked.

"Yes, it's me," the Snow Queen said with a smile. "This is your home loop?"

"Yes," Bloom said. "Uh, we don't usually have very many loopers here, so we're trying to figure out who our guests are."

"Well I'm one," Elsa said. "My sister is two, Cinderella is three, Snow White is four, Aurora makes five, Ariel is six, Belle is seven, Jasmine is eight, Pocahontas is nine, Mulan is ten, Tiana is eleven, Rapunzel is twelve, and Merida makes thirteen. You're fourteen and the other three-"

"Are local," Bloom said. "How do you know who all these loopers are?"

"Well they're standing right there," Elsa said, pointing at the twelve young women standing in Alfea's quad.

* * *

"I think I get it," Stella said. "So, odds are I'll never remember this?"

"Unfortunately yes," Flora said. "We're hoping you Awaken some time soon though."

"Flora!" Bloom said, bursting into the the room. "I found the other loopers."

"Wonderful," Flora said. "Who is it?"

"All thirteen princesses of the Disney cluster," Bloom said.

"Well," Flora said. "It could be worse."

" _Thirteen_ princesses?" Stella asked.

"Technically it's eleven princesses, one queen, and one person who isn't royalty at all," Techna supplied. "However, they're typically called the Disney Princesses as a group."

"But... but..." Stella sputtered.

"What is it Stella?" Flora asked.

"This school isn't fit for this much royalty!" Stella announced.

The three loopers present blinked.

"What?" Techna asked.

"It's far too drab!" Stella said. "And if they're visiting like you say, we need to make sure we give a good impression, right?"

"Well I suppose..." Flora said, somewhat bemused by Stella's ability to take this entirely in stride.

"EXACTLY!" Stella declared. "Don't worry, I'll have this place ready for royalty in no time!" She rushed off.

"I'm not certain whether I should be glad she's taken it this well, or concerned about what she might do," Bloom said.

"That is a very good question," Techna said.

* * *

"I can't believe Stella set all of this up!" Musa said as she looked around Alfea's ballroom. "I've seen loops where entire teams of fairies couldn't achieve half of this."

"It is rather remarkable," Techna said. "She did all of the work for getting the dance organized, and yet she somehow not only maintained but actually exceeded the usual standard quality for this event."

"Are you sure she's not a looper?" Tiana asked.

"Positive," Flora said. "She's just... enthusiastic."

"Clearly," Mulan said.

"We should thank her for doing all of this for us," Snow White said.

* * *

"Our guests really appreciate everything you did for them," Flora said, sitting next to an exhausted Stella.

"Oh, it was... nothing," Stella said, her eyelids drifting slightly down.

"No, Stella, really," Flora said. "You did a lot of work, just for our guests. They're really impressed by it. Thank you for doing this."

"It was nothing," Stella insisted sleepily.

"You should go to bed," Flora said.

"No, I'm a host," Stella said. "I can't go yet."

"Bloom and Musa can handle it," Flora said. "You need to get some sleep."

"Are you certain I'm not needed?" Stella asked, then she yawned.

"Yes," Flora said. "I'm certain. Go to bed."

"Okay, I'll-" Stella abruptly slumped forward in her chair and started snoring lightly.

Flora smiled and shook her head. Stella had done a truly inhuman amount of work over the last few weeks with nothing but her magic. Flora couldn't help but admire her non-looping friend's drive and dedication.

"She fell asleep in her chair?" Techna asked, breaking free from the crowd.

"She did," Flora said, standing to give Techna a kiss. "She's been a big help."

"I know," Techna said. She looked at the sleeping girl. "Are we going to leave her there?"

"No, I'm going to take her back to her room and put her in her bed," Flora said. "Could you let Bloom and Musa know that I'll be back soon?"

"Of course," Techna said, stealing a quick kiss of her own from Flora. "We can handle it."

"Good," Flora said. She slid her hands under Stella's sleeping form and called on her vampire side to give her the strength to lift the taller girl.

"When you get back, you owe me a dance," Techna said.

"I'll be there," Flora said. She made her way out of the hall, a sleeping Stella in her arms.

* * *

"Flora?" Stella asked sleepily as Flora tucked her into her bed.

"Yes Stella, it's me," Flora said. "Everything's fine, go back to sleep."

"You sure?" Stella asked.

"I'm sure," Flora said, brushing some hair out of Stella's face. "Get some sleep. You've earned it." Flora started humming a lullaby.

Stella's eyes closed and she slowly settled into her bed, sleep stealing over her.

"Good night, Stella," Flora said. "Start looping soon." She turned the light off and made her way back down to the ballroom for that dance.

* * *

20.7 (Sonic Raynboom): [Jurassic Park] / [Up - certain element only)

"I am Charlie! I have just met you, and I love you!"

Roxy's eye twitched faintly as she looked at the Raptor Squad. This Loop, some weirdo had come by and put collars around their necks. Collars which apparently translated their thoughts. Hers kept malfunctioning, leading to a high pitched voice.

A Compsognathus ran by.

"COMPY!"

* * *

20.8 (Detective Ethan Redfield): [Disney] / [Haruhi Suzumiya]

Mickey looked at Minnie with a dumbfounded expression, "How did this happen?"

Minnie looked over the books again and replied, "I'm still trying to figure it out! Pete left a note for us that said, _"So long, boys! I'm off to a loop long vacation in Hawaii. Enjoy your new Landlord. Can't wait to see what mayhem you are in for, heh, heh, heh!"_ "

Mickey rolled his eyes and asked, "And how did she get the Master of Ceremonies position?"

Minnie sighed, "Coup by heartsong followed by a new contract being signed by Donald."

Mickey slapped his hand to his face and pulled it down. He looked onto the stage of his business and shook his head.

* * *

Haruhi dashed onto the stage in her school uniform and pointed at the backroom with a show stealing grin, "Take us out, Kyon."

* * *

Kyon stood in the office in front of the Mike, next to the usual announcer, Mike, who stared in baffled shock before shouting, "Wait, that's my job."

The boy sighed, "Sorry buddy. One thing you learn when dealing with Haruhi, you go along with it, or get out of the way."

He then started speaking in his usual deadpan tone, giving out the postscript thanking those responsible for their chance to spread excitement in the Disney Universe with Haruhi Suzumiya. Further, he announced the grand opening of the SOS House, then silently added in his head, _That doesn't even rhyme._

* * *

20.9 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Star Wars] / [Marvel] / [Disney]

Outside Disneyland HQ, a duo of characters found themselves picketing.

They were a diverse yet similar group. You had the handsome rogue (though one was tall and the other short, one Corellian and the other Canadian), the hairy genius (one unable to speak, the other well spoken, one brown and another blue), the wise master (one with a beard, the other bald), the armored villain (one black and the other purple and red), etc etc, all holding up various picket signs.

'Let us have a Happy Ending'

'Our worlds deserve peace'

'Genocide isn't funny'

'Give me a Disney Infinity Figure'

Observing this protest were a trio of heroes: one dressed in a red webbed suit, another in brown desert clothing, and a third who was a black furred mouse with red cloths.

"...Does protesting even work?" the desert dweller questioned.

"Why of course it does Lukey-Boy, it's why you haven't been working in a unsafe factory since your 10th birthday at the most!" the web head smirked.

"I'm not a Earthling though, that only applies to Earth, and only some parts of it," Luke noted "Galactic Labor Laws are a headache I reserve for Leia to deal with Peter."

"Isn't she hunting down the other Princesses to sign her petition?" Peter wondered, as he turned to the mouse "Say Mickey, why is it we don't get happy endings even though we are owned by you now?"

Mickey shrugged "Ichabob is in charge of your futures."

"Who?"

"Exactly. I'll try and work on it, but no promises. He's got tenure."

* * *

20.10 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

Joy Awoke in a bedroom.

Not her bedroom, at least not the one she had just off to the side of Headquarters. Sure, it may have been decorated the way she would have decorated a room with lots of bright colors and motivational posters, but it didn't look like she was in Riley's mind.

Which only meant one thing: She was Looping outside of her host this Loop. They were always weird, considering how most of the time she was a human instead of an emotion which always took some time getting used to, but at the same time they were welcome changes.

First thing first was to let loose a ping and see if anyone answered, then look for Riley.

Immediately afterwards she felt a strange hollow ring in her head. "Well, that was weird."

Joy tried again, this time the hollow ring a little stronger. _"Hey Joy, can you please stop doing that?"_

"Riley?" Joy was shocked to hear Riley's voice. She knew that blue planey Island magic had some weird mind related things but she wasn't aware that telepathy was a part of the deal. "That you?"

_"Sure is."_

"Wow, this is weird hearing you inside my head." Realizing what she said, she backtracked. "I mean, it's a good weird!"

_"I understand Joy. It was weird for me when we got the console upgraded for me."_

"So, where are you Riley?"

"Uh..."

_"Hi Joy."_

Joy was surprised when she heard that voice. "Um... Riley?"

_"Yes Joy?"_

"Was that Sadness?"

_"Yea. Almost didn't see you there Sadness."_

_"That's okay. It doesn't bother me. Mostly."_

"Oh this is great!" Joy began her happy dance around her room, spinning as she did so. "Sadness has mind magic too. Oh you could be mind buddies!"

_"Umm..."_

_"Should I tell her?"_

_"I think I should Sadness."_

That stopped the happy dance. "Guys... what's with the uhs and ums there?"

Slowly, Riley answered. "Joy.... you're replacing me. And I'm replacing you."

Joy thought on that."Wow... this is... Weird."

* * *

20.11 (ThanosCradik): [Alice in Wonderland] / [Mythos Hackers]

It was near the end of the Loop for Alice, and once again she found herself before the Queen of Hearts.

"And how do you plead?"

Already knowing the outcome, Alice replied, "Not guilty, your Highness."

After a second, the Queen spoke. "I have taken this into consideration, and shall now reveal my verdict. GUI-"

* _SMACK_ *

Everything froze as all present for the kangaroo court witnessed a salmon come flying from nowhere, and hit the Queen in the face.

"Wh-wha-"

* _SMACK_ *

Another salmon came from the opposite direction, and also smacked her.

Everyone watched as the Queen's entire color scheme slowly turned red and steam began to emit from her ears.

"Find whoever threw those fish, and remove their heads from their necks. NOW."

Having never heard their Queen speak so softly like this, everyone ran in different directions to find the perpetrator, the Queen following after them.

Everyone except Alice.

"...oh my. Should I go look as well?"

* * *

"HA! Right in the face! What did I tell you?"

"Hee hee, alright Dagon. You were right. That was good."

"Let's see now. Where should the next salmon launch?"

"Ooh! Look at that!"

"Look at what? Your _thingamabobber_ is blocking the fucking screen!"

"For crying- THAT right there!"

"...that will work nicely."

* * *

20.12 (MadWritter; edits by Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Inside Out] / [Wreck-It Ralph]

Disgust Awoke -- in both meanings of the word -- in a bright pink and white bed that smelled like saltwater taffy, and promptly sent out a Ping to locate any other loopers. While waiting for a response, she went over to the mirror to see what she looked like, and saw that she looked like Riley as a tot got smashed with Mario's Princess Peach wearing a pink racing jacket. She let out a whistle. Just then she heard a bing. She saw a brown hair girl with candy pieces in her headdress in a green hoodie near-by.

"Sorry about not replying sooner," the girl remarked. "I Woke Up in the middle of being cased by the Donut Cops."

"Don't tell me you're a crook?" Disgust replied, looking surprised.

"No. I'm the real ruler of this game, _Sugar Rush_. Name's President Vanellope Von Schweetz."

Disgust nodded. "So what's up with the cops chasing you for?"

Vanellope spoke with a tone that Disgust used when a grade school Riley was forced into the role of a broccoli in a grade school play, "A old racing nutball named Turbo tried to take over my game by deleting me, but he found out he couldn't do so -- so disguised as King Candy, he locked up the memories of the other racers and citizens of the game and convinced me that I was a glitch."

"Sheesh. That guy is more bad than a cartoon villain!"

"Tell me something I don't know." Vanellope paused, "When Stinkbrain is awake, either I use him as a random Monster or if I'm really angry at King Candy, have him yank King Candy out of the game himself."

"So, what do you do if Stinkbrain isn't awake?"

"My plan is usually steal another female "Sugar Race" outfit, her kart, drive to King Candy's home and wait until he falls asleep, then drive to the finish line. The outcome is totally hilarious."

Before she could ask anything else, Disgust got her loop memories. Seeing the look on her face, Vanellope cocked her head.

"Loop memory input?"

Disgust nodded. "Yes. My name is Donna Dragon. I'm the local bad girl out to get the other racers. My candy tank had saved your glitch hide on more than one occasion."

Vanellope smirked. "I got a idea."

* * *

King Candy and the other Sugar Rush racers screamed like little girls as a large tank approached the starting line/finish line. A gunner start firing Marshmallow Missiles at King Candy and the other drivers, while the driver drove over the line... and magic sparkles transformed her into Vanellope Von Schweetz dressed in her Princess outfit.

Turbo mentally frowned behind his King Candy disguise's smile, knowing that he was in caught between as a rock and hard place. He know that the the Surge Protector would fry him like French Fries for what he did to "Road Blaster", but had heard horror stories of video game females being worse while hiding in Game Center Station. His thoughts were broken when a large Taffy monster grabbed him and swallowed him whole.

After a moment, the Taffy monster burped. "Sorry, Count Van Dragon and Princess Von Schweetz, for not covering my mouth."

Disgust smirked. "In this case, I think we can make an exception to the rules."

Everyone got the case of the giggles.

* * *

20.13 (Gamerex27): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Disney]

"...you've always pushed me, as I've always pushed you."

Internally, Sora rolled his eyes, and ignored his friend. This was the... well, he'd stopped keeping track of how many times he'd done this same adventure over and over again. Sure, new worlds popped up now and then, but Hollow Bastion was almost always a constant.

And with it, this encounter with Riku. Where he stole the Keyblade and convinced Donald and Goofy to briefly abandon him.

Understandably, Sora wasn't a big fan of this part of the timeline.

Or how time was stuck on repeat in general. And none of his friends knew about it. Sure, they were supportive enough once he managed to convince them that he knew _way_ too much about the future, but it never stuck. It was getting old.

"But it all ends here. There can't be two Keyblade Masters. Let the Keyblade choose… _its true master!_ "

Oops.

As Sora blinked back to reality, he felt a pulling sensation in his hand, as the Keyblade dissolved in a flash of light and re-appeared with its default appearance in Riku's hand.

He really _did_ need to learn to pay attention more.

"Maleficent was right," Riku continued as Donald and Goofy gaped in the background. "You don't have what it takes to-"

The Keybearer (well, the usual one) decided that he had enough of this. He'd managed to make some changes to the timeline earlier, but it was about time to see how early he could knock it out of whack.

" _STOP!_ "

Riku froze mid gloat, as symbols of clocks and time materialized in a circle around his head. Keyblade or not, Sora could still use the wide variety of magic he'd picked up over his journeys.

Before Donald and Goofy could react, Sora grabbed a Gummi block from one of his many pockets and chucked it at Riku's head. The spongy yet rigid material struck Riku square in the face. Since he was frozen in time, Riku didn't react to the block. Or the volley of additional blocks that followed.

Several seconds of Sora's nonstop barrage later, Riku caught back up with regular time, yelped in pain, and promptly fell over. He didn't move, save his labored breaths and occasional twitch.

"Sorry..." Sora muttered. Maybe now that he was incapacitated, he could find a way to save his friend early. Lock Xehanort out of his heart, or-

" _There you are!_ "

The trio whipped around to see a sight not even Sora, though his centuries of experience, had seen coming: King Mickey leaping up towards them, landing on one knee with the Reverse Kingdom Key in his hand.

"Your Majesty?!" Donald and Goofy asked, in perfect unison. Sure, they had come all of this way to find him, but to just run into him out of nowhere felt...anticlimactic.

"It's good to see you, fellas!" Mickey greeted his friends. "Thanks for keeping the Keybearer safe."

"Uh... Uh.." Donald stammered, trying to find the right words to say and failing.

"Gosh," the king remarked, as he sauntered over to Riku's unconscious body. "I think you knocked the evil right outta him! Haven't seen that happen since Angel Island and Enerjak!"

"Huh?" Sora asked. He'd never heard Mickey mention _that_ before. Was this another time where things were different? "Where's that? You've never mentioned that before."

"Before?" Mickey's eyes widened. "Say, fellas, wouldja mind if I spoke with the Keybearer privately for a moment?"

"Uh...Yup!" Goofy said, while Donald still babbled with his brain stuck in neutral. "I'll make sure Sora's friend doesn't hurt himself!"

Smiling, Mickey nodded and led a confused Sora back down the floating islands.

"Say," Mickey casually asked as they descended, "have you been doing the same thing over and over again? Like you've been stuck on repeat."

"You _remembered?_ " Sora's eyes lit up, and he quickly knelt down to Mickey's eye level. "What happened?" he asked. "Is Xehanort doing this? Am I still stuck in a dream? Does this have to do with-"

"Hey, calm down!" Mickey said, chuckling awkwardly. "Golly, I never thought I'd get the chance to give the speech. Usually it's the same folks doing it over and over-like the Loops, actually," he remarked. "Welp, guess I'd better get started. Sora, imagine a tree..."

* * *

Sora sat down suddenly, as his brain took a few moments to process this.

"So," he asked, "I'm going to have to go through this over and over again for... however long this Janus guy thinks it takes?"

"Yep. Though there's times when things change up, like you've seen before. And sometimes, folks in other Loops end up here, or vice-versa. Actually, that last one is a _lot_ more common in your universe, Sora. Must have something to do with all the different worlds in one place."

"But Riku, Donald and Goofy, and Kairi, and everyone else will start remembering too, right?" Sora asked, his voice trembling slightly.

"'Course they will!" Mickey said cheerfully. "Happened to me pretty quickly! And with you, it-"

He was cut off when Sora hugged him, out of nowhere.

He didn't say anything: he was too choked up to say anything or make sappy speeches. He was too overjoyed to make any coherent words. He wouldn't be alone anymore. And never again.

"...can't... breathe!" Mickey gasped. "A... bit lighter... on the hug... please!"

Blinking several times, Sora let Mickey go. As the King caught his breath, Sora wipes the tears away from his eyes, and composed himself. "So, what happens now?" he finally asked.

"I dunno. Whatever you want," Mickey said, once he had recovered from Sora's bear hug. "...say, you used Gummi blocks to knock out Riku before, right? How 'bout we try that on Maleficent?"

The thought of the fearsome sorceress/dragon getting beaten by a steady stream of squishy building blocks brought a smile to Sora's face. "Alright. Whatever you say, Mickey."

* * *

20.14 (Gamerex27): [Warhammer 40K] / [Disney] / [Shin Megami Tensei]

"I'm all but _certain_ he's cheating," Magnus growled, pointing to the offending entity.

"I'd _know_ if he were cheating," Tzeentch muttered, sipping whatever brand of intoxicant Slaanesh had cooked up this time from the broadcast on a nearby monitor. "He isn't. Mind you, _I'd_ be winning if I were playing-"

"Oh, _come on_ ," Slaanesh pouted. "You're not playing because I'd _dominate_ this game in seconds!"

"More likely that he is scarred by what he has seen of our encounters to come anywhere near the three of us," Kashima speculated. "Hence why he hides behind circuits and plasma rather than play at a game as he is wont to do."

Shivering, Tzeentch proceeded to switch off his video feed and went to audio only. "Not taking any chances! Not _ever again!_ " Several seconds of deep breathing later, the players heard the sounds of the God of Change chugging his drink on the other end of the line.

"But I _do_ have to agree that this _is_ bulls__t," Slaanesh growled, leaning across the table and pointing hir finger accusingly at the being across from hir. "You're beating a Primarch of Chaos, _both_ of my f__kbuddies, one of the angriest and most sexually repressed men I've ever met-

" _Hey!_ " Donald Duck objected, smacking Slaanesh over the head with Save the Queen.

"-and _me_ , a deity of fun times," shi continued, showing no response save narrowing hir eyes at the final player of their game. "This is _my_ game, _bi__h_? How are you _beating_ me?!"

_Shi's got a valid question_ , Naoki asked mentally. _Dude, how have you won **any** black cards in this game, much less around two thirds of 'em_.

The final player was silent for a moment.

"Gawrsh, Slaanesh," Goofy finally said, tilting his head in confusion. "I dunno? Maybe I've got beginner's luck?"

"This is the third round we've played tonight!" exclaimed Magnus. "Luck only gets you so far!"

"Clearly, there is more to his desires than he shows," Kashima said, smirking and leaning over the table. "Tell me, have you ever experienced that last card firstha-

_He's from the Disney Branch, moron!_ Naoki interrupted. _They're as pure and driven as snow! He's probably... I dunno, stumbling through this with luck!_

"Ah. So, you are the Fool, walking off the edge of the cliff."

"....Eyup!" Goofy said, shrugging and pulling up the small pile of white cards to judge them.

"You _know_ they just insulted you, right?" Donald grumbled, as Goofy picked his card and slid the black category card over to his friend.

"Hey, bein' a Fool's a good thing where those folks are from!" Goofy said, grinning obliviously.

As Donald facepalmed, Slaanesh proceeded to leer at the knight while the Demi-Fiend and Primarch stared at him in confusion. And the game went on.

* * *

20.15 (Gamerex27): [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [Naruto] / [Marvel] / [Bar Loop]

The doors to the House of Mouse slammed open, as a shaking Sora staggered into the bar, using his Keyblade as a cane to prop himself up.

"Bad Loop?" Mickey asked, already pouring out a tropical cocktail for his fellow Anchor.

"V... very bad," Kairi replied, shambling in after Sora, her face a very unhealthy shade of red.

"You think you've seen it all," an orange-clad ninja muttered as he followed them in, on steadier footing (though his face did betray some level of distress). "You think after a few quadrillion years, you'd get used to stuff. But then you end up in the _Hub,_ and those guys prove you wrong." Naruto shrugged. "I mean, it never _personally_ happened to me-or any of them-but..."

"Real people still thought all of those things up," Riku finished, appearing past the blocked door via a Corridor of Darkness, his face a little green.

Mickey paused before he could finish mixing the pina colada. "You… you mean you fellas saw-"

"Bad Hub Fanfiction," the group echoed in unison.

Mickey instantly set aside the cocktail and retrieved the hard liquor out of the bar cabinet.

"I've only really read mine and the other Six's fanfics," Naruto admitted as he took a seat at the bar. "Learning that there's just as much crazy for you guys as for us… I don't know it it makes me relieved or worried."

"I... guess it wasn't all bad?" Sora said weakly, a flimsy smile on his face. "I mean, some of the pre-Mark of Mastery stuff was interesting (though still wrong, since it came before that Expansion), and the stories that remembered to include Disney characters were usually pretty good..."

"But most of it was still trash," Riku countered, sitting down next to his friend. "Nice of them to put in effort to get words to paper, but it didn't pan out. _Especially_ whenever they tried for romance."

"Kinda ironic _we're_ on one of those awful fanfics right now, huh?"

As one, the group turned towards one of the nearby tables.

"Who let _him_ in here?" Riku said, scowling.

"The author wrote me in here!" Deadpool stated, kicking his feet up on the expensive table and smearing the cloth with footprints."I mean, he _shouldn't_ have, since this will probably piss the other writers off. Community project: not everything's be awesome! It's also bad form to do self-deprecation in your own prose, so shame on you, writer! Also, Disney bought Marvel, so I can get in here whenever I want, and you can't do _squat_."

"He _still_ thinks he's in a comic?" Kairi asked.

"Always," Naruto replied. "I think his code may actually be damaged or something."

"-power fantasies, but I _guess_ they're not OP," the Merc with a Mouth continued. "I mean, they get their asses kicked all the time by non-Loopers-"

He was cut off as a strand of webbing struck him in the chest and yanked him out the door.

"Like right noooooooow!" he said, voice fading.

"Uh… sorry about that," an Unawake Spider-Man said, poking his head through the doorway. "Strange asked me to track him down: something about him messing with dimensional barriers and the like. Uh… enjoy the drinks… I guess."

He awkwardly launched more webbing at a nearby building and swung away.

"I understand why Indiana Jones is afraid of snakes now," Sora muttered, still focusing on their bizarre (for both good and ill) experiences with their Hub fandom."Can I get another round?"

* * *

20.1: So that's a thing.

20.2: And more of it.

20.3: Those two have some weird adventures in their hotel... no wonder Roxy doesn't care to have them around.

20.4: Lyra's style of Dissociative Loop Identity Disorder has some odd consequences.

20.5: So Riley is Christopher Robin, Joy is Tigger, Sadness is Eeyore (how appropriate), Fear is Piglet, Anger is Gopher and Disgust is Rabbit.

20.6: Stella _has_ since started Looping.

20.7: Raptors acting like the dogs from _Up_.

20.8: Yep, Haruhi does things like this.

20.9: Written not long after Marvel Studios was placed into Walt Disney Studios.

20.10: It was bound to happen.

20.11: The Mythos Hackers do weird stuff sometimes. But I can't blame them in this case.

20.12: This was around the time I first got involved with the Disney Loops, as I recall.

20.13: Loops can be written out of order… and here's proof positive, as we learn how Sora got the Welcome-To-The-Loops/Multiverse speech.

20.14: I'm not even going to pretend to try to understand this one.

20.15: I feel your pain, guys. (And Deadpool still isn't an actual Looper.)


	27. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-One

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-02. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-One**

21.1 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_-Reality-_

_"Riley, this is a bad idea."_ Fear worriedly pleaded as Riley made her way down the stairs. _"Mom will kill us if we go through with this."_

 _"Oh lighten up Fear."_ scoffed Disgust. _"It's just a little practical joke. No big deal."_

_"Well forgive me for overreacting."_

Riley just rolled her eyes, no doubt Disgust's influence bleeding through from Headquarters. _"Fear, nothing bad is going to happen. Trust me."_

Just before Fear could retort back, Riley had made it to the bottom, jumping of the last step and landing with a thud before darting off to the kitchen where Mom was. "Hey Mom."

"Morning Riley." Mom replied with a smile. "You seem happy this morning. Have a good dream last night?"

_"THANK YOU!"_

_"Shush Joy."_

Unawake Joy. She always seemed to be hungry for praise, earned or otherwise. "You could say that." Riley slyly answered as she approached Mom. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course you can."

 _"Here it comes!"_ Fear moaned.

 _"Just get the camera ready."_ Anger growled.

"Do you know anything about Brazilian Helicopter Pilots?"

Mom didn't say anything, but the brief flash of panic was all Riley needed to see.

_\--Mom's Headquarters--_

Mom's Fear spat out her coffee in total shock. "HOW DID RILEY KNOW ABOUT HIM!?" she shrieked.

* * *

21.2 (Sonic Raynboom): [Admin Shenanigans]

Janus was hard at work trying to ensure the new Kingdom Hearts expansion would go smoothly when he heard a knock at his door.

Grumbling, Janus opened the door. "What now?"

"I'm your new assistant!"

"What?"

"I'm Turms, the messenger boy... well, I was, then email started up. Now I'm your assistant!" the young boy chirped happily.

"I don't need help." Janus replied curtly.

"Fine, I'll go tell Miss Skuld you said that."

Janus remembered his last encounter with Skuld. "Wait no get back here!"

Turms smirked. "What happened to I don't need help?"

Janus knew when he was beat. "Fine. You can... hmm... you can... aha! I have the perfect Loop for you to run."

* * *

21.3 (Evilhumour): [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Jack Sparrow looked at the mutt next to him, scratching under its chin.

"You know dog, you're quite odd," Jack mused to himself, looking at the jail dog as it laid on its side. "No matter where I go, you seem to appear and do just fine."

The dog responded by stretching out its hind leg in bliss.

"I wonder," picking up the dog, the Looping pirate _Captain_ stared into the dog's face. "Are you looping in time with me or some strange loop aware deity that I should really be watching out for?"

The dog responded by licking his face and barking.

* * *

21.4 (zeusdemigod131): [Pokémon] / [Percy Jackson]

Misty's pencil clattered to the ground as she woke up, taking in her surroundings she looked around the... classroom?

Misty was used to waking up in Cerulean City, or at least near it, depending on how her relationship with her sisters was that Loop. Occasionally she would wake up somewhere else, Pallet Town whenever she and Ash switched places, Twinleaf whenever she replaced May.

She had never Looped back to trainer school before, and she didn't even recognize this place. Or the wheelchair bound man at the front of the classroom.

Misty took a deep breath and waited a moment as her Loop memories settled in. Her name was Misty Jackson and she was attending Yancy Academy with her twin brother Percy...

"Right," she thought to herself. "This is definitely one of those Fused Loop things Pikachu mentioned."

This idea was cemented when another piece of information, trivial in the memories but major to her, came through.

"No, Pokémon?" She whispered to herself. Ash and Pikachu had mentioned worlds like this, and Misty had not been looking forward to visiting them.

"Is everything alright Miss Jackson?"

Misty snapped to attention and looked up at her teacher. "Uhh, yeah Mr... Brunner, just a little... headache is all."

Mr. Brunner didn't seem convinced but didn't push the matter. Misty looked down at her desk and saw she was in the middle of a history test, she examined the questions for a moment before saying. "Where the heck is Greece?"

* * *

Misty walked dejectedly to her dorm room, she was certain she had failed that test, her pre-awake self hadn't studied all that much and since she only knew a few things about this Earth, compared to her own.

Upon further analysis of her Loop memories she found she was not only apparently a "Troubled child", she had ADHD and dyslexia, and so did her brother. Misty sat down on her bed, thankfully she didn't have a roommate, and pulled her holocaster from her subspace pocket.

Ever since they had learned about subspace storage each Looper had taken to storing at least one of the devices in theirs at all times, it made it a lot easier to tell who was awake, as well as find any of their Pokémon who were Looping.

Misty switched on the device. "Hello?" She called, transmitting to all contacts. "Ash? Pikachu? Brock? May? Anyone?" The device offered naught but static. That confused her. "But if Pikachu isn't on then who's the anchor?"

There was a knock at her door and she quickly shoved the holocaster back in her pocket. "Umm, come in?"

As the door opened Misty was greeted by her current twin, although the only thing similar about them was their eyes, both sea green.

"Hey sis," Percy greeted with a smile. "Glad to see you're awake."

Misty blinked once, she was confused at what he meant by that, it wasn't that late and, something clicked in her mind. "Are you a Looper?" she asked hopefully.

Percy sighed in relief. "Good, I hate it when I get unawake new family members." He held out a hand to her. "Hi, I'm Percy Jackson, Anchor for the Last Olympian Loops."

Misty smiled and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you Percy, I'm Misty, just a uh, regular Looper."

"Where from?" Percy asked, sitting down on the bed beside his current sister.

'What do you mean?" Misty asked in confusion.

Percy's eyes widened. "Wow, wait, you mean you haven't visited the Hub yet?"

"Hub?"

Percy sighed. "Alright, I'm assuming you've had the "Welcome to the Multiverse" talk considering you aren't freaked out by a new world."

Misty nodded. "I wasn't personally awake when out Anchor got it but yeah, Pikachu explained-"

"Pikachu?" Percy asked in surprise. "Little electric mouse Pokémon?"

Misty looked at Percy in confusion. "Yeah, but how do you know about Pokémon?"

Percy shook his head. "Can't believe you guys are actually Looping, right hang on a second."

Percy reached into his subspace pocket and pulled out two things, a box set of five books the first being _The Lightning Thief_ , and a DVD titled _Pokemon: The First Movie_.

Misty stared at the second as she recognized Mewtwo, Mew and Pikachu on the cover. "How the?"

Percy sighed. "Looks like I've got to explain the Hub now."

* * *

Misty tapped her chin as Percy finished explaining. "So let me get this straight, the "Hub" is a universe that contains data on every universe in the loops, but in the form of fiction?"

"Yep," Percy said with a smile. "You guys are actually pretty popular, video games, tv shows, movies, mangas," His smile turned to a slight grimace. "Actually I'm kinda jealous, the books for this Loop are pretty good, but the movies," Percy shuttered. "I freakin' hate those variants."

Misty giggled. "So," she began. "What's your Loop like."

Percy smiled nervously and chuckled. "Nowhere near as peaceful as yours, I can tell ya that. We've got a Pantheon of Loop Aware gods who, due to something involving the River Styx and the Admins, can't interfere with the normal path of the Loop, a bunch of high powered baddies, mainly a currently shredded Titan and his brothers who wants to destroy humanity, the first ever goddess who gets upset when we stop said Titans and tries to destroy the gods, occasionally another set of Loop Aware gods who are the same but different from our own, and sometimes an entirely different gods who don't get along with ours and a giant snake who tries to swallow the sun, and every monster from Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and... a lot of other mythologies who try to eat Half-Bloods."

Misty gaped at him. "Half-Blood?"

"Half human, half god, that's what we are, congrats on being the daughter of Poseidon."

Misty pulled her legs up to her chest. "And how long does this last?"

Percy tapped his chin. "Well one of us, or one of my friends, Nico or Thalia, has to reach sixteen, which is... four years for us, depending on when Thalia wakes up a year to a few months, Nico's a bit tricker but about five to six years depending on how long he's been in the Lotus Casino."

"And that's when the Loop ends?" Misty asked.

Percy shrugged. "Sometimes, it can go about a year or two after when it includes the events surrounding Jason and Gaea."

Misty did some quick math. "So anywhere from just over two years to almost eight?"

Percy shook his head. "Nah, I at least have to reach sixteen, having Thalia chose to preserve Olympus just ends Kronos sooner."

Misty slumped.

"Unless my friend Luke is awake, in which case we don't have to worry about anything until after our sixteenth birthday."

Misty jolted up. "Why didn't you say that in the first place?"

Percy shrugged. "You didn't ask."

* * *

Misty set up her bunk in Poseidon Cabin, grumbling to herself, after school had ended, which had taken a few weeks, Misty had met her current mother, the currently unawake Sally Jackson, and her stepfather, whom she would have liked to feed to her Gyarados. Then, as Percy had warned her, they had been attacked by the Minotaur on their vacation, and then taken to Camp Half-Blood by the also currently unawake Grover Underwood, Percy's Satyr friend.

Misty had been disappointed to hear that Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, was unawake as well, and it seemed that so far only Percy's girlfriend Annabeth, and friend/rival Clarisse La Rue were awake.

Fortunately they didn't have to travel to the Underworld this time because Percy, having had many Loops to hone his fighting abilities, had destroyed the Minotaur when it showed up, thus saving his mother, and caught Luke with Zeus' Master Bolt.

Luke had still managed to escape but not without a major dent being put in his plan, one that would only worsen when Annabeth used one of the Golden Fleece she had collected to expunge Thalia from the pine tree on Half-Blood Hill.

"So," Percy asked Misty as he hung a picture of himself, Grover, Annabeth, the centaur Chiron, who was also Mr. Brunner, Misty had learned, Luke, Clarisse, and a few others Misty didn't recognize including a young boy in an aviator outfit, a girl in a "Death To Barbie" T-shirt, and a one eyed boy whom Percy called Tyson, on the wall of his bunk. "We have about a week before the Fleece gets Thalia out, although I don't think she's Looping either, and then the rest of the summer, even if Thalia doesn't join the Hunters of Artemis, and I gotta warn you, her non-Looping self almost always does, we have until winter break before her next birthday."

"And?' Misty asked.

Percy smiled. "You're a water trainer right?"

* * *

It wasn't the first time Misty was able to breath underwater, she'd looped as several Water-Type Pokémon. But it was the first time she could do it as a human.

"This is so COOL!" She cried as she swam.

Percy chuckled. "That's what everyone says."

* * *

Misty sighed from the deck of their ship as it sailed towards the Sea of Monsters. Percy had been correct about Thalia, the daughter of Zeus was now a member of the hunters of Athena, and while they had managed to rescue Nico and his sister Bianca from their military academy early, the children of Hades weren't awake either, not a surprise since Bianca hadn't even begun Looping yet.

Despite having freed Thalia with the Golden Fleece Luke was still planning to get this Loops version from Polyphemus' island, their spies in his army had assured them, although everyone was more than a little confused as to where a second Golden Fleece had come from.

As the ghostly vessel sailed towards the Sea of Monsters, Misty considered their situation, she, Percy, Annabeth, Clarisse, and her current half brother Tyson were all onboard, as it turned out Tyson was awake this time but had been late getting to Camp Half-Blood.

Percy had told her that they usually took the entrance that involved them battling Scylla and Charybdis. Misty was not looking forward to facing them, especially since Percy said they almost never got past Charybdis unscratched.

So far the only thing Misty was finding positive about this Loop was being the daughter of Poseidon and all the water related perks. As it turned out while Misty could control water the same way Percy did she could also communicate with, and control, sea creatures much more easily than him.

She had heard several jokes from Clarisse where the daughter of Ares compared her to someone named Aquaman, although it was still unclear whether he was a Looper or what.

As the boat entered the strait between the two cliffs it veered to the left, everyone preparing to attack the monster with everything they had. For Misty, this was an enchanted bow she had obtained from camp and her power over water. As the Gym Leader prepared herself she saw the gaping maw of Charybdis open, revealing rows upon rows of spiky jagged, rock-like... pink and blue teeth.

Then the monster spoke, and, in a deep and gravelly voice, said. "Cor-so-la."

* * *

"I just don't know what went wrong." Luke Castellan said to himself as he sat in his prison cell on Mt. Olympus. He had just stolen the Golden Fleece from that idiotic Cyclops when the Jacksons and their little team had shown up, at first Luke hadn't been worried. Then a colossal pink and blue monstrosity with a mouth wider than the rest of its body had jumped out of the sea and swallowed his ship.

Happily chirping. "Cor!" As it did.

He had then been captured by the campers and taken to Olympus for trial, it had in all honesty been a pretty fair trial, he had even gotten to pick his lawyer. Of course Zeus was the judge.

"How did they even get Charybdis to listen to them?"

* * *

Misty sat on the back of her Pokémon turned ancient Greek monster and stared up at the sky. Corsola was Misty's second Pokémon to start Looping, after Togepi. And she hadn't responded to Misty's message because, in her current form, she lacked arms.

It had taken some convincing to get Corsola permanent residence in the Long Island Sound but Percy had vouched for her.

After they had locked away Luke his army had pretty much fallen apart and Kronos' coffin had been recovered, then thrown into Tartarus. Misty and the rest of the Loopers had spent the past three years in relative peace training at Camp Half-Blood and, in the case of Percy and Clarisse, engaging in their favorite vacation Loop activity, a prank war.

Now, at Misty and Percy's sixteenth birthday, the Loop was, in all likelihood, coming to an end. Percy had checked and since neither Jason nor Sadie, the anchors for their respective segments, were awake, the Egyptian and Roman gods weren't an issue.

"So," Annabeth asked from her place on Corsola's back. "What did you think of your first fused Loop?"

After they imprisoned Luke Annabeth and Misty had begun talking more and trading notes on their home Loops.

Misty looked at her blankly. "I think this just reassured my opinion that every Looper is crazy." She said with a laugh.

Annabeth smiled. "Just wait, when it comes to crazy, you haven't even scraped the surface."

* * *

Misty woke up in her bedroom in Cerulean City. She blinked once and waited as her Loop memories set in. This one wasn't that odd, she was the sole Gym Leader because her sisters had all left on a cruise, that seemed to come up a lot, and she hadn't even considered leaving.

After sending out a message on her holocaster she found that Pikachu, Ash, and May were all Awake. She arranged a meeting with them in a few months for when May could actually leave home, then went about her daily business, until a familiar face entered the gym.

"Wait, You're the Cerulean Gym Leader?" Gary Oak asked. "But I heard the Cerulean Gym Leaders were the most beautiful girls in Kanto."

Gary eyed Misty and then shrugged. "Whatever, let's just get this over with."

Misty didn't even look up, after she had met Gary later on in the baseline she found his current self to be even more insufferable than ever.

"Hey, did ya hear me? Just send out a Pokémon already."

Misty gritted her teeth and clenched her fist, she felt a familiar pulling sensation in her gut.

"Come on! What are ya? St-PWAHHH!" Gary never finished his sentence as he was suddenly hit by the entirety of the Gym field. The poor boy was left unconscious plastered against one of the walls.

Misty looked down at her hands, staring in confusion for a moment, then she smiled, at this point, she could only think of one thing to say. "Sweet!"

* * *

21.5 (kingofsouls): [Mortal Kombat] / [Frozen]

*CLANG*

Hanzo Hasashi was a man trying to reform himself, even after so many loops of experience.

*CLANG*

His atonement was not just for his baseline sins, but the sins afterwards as well.

*CLANG*

To him, the best way to atone was to put all visiting loopers on the path to goodness, or at the very least, not towards vengeance if it was the path they were on.

*CLANG*

For this one, the path was clear for her. She was already pure of heart...

*CLANG*

It's just that she was lacking skill.

*CLANG CLANG CLANG*

The woman's sword fell a ways off, right before Hanzo brought the blade to her neck.

He quickly sheathed the blade, and stepped back.

The two bowed, and Hanzo spoke.

"You have improved, but there is still much to be done, Anna."

"Thank, Sensei." Anna replied.

"I do have to ask, why have you come to the Shirai Ryu this loop?"

"Well, my sister Elsa decided she was going to train under Kuai Liang and the Lin Kuei this loops, so I figured that a little sibling rivalry wouldn't hurt."

"We have already made peace together, Anna. We are not in danger of either of us fighting." Hanzo said as he grabbed the sword on the ground.

"Yeah, I know, but Arendelle does have... those loops, and I want to prove that I can fight with my sister."

"I understand. The need to be equal to those who outclass you. The need to be of worth. I may not have been through that path, but I know that if done with reckless abandon, it will only end in tragedy." Hanzo handed the sword to Anna. "The sword is like your destiny. It requires discipline, but once perfected, can be controlled, and powerful."

Anna stared at the sword, and smiled.

"And to think, you used to be a vengeance-ridden fire zombie."

The air suddenly turned hotter as flames seeped through the cracks in the ground, with Hanzo having a not-too-pleased look.

"Not that I'm saying that it was a good thing." Anna quickly backtracked.

"...It seems that discipline is your weakest subject, young one. We shall correct this at once. To the dojo, where you shall perform 100 punches to the pole."

Anna whimpered as she rubbed her knuckles.

* * *

21.6 (Crisis): [Inside Out]

"Finally, Joy, where have you–" Disgust began her prepared beration for Joy's absence on Riley's first day of school, only to cut off when she saw the sorry state of the normally peppy emotion. "You look horrible. Did you at least get the number of the tornado that hit you?"

"You know how there's supposedly six main emotions?" Joy asked as she slumped onto the couch.

"Yeah, the five of us and Surprise," Sadness replied. "Why?"

"Well, every few Loops, I look around to see if Surprise actually exists, sometimes seriously, sometimes just in passing. And this must be a Variant, because I found her. At least I'm 63% sure Surprise was a her... I mostly just saw an orange and indigo blur..."

"You did?" Fear blinked in astonishment. "What's she like? Where does she live? Why isn't she here in Headquarters with us?"

"Seriously, does she not like Riley or something?" Disgust wondered.

"No, she loves Riley just as much as any of us, bu–"

"Yeah, not buying it," Anger huffed. "If she loves Riley, then why isn't she helping out up here?"

Joy groaned. "Look... it's... you really don't want Surprise up here. Trust me."

"Why?" Sadness asked from her position at the console while Riley was waiting for her homeroom teacher to show up.

"Because..." Joy sighed tiredly. "Okay, Surprise is femininely androgynous, kind of shaped like an unexploded firework, and spiral-striped orange and indigo like a barber pole. To the point she has heterochromia. Got that pictured?"

"Yeah, and it's tacky," Disgust snorted.

"Now, take the most excitable parts of me and Fear, add them together, and infuse with pure adrenaline."

"Oh, I don't like where this is going..." Fear muttered worriedly.

"Feed a strict diet of energy drinks, sugar, and coffee–"

"And you get Pinkie Pie," Anger huffed.

"Oh, _heck_ no," Joy shook her head, "Surprise makes Pinkie Pie look sedate. And that's when she's not being called to do her job. When _that_ happens, you take everything up to now and hit maximum fast-forward. At that point, she's nothing more than an orange and indigo blur when she _slows down_."

"What does she even do this Loop?" Disgust scoffed. "And why were you looking for her anyway?"

"I wasn't looking for her actually," Joy sighed. "Riley and I were talking last night about who writes the Mind Reader and I agreed to go find out for her. I got to her office shortly before she had to write this morning's edition."

"Wait, you're telling me that..." Anger trailed off as he looked for the part of the Mind Reader's articles that listed the writer and proceeded to stare as 'by Surprise' greeted him at the top of every single one. "...I don't believe this."

"Believe it. I was right in the middle of the whirlwind as she researched, composed, typed, and printed that whole thing up in under a second," Joy groaned. "Her job is basically to take in all unexpected situations, cross reference senses with known memories, and compile a report to help us decide on the best emotional response to whatever just happened. She decided to write the reports as a newspaper."

"Hey," Riley's mental voice interrupted, "this is really fascinating, but my teacher's coming in now guys and–"

The Mind Reader Anger was holding abruptly shifted, the new headline reading 'OH SHIT! UMBITCH!' and the subheader reading 'Multiverse's worst teacher invades Riley's school!' and a side article read 'What this could mean for our education!'. A small article on the back page was titled 'Head Emotion Joy visits head writer and editor-in-chief of the Mind Reader. Hi Joy!'.

"–crap," Riley finished despondently as the large toadish woman stepped to the front of the room and let out a short *hem-hem*.

"No offense, Riley," Joy sighed from the couch, "but since it seems like you won't be needing me much this morning, I'm going to take a nap. Wake me for lunch and we'll plan pranks."

* * *

21.7 (Crisis): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Inside Out]

"So what's the deal with 'Vampire Romance Island'?" Kairi asked her adoptive sister for the Loop. "Does that mean you actually like the _Twilight_ series?"

"Oh, _god_ no," Riley made a face. "It tries to be romantic, I guess, but the whole thing comes off super creepy and disturbing. It's just..."

"Just what?"

"I couldn't _put it down_!" Riley threw her hands up in exasperation. "The whole series is like the longest, most destructive train wreck ever! No matter how much you hate it, once you start reading you can't stop!"

"I know, right?" Kairi giggled.

"What, you've read it?"

"Of course! You didn't think something like that became multiversally despised simply by word of mouth, did you? From what I hear, Leah hasn't yet had a fused Loop with anyone who didn't know her place's plot backwards and forwards and already had several ideas of how to turn it on its head."

"You included?"

"Let me tell you about the time Sora and I–"

* * *

21.8 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_"So, tell me again why we went and bought nerd cards?"_

Riley sat at her desk, and reached into her bag to take out the nerd cards Disgust spoke of. Thanks to the wonders of time travel and the Subspace Pocket Riley had a small stash of allowance built up from many previous loops. "Well Disgust," Riley replied. "Jace and the others told me about how their branch is a card game in ours. And I was thinking that if spells from their world are in cards in this one, maybe by looking at the cards would be a good way to learn some different spells."

Disgust simply make a sound akin to someone losing their lunch. _"Cards don't suit you Riley. Trust me on this one."_

 _"I think it's a good idea."_ Sadness spoke up. _"And I think the art is pretty, right?"_

 _"I disagree."_ Disgust stamped her foot, the sound of it echoing loud enough for Riley to hear it. _"Our Riley playing a nerd game like this? What next, people playing them on motorcycles?"_

There was an uncomfortable silence. _"...please tell me I'm wrong."_

Riley just opened the first pack of cards, leafing through them. "Let's see...."

Joy gasped. Before she could say anything, Fear beat her to the punch. _"We are not convincing Riley that summoning sea monsters is a good idea. Summoning anything bigger than us is just asking for trouble."_

As Riley leafed through the next few cards, fear became all that Riley knew. "Fear..."

_"I'm sorry, but that... how do you say it, El-draz-i? Well whatever it's called, it looks like something we want to stay away from._

"I agree. " Riley shuddered. She leafed past it, and the next card caused Fear to hit the panic button again.

"There's more of those things!?"

Riley suddenly regretted buying several packs of Battle for Zendikar. "Fear, they're just cards."

_"But what if you try to summon one of these things for real?_

"I wouldn't worry about it." assured his host. "I don't think I can summon something that doesn't exist in our Loop right?"

_"I suppose..."_

Joy interrupted Fear's musing as Riley reached the end of the pack. _"Oh wow, that Island looks AWESOME! I wish we go to wherever that place is sometime!"_

 _"Typical Joy."_ Anger mused.

* * *

21.9 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_"Geeze, these Eldrazi things are ugly."_

Disgust spoke slowly, the artwork of the monsters not of this world easily triggering her gag reflex. _"You're telling me. Whatever hell they crawled out of, they should go back."_

 _I don't think they want to leave where they already are."_ Disgust shot Sadness a look, before Sadness continued. _"Well, it's called Battle for Zendikar right? I think there is a war going on in these cards, right?"_

Disgust shrugged, not willing to admit Sadness made a point. _"I just don't want to see another one of those things."_

"Oh look." Riley duly relied. "Forerunner of Slaughter."

 _"That's it. I'm done."_ And with that, Disgust stomped off towards her room.

* * *

_\--Headquarters--_

"Is it just me, or do these Kor remind me of Joy?" Sadness asked as Riley leafed through the next pack. Riley paused, taking a closer look at the cards featuring the Kor.

"Must be the white skin." Anger mused.

"Okay, these guys sound nothing like me." Joy rebutted.

 _"Actually, I think they do."_ Riley countered. _"It sounds like they put a lot of emphasis of teamwork."_

"Like Joy." Sadness agreed.

_"And it sounds like they refuse to let their allies give up."_

"Like Joy." Fear agreed with a nod.

Before Joy could rebut, Disgust had returned. She looked a little disheveled but otherwise okay. "Okay, I'm back. What did I miss?"

"We're comparing Joy to these Kor guys." Anger recapped.

"The who?"

"The creepy white skinned guys." Anger snarked as Riley leafed through her cards and showed Disgust one of the Kor. The green emotion got a closer look, leaning in to see.

"Yea, I can totally see Joy as one of the guys and making it work."

This piqued Joy's interest. "Really?"

"Oh yea. Not a lot of people can pull off the pasty white skinned look. Not to mention those adventure outfits oddly fit your style. Leather is in this Loop I hear."

"Awww, thanks guys." smiled Joy. Her ever present glow brightened as her smile widened. "You're the best!"

* * *

21.10 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Disney] / [Attack on Titan]

A fat man with pale blond hair and a red coat lifted up the clothed donkey with a wicked smirk "Now, what might your name be?"

"YEHAAH!"

"Good." He promptly ripped the donkey's clothes off and threw it into a box labeled 'Salt Mines'. The box was already housing several similar donkeys, and many others were boxed around them, with such horrible destinations in mind as 'unlicensed Mississippi petting zoo', 'Taliban', and 'guarding sheep'.

The last box of donkeys were the lucky ones.

"Next!" he was tossed another clothed donkey, which he glared at darkly "What's your name?"

"Eren," the Donkey said blandly as the man eyed the creature in disdain.

"Oh great, you can still talk-" but before he could throw the donkey back into a pen with the rest of the rejects, the Donkey bit his limb.

The Coachman assumed he had another suicidal one on his hands... before the golden lightning hit.

* * *

Dressed like a cop and giving the now horrifically beaten up Coachman and henchmen, with several hundred donkeys being led into the back of a posh looking truck destined to go to the magical reversal specialists in Disney City, Mickey Mouse noted the now human boy.

"Excellent job Eren," the Mouse extended his hand to the Soldier. "It's good to make that man pay for his crimes once in awhile".

"Happy to help," Eren smiled as he confirmed the meeting of hands and the resulting firm shake.

* * *

21.11 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

Riley looked at the barren and empty bedroom she called her own. Like usual, it was gross and disgusting and needed a nice healthy amount of fire to cleanse it.

Obviously Disgust was behind the console. _"Is it just me, or is our room even more of a cesspool than it usually is?"_ Disgust asked, the sounds of her trying to resist hurling quite loud.

Riley looked around the room, and spotted several small collections of dead insects and spiders in myriad piles around the room. And despite opening the window, the room was incredibly dark, as if the light itself fled for dear life. Much to her horror, the dead rat that was usually there had multiplied into three dead rats, the trio rotting in peace.

Disgust quickly muttered a quick excuse before running into the recesses of Headquarters. The sound that followed made it clear of what she was doing. _"You know,"_ came the voice of Fear. _"You'd think she would be used to this by now."_

 _"The more things change, the more they stay the same."_ Riley replied.

_"Are you talking about the room, or Disgust?"_

_"A little of both."_

_"Ah. makes sense."_

_"Okay, I'm back."_ came the sound of Disgust. It sounded like she was still reeling from how dirty the room was compared to how dirty it normally was. _"Riley, this is like the worst thing ever. On a scale of one to ten, this room is a total F, and I for one do not wish this on anyone. Something must be done."_

Riley nodded in agreement, and got up, dusting herself off. Riley then slowly smiled as a thought was forming in her head. "Hey Disgust... remember those art supplies you thought was a good idea to pick up last Loop you were awake?"

The familiar feeling of an idea bulb being plugged into the console soon followed. _"Way ahead of you girl."_

* * *

Later…

Jill looked at Riley's room in amazement, her jaw dropped as far as it could. She had first walked upstairs to see what Riley was doing up in there. What she found was… a surprise to say the least.

The entire room was transformed into a mural, the bright colors of a winter's day in a forest living up the room. The floor and ceiling were painted as well, the former resembling the icy floor of a skating rink, and the latter a beautiful night sky, complete with a painted moon and several of her daughter's glow-in-the-dark stars joining it.

And in the center of the room was Riley, standing on a ladder and garbed in painter's clothing (complete with hat), attaching the last of her stars to the ceiling. She looked down and waved. "Hey mom."

"Hey, Riley." Jill spoke slowly with uncertainty. "What are you doing?"

"Painting." Riley slid down the ladder, thankfully a short distance, and took of her hat. "I thought my room needed a little color, and since the movers are late, I thought now would be a good time to do it. You're not mad, are you?"

Jill just said nothing, amazed at what her daughter was capable of.

_-Jill's Headquarters-_

"I know Riley liked to draw, but this?" Jill's Disgust asked her fellow emotions. "When did our daughter become Bob Ross?"

"I wanna know where she got the paint." Anger asked. "And the ladder. And those pants and hat."

_-Riley's Headquarters-_

Disgust gazed at their work with a smile on her face. "Told you guys all that time on Deviantart was worth it."

* * *

21.12 (Evilhumour): [My Little Pony] / [Keys to the Kingdom] / [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [Bar Loop] - does not look to have been compiled in _MLP Time Loops_.

Mac blinked as he Woke up in his bar, everything set out to his normal standards except all his alcohol was still in his pocket.

Wondering at _how_ his bar was set up without him doing it, he sent out a ping and instantly regretted it as the sheer power washed over his body, making his body shift in pain.

Grumbling loudly as he felt his bones actually shift and grow, he quickly put together he was in the House and that any usage of magic was going to be _painful._

Ears flicking as he heard the door to his bar open, he was greeted by a somewhat familiar and unwelcome face in his bar.

"Jack Sparrow," Mac shifted the wheat in his mouth, eye's narrowed as he glared at the man in eye, tall enough now to do so with ease. "Why are you in my bar and _why_ are we in the House?"

"Ah, my good bartender," Jack held up a finger to halt his words. "Technically, you are in _my_ ship on the Border Sea, with a few modifications my dear friend."

"What do you _mean_ by modifications?" Mac raised an eyebrow.

"Ah, follow me, my litt-" the captain paused, looking the stallion up and down. " _Big_ pony."

With a grunt, Mac followed him out of the bar and onto a deck of working Denizens, tending to the _Black Pearl._ Spinning around on spot, Jack grabbed the doorknob and raised it slightly upwards and turned it around. Pushing it open, Mac saw that it was vast vault filled to the brim of casks, more than likely filled with rum knowing Jack.

Turning onto the Anchor, Mac said in his best deadpan voice, "So ya dabbled in House Sorcery just ta make your drinking rooms even _bigger?_ "

The grin on the man's face was all the answer Mac needed and thus the towering stallion facehoofed.

* * *

21.13 (Crisis): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Percy Jackson]

"So..." Riku thought about what to say to the visiting looper. The one who looked like he had once had an olive complexion that had gone very pale from lack of sunlight. "You're a son of Hades, huh? ...What's that like?"

"Honestly, not as bad as most people make it out to be," Nico de Angelo replied easily. "My baseline self included."

"Really?" Riku raised an eyebrow. The kid's dad must have been a much nicer variant of Hades than Riku was used to dealing with.

"Yeah, he's a pretty cool dad... For an immortal god that can't always be there for his half-human kids because of cosmic-type rule stuff."

"He at least give you birthday presents?"

"Gifts from gods tend to be a lot more serious than that," Nico defended. "But he does give me a present most Loops."

"Oh yeah? What?"

"A zombie."

Riku failed to keep the wince from his face.

"Specifically an undead 18th-century French chauffeur named Jules-Albert."

"That... Okay, that's a cool zombie."

* * *

21.14 (Zephyrous555): [Frozen] / [Gravity Falls]

"So it appeared to me that I was gifted my baseline powers due to some sort of astrological sign," the queen of Arendelle reported. "Something to do with Saturn I believe." Her guest began documenting her findings in the red leather-bound journal in his lap.

"That's incredible," he replied. "And you haven't found any other reports of magic like that?"

"Only when we are fused with Storybrooke."

The mid-afternoon sun shone down on the two of them. One was the perfect model of poise and grace, the other a frantic bundle of questions and curiosity. "You know Dipper, not many loopers really care about the origins of magic. Most of us just take it at face-value."

"I know, your highness," he replied, looking up from his book. "But Gravity Falls isn't like most places. I wanna know as much as I can about magic so I can finally crack its secrets."

"I told you before, just call me Elsa. I do not stand on formality with loopers." Dipper grinned sheepishly before taking a sip from his teacup. "Have you met Twilight Sparkle?" Elsa asked, helping herself to a biscuit off of the tray. "She could probably answer your questions for you."

"Everyone keeps telling me about her, but we haven't looped into Equestria yet. That's why I'm writing all this stuff down; pocket's not big enough for more than a few books and I don't have a laptop or computer in baseline." He took another sip. "Stan's not big on tech."

Their tea time was interrupted by a new arrival to the balcony. "Hey Elsa, you seen Anna," the blond anchor asked. "I was supposed to take her up the mountain with her new friend to meet the trolls." Elsa furrowed her brow.

"Actually no, we haven't heard either of them all day."

"Oh that's never a good sign with Mabel." Dipper announced, hastily shutting the journal. However, before the three of them could begin searching, a joyous "WHOO" caught their attention. From the peak of the castle roof, a body was cast off into mid-air and began a quick descent toward them.

" _ANNA_ " Elsa cried in horror. However, before any of them could react, the falling princess reached out with something and fired a hook into the timber facade of the castle. The rope attached to said hook snapped taut and allowed her to rappel safely down to the balcony where the three stunned onlookers stood. "How was that?" Anna called up to the roof while the contraption in her hand rewound the rope and hook. From the top of the roof, an exasperated voice cried out;

"NO, NO, NO, you did it wrong!"

In an instant, a much younger girl joined Anna on the balcony. "You need to shout 'GRAPPLING HOOK' before you shoot it!"

"Wait, why do I need to do that Mabel?" The twelve-year-old dramatically threw her arms in the air.

"Because it makes it MORE AWESOME!" She replied. Anna stood there thinking for a moment, before shrugging.

"Can't say I disagree. That would explain why Batman was always so grumpy." It was then Anna caught her sister's eye. She grinned and held up the grappling hook in her hand. "She's letting me keep it!"

"Ok, enough with the formalities," Mabel announced. "ON WITH THE PRACTICE!" The two girls held up their devices and shouted.

"GRAPPLING HOOK!"

They then proceed to throw themselves over the balcony railing and continue their rappel down the castle, giggling and gossiping all the way. Kristoff groaned loudly and proceeded to bang his head against the timber door frame. Elsa began breathing deeply in a vain attempt to control the flurries bursting from her fingertips. Dipper, however, simply looked at the sky and groaned.

"Something tells me, this is gonna become a problem."

* * *

21.15 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

"Disgust," Sadness asked the green emotion, who was currently in the middle of a breakdown. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Disgust snapped back. "What's wrong!? I took a look in the mirror and do you know what I saw?" Sadness shook her head no. "Broccoli! I look like Broccoli, the most disgusting, hideous, gross _thing_ in everything!"

Disgust let loose a cascade of tears. Sadness said not a word as she patted Disgust on the back. Now probably wasn't a good time to tell Disgust of the time where she _was_ a broccoli.

* * *

21.16 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_-Headquarters-_

"Oh. My. God." Disgust gagged. "Why is everything so retro and junk this Loop?" Everywhere Riley seemed to go was straight out of a disco dance floor. Case in point, her house had no fewer than three disco balls in it, and that was the least of Disgust's complaints. "This is my punishment Loop isn't it? Isn't it?"

 _"I dunno about that, but I kinda like it."_ replied Riley. Joy nodded her head with a smile as she gently hit a button on the console. Almost immediately Riley started to bust a groove to the beat of a disco song playing on the radio.

"Okay, I can let the disco thing slide just for you Riley, but I swear I will find a way to torch every polyester suit we come across without getting caught."

* * *

21.17 (Crisis): [The Nightmare Before Christmas]

Jack Skellington blinked as he Awoke to a new Loop and beheld a Halloweentown bedecked in... well, he wasn't quite sure. Plenty of shadows as per the norm, but also a variety of colors shining out from odd angles and moving at irregular intervals, creating a spooky sort of rainbow effect.

 _'Not exactly what I would have done, but not bad...'_ he appraised, examining further. There were several orbs made from faceted mirrors hanging around town that broke the light into star-dot pinpricks as they slowly rotated, shining a moving starry field onto the ground and walls as if to mimic the night sky. A pulsating dance beat echoed in his bones, driving the pumpkin king to tap his feet with the rhythm.

And in the middle of the town square hung a large banner that read '45th Annual Boogie Man Dance-Off!'.

"Well now," Jack grinned toothily, "what's this?"

* * *

21.1: I have the feeling this is in reference to something. I don't know what it is, I don't _want_ to know what it is.

21.2: Turms is an Etruscan god, their equivalent of the Roman Mercury and Greek Hermes.

21.3: If he's a Looper or Loop-Aware, he's not saying.

21.4: (grins) I love this idea.

21.5: Anna's getting quite the workout this Loop.

21.6: Per ruling (and edits), Surprise is a non-canon character and cannot Loop.

21.7: Riley's got a point. (For my part, I originally read _Twilight_ and its sequels just to see what the big screaming deal was. I will admit, some of the music from the movies is good.)

21.8: Not familiar with _Battle for Zendikar_...

21.9: And more.

21.10: JUSTICE!

21.11: Ai yi yi!

21.12: It's Captain Jack Sparrow, what did you expect he'd do?

21.13: (in response to last line) Yes. Yes, it is.

21.14: Indeed...

21.15: Yikes.

21.16: This probably happened around the time there was a disco outbreak all over the Loops.

21.17: And more disco.


	28. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part One of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-09. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part One**

22.1 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 160.6.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic, part 1**

Twilight Awoke on a bus, with all five of her closest friends with her. She could feel the right combination of Elements, guessed that they were all Awake, and waved. They waved back. They were all human, in their Canterlot High forms. (Although they were younger, and Rainbow Dash was wearing jeans instead of a skirt.)

She sent out a Ping, receiving one response other than the Element bearers. The six of them scanned their Loop memories, quickly noticing one odd detail:

"Sextuplets?" Rarity said, eyes wide. "Is that even possible?"

Twilight nodded. "Hub world record for most children born at once that survived is eight. That's two more than six." She decided to examine the surroundings. It was midday, the sun high enough in the sky that the bus' roof completely obscured the ball of energy at all angles. The sky was cloudless, which was standard for a summer day in the Oregon forest. Speaking of forest, there were trees. Everywhere. Gigantic tall pine trees that loomed ominously against the sky, brushing the air with their tips. The bus itself, the Speedy Beaver, was a piece of junk. Torn up cushions, random stuff under the cushions -

"Hey! Let's play treasure hunt!" Pinkie yelled, peeling up a cushion. "Oo! Old gum, a stain that looks like Shawn, a cockroach, and a balloon!"

Twilight ignored Pinkie's antics. Right now, she was trying to figure out where they were. She reached into her Pocket and began to search through Hub fiction, looking for anything similar to their situation. She was stopped by Fluttershy. "Twilight? Can we not try to know what's going to happen? Just... live through the Loop?"

Twilight blinked. "Sure. Why not." She put the Hub fiction device back into her Pocket and sat down, attempting to enjoy the ride. "Where are we going, anyway?"

Applejack pointed out the window at a sign. "Some town called Gravity Falls. Our Grunkle Stan is going to watch us for the summer. My unAwake self was looking forwards to this trip, been a while since we'd been in the country apparently."

Rarity sighed, leaning on her hand in a overly-dramatic pose. "We're going to a back-of-the-woods town in the middle of nowhere. There's not likely to be ANYone who has ANY fashion sense..."

Rainbow Dash grinned. "Back-of-the-woods town? Sounds like adventure! We shall explore the entire town and root out all sorts of mysteries! THE MYSTERY SIX! I shall -"

"Darling..." Rarity said. "The Scooby-Doo Loop wasn't THAT fun..."

"It was fun enough to warrant a name. Mystery Six. We will brave great dangers and discover the mysteries of the town..."

"Yer bein' redundant," Applejack muttered, adjusting her hat.

"Oh, really?" Rainbow said. "I'll have you know I'm an author and I know redundancy. I did not mention danger the first time, and mysteries just needed to be solidified. MYSTERIES!"

Pinkie Pie jumped in, wearing her deerstalker and sugar-bubble pipe. "MYSTERIES!" she yelled, taking a deep breath, springing into a heartsong.

_Mysteries, mysteries!_

_Oh how I love these!_

_Mysteries, mysteries!_

_Bigfoot! Mothman! Hunks of swiss cheese!_

_These are all my big mysteries!_

_Is it true or is it not?_

_These are all the questions I've got!_

_Can you see?_

_My curiosity?_

_Mysteries, mysteries!_

_Oh how I love these!_

_Mysteries, mysteries!_

_Halflings! Zalgo's screen! Blue zombie plagues!_

_There stories are all just so vague!_

_Big ol' pot of Neglish rot!_

_Or mutants that like tater tot?_

_What is truth?_

_Can we be the true sleuth?_

_Mysteries, mysteries!_

_Oh how I love these!_

_Mysteries, mysteries!_

_Stargates! Zodiacs! Constellations!_

_Mysteries from all the nations!_

_All of them congregate there!_

_A place which we are so near!_

_Can you feel?_

_The great alluring zeal?_

_Oh look there, here is the place!_

_The place where gravity falls, and earth becomes sky!_

_Beware the beast with just one eye!_

As the song ended, the Speedy Beaver bus pulled into the small town of Gravity Falls, stopping at the outskirts. The six sisters stepped out, looking at their new surroundings. The town was situated in what appeared to be a gorge, with two steep crevasses towards the northern end of the town, which were connected by a metal wire-frame bridge. Beneath the bridge were two large gashes in the crevasses, giving them the appearance of two Pac-Men staring at each other. The river flowed between them into town, where it met up with a waterfall, creating a small, but deep, lake. The southern edge was bordered by thick, deep, dark forest, the water tower standing up out of the canopy. Several large mansions could be seen lining the higher-elevation areas, looking down on the mish-mashed look of the town itself. There was a mixture of cars and bikes, modern looking buildings such as a mall, old sheds that looked like they'd been there since the days of Lewis and Clark, and other buildings that looked like some unholy combination of the two. The town seemed to be a living contradiction: modern mixed with ancient, fancy cars alongside horse-drawn carriages.

What really caused the six to reconsider was the fact that roughly half the buildings were somewhat familiar. Although there was much less pink dashed around everywhere, there was no mistaking the ice-cream shape of Sugarcube Corner, the tall and circular design of the Town Hall, the Library made out of a giant tree...

There was no doubt about it. This town was a fusion of two places. Gravity Falls and Ponyville, thrown together in the backwoods of Oregon.

Twilight pondered this. "Huh. Wonder who we'll see here?"

Pinkie grinned. "I can't wait to know EVERYONE and find out ALL THEIR BIRTHDAYS and ALL THE PARTIES and... a whole new town Twilight! Can you believe it? Woohoo!"

Applejack blinked. "Pinkie, every Loop you have a new town. And this is far from the first one that's been at least partly like Ponyville -"

"Hush now, one-who-is-standing-in-the-way-of-party. ALL new places are amazing!"

Rarity spoke up. "Darlings, we should probably check in with our Grunkle Stan first, so we don't upset anything. That is, if we are going to follow this Loop through."

Twilight nodded. "Come on girls, we need to head to the Mystery Shack."

"The mystery whatsis now?" Rainbow said "Sounds lame and run down. I want ADVENTURE!"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Let's just get settled in first. We can go searching for trouble later."

* * *

Stan Pines, Mister Mystery, was waiting at the front door like he did every Loop. He was a tall man with a thick figure, and despite his old age he managed to look strong and even full of energy. He wore a red fez, with a strange golden symbol on it that resembled Pac-Man crossed with a goldfish cracker. The Pac-Man fish's mouth was open ever so slightly, seemingly reaching for the golden dot in front of it. Unfortunately, being nothing more than a symbol on a hat, the Pac-Man fish would never, ever be able to eat the dot. Such a shame, really. Stan's face was square-jawed, covered in stubble, and had an eyepatch across one eye. He was wearing what appeared to be a black and white showman's uniform crossed with a tuxedo. It gave the appearance of being fancy, while at the same time looking somewhat cheesy and overdone. Choking his neck was a red cord tied into a knot with four tassels. He was currently staring intently at his watch.

"Five... Four... Three.... Two... One..." he said before opening the door quickly. Twilight, who had been in the process of preparing to knock, stumbled into the front room. "Um... Hi. I'm Twilight. I assume you are Grunkle Stan? You sure must be Loopy to take all six of us for the entire summer."

Stan grinned. "My unAwake self made that decision, as he does every Loop. Come in, make yourselves at home." He generously gestured with a wave of his arm. The six walked into the Mystery Shack, into a large room. There was paraphernalia littered everywhere, from T-shirts to baseball caps to snow globes, all priced at least four times too high. Further along several examples of obviously-fake taxidermy littered the walls. There was a jackalope with three antlers, a horse made entirely of corn, and a squirrel with a duck head. Each of these "exhibits" had a rather uncreative name attached to them: "trackelope", "ecorn", and "squck" just to name a few. There were also "adventuring supplies", such as a grappling hook, rope, a crossbow, and more rope.

"OKAY - I take the first part back. NOT lame," Dash said. "Some of this stuff is actually pretty cool!" she said as she picked up a crystal eye.

Stan quickly tore the red crystalline eye out of Rainbow's grasp. "That's not for sale. Don't touch that."

"I thought we were living with you - why can't I touch your whatsawagigs?" Dash said.

Twilight sighed inwardly at Rainbow's use of "whatsis" again.

Stan glared. "My shack. My rules. I say what happens and what doesn't. Also, I'm the resident Looper here. I know things."

"Oh, well, good for you, Mr. Protective," Dash sarcastically muttered, rolling her eyes as she picked up a multi-colored geode.

"You touch it, you buy it," Stan said, gesturing to Dash to fork over some money.

Rainbow Dash quickly checked her wallet, then proceeded to give Stan a five dollar bill. Stan stared at her in disbelief. He had obviously not expected her to actually pay him. "Er... okay then. Listen up! You six, are going to work for me at the mystery shack -"

"So I get my five bucks back?" Dash asked. "As payment?"

Stan twitched. He was not in the mood to be interrupted. "Your payment will be your rooms. No, you won't get paid. You know what, just for that?" He turned to look at all the sisters. "I'm not telling you anything. You all have to figure this Loop out for yourselves. Have fun; this place is a real pain in the back when you don't know what's going on. Your room is up the stairs, down the hall, first door on the left. Work begins tomorrow."

The six element bearers stood in the Shack, staring at the place where Stan had just been. Applejack was the first to recover, shrugging. "I say we go an' get our room together. Then we figure out what we're gonna do."

The others nodded, and they walked up the wooden stairs to their room. The ceiling of the room was slanted, indicating the rooms position in relation to the roof. The room had a single triangular-shaped window, a lot of power outlets, several old wooden dressers with lamps on them, and two beds.

Only two beds.

Twilight twitched. "Girls, who carries extra beds in their pockets?"

Pinkie Pie grinned. "I do! I always carry them around in case of a bed emergency!"

Rarity looked around the room. "Are you sure there's room in this little room?"

Pinkie Pie produced two bunk beds, setting them in between the two other beds, taking up most of the space in the room. "Just barely!" Pinkie grinned. "But it works!"

"Hrmmm... it needs to be about twenty percent roomier." Dash said "'Cus reasons."

Fluttershy smiled. "I don't mind a cramped place. It'll let us bond more."

"Fluttershy..." Twilight responded. "We've had billions of years to bond. I think we've got it down."

Pinkie Pie dropped down from the ceiling, somehow. "Oh really? Riddle me this: what am I thinking about right now?"

"Fooling me?" Twilight guessed.

"Nope! I was actually thinking of croissants. I'm hungry." She pulled one of the crescent-shaped pastries out of her pocket, digging in like a rabid squirrel.

Twilight shrugged. She wondered what this world would have in store for them. The town was brimming with magical energy, flowing in and out around her. She would have to study it in detail. It looked like she might get to have a genuine adventure with her friends for once. It had been quite a while since she'd been in a place with all five of her friends that none of them had been to before. And they were sure as aspen going to have fun with it.

Twilight considered thanking Stan for not telling them what was coming. It was always more interesting that way.

* * *

Stan sat back in his room, pondering life. He took off his fez, studying it deeply. It was his symbol, that strange fish thing. It was who he was. It was his destiny. It represented his baseline self. Which, admittedly, wasn't altogether that different from him now. Millions of Loops hadn't changed his core self that much, but that was probably because he'd already been old when he started.

Would he be able to go through a baseline run again? It would be a challenge, physically, mentally, and emotionally. As fun as it was to watch visiting Loopers go through the mysteries completely baffled, he usually stepped in at some point, to change what was going to happen.

It had been a really, really long time since he had seen it through all the way to the end.

Maybe this was the time he'd face it. Maybe. Maybe not.

He sighed, taking a picture of his niece and nephew, Dipper and Mabel Pines. Anchor and Looper for this branch of the great world-tree Yggdrasil. His frown deepened. They had changed so much, and he was still the same old man he had always been.

Maybe... maybe this would be the Loop.

Just maybe.

Outside time, and outside space, a creature of nightmares stirred. His single eye flipped open, and he knew everything. He laughed.

"This is going to be fun!"

* * *

22.2 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 163.9.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 2 - Tourist Trapped**

Stan looked at his options.

He needed the perfect candidate...

The pink one was far too eager. She would do anything, no matter how absurd, with a smile on her face and a stupid grin. That wasn't what he wanted...

The white one wasn't anywhere near observant enough. She'd probably do it after a lot of annoying whining and then completely miss the point. Unless she was more than she appeared, which was always a possibility.

The orange one wasn't anywhere near curious enough. She had a natural talent for conducting tours though.

The yellow one was either way too quiet, way too shy, or way too into animals. She hadn't been around long enough for him to truly figure her out.

That left the purple and rainbow ones...

"Eeny... Meenie... Miney... You," he said, pointing at Twilight. He shoved a hammer, nails, and MYSTERY SHACK! advertisement signs into her hand. "Go into the forest and hang these signs up in the spooky part of the forest." Stan grinned. "We'll attract lost hikers! Make a fortune!"

Twilight sighed. He was sending her into the creepy part of the woods. Great. "You do realize weird things are in those woods right? Something is definitely off. Just today my mosquito bites spelled out beware."

Stan glared at her. "That says bewarb." Twilight, from years of experience, noticed the I've-said-that-so-many-times-I'm-about-to-puke face on Stan. "And don't be silly. All of those stories are just a bunch of hillbilly legends."

Twilight blinked. Stan was a _good_ liar. If she hadn't just seen a fairy in the forest yesterday, she would have believed him. He really was going to be able to keep secrets from them.

Interesting.

She shrugged, took the hammer, nails, and signs, and marched to the creepy part of the forest.

Stan waved. "Remember to nail them into every tree you conceivably see!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. A hint? Perhaps. She smiled. This was very interesting.

* * *

Pinkie yelled. "I JUST THOUGHT OF SOMETHING!"

"What, dear?" Rarity said.

"You're married -" As soon as the words left her mouth Stan spat out his Pitt Cola and entered a coughing fit.

Rarity squinted. "I'm an adult most of the time, Stan. Really."

Stan nodded. "I'm... going to go sit down... I don't need to hear this conversation..."

Pinkie continued. "Anyway, you're married, I'm the goddess of parties, Fluttershy's not much for romance but that's okay because she's still got a whole family of Looping boys who call her Mom-"

Fluttershy blushed a bit.

"And everybody loves Rainbow and Twilight. But you know what? _Applejack's never really even had a date or a relationship of any kind!_ Or at least not much of one. She usually just doesn't get involved."

Applejack squinted. "And that's a problem why?"

"Don't you see? You need to FEEL the romance! Your Looping life has been broken without it! You need to experience companionship!"

"Thanks, but I'll pass."

"Great! Let's get started today."

"What?" Applejack said, before Pinkie grabbed her and pulled her away.

"We're going to find you a date!"

"Pinkie put me down this instant -"

Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash simply stared in silence.

"That..." Rainbow Dash muttered. "Can't end well. Yeah. I'm out. I'm going to go see what Twilight's up to."

And with that Rainbow Dash produced wings and flew off.

Rarity facepalmed. "DEAR! You can't just go giving yourself wing- and she's gone."

Fluttershy smiled. "Maybe things will be quiet now."

"You two! Get down here! I need someone to rip off some customers!" Stan yelled.

Fluttershy sighed.

* * *

BAP! BAP! BAP!

Twilight had quickly discovered that nailing signs into trees was hard work. She was sweating, tired, and had yet to find anything even remotely interesting. She was beginning to wonder if Stan wasn't just messing with her because he could. The old man obviously had a fondness for pranks, seeing as he'd already spooked Fluttershy three times with that fish-man mask of his.

She held up the last sign, ready to pound it into the tree. She lifted the hammer to drive the nail into the wood.

She was not expecting a metallic CLANG to resound through her body. She dropped the tools instantly and investigated the tree. There was a metallic panel which she pried off, revealing a hidden lever. She cautiously pressed the lever, and heard a loud clunking sound behind her. She turned to see a hole in the ground, in which was nestled a book.

It appeared to be a really old red leather-bound journal with an eyeglass attached to it. On the front was a big golden symbol of a six-fingered hand with a large "3" inked on it.

Twilight picked up the Journal, blowing the years of dust off it. The first page had the words "Property of..." with the lower half of the page ripped out. The second was dated June 18:

_It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began researching the strange and wond'rous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon. In all my travels, never have I observed so many curious things! Gravity Falls is indeed a geographical oddity._

Twilight flipped through the journal's pages. The book was filled with strange and fantastical drawings of things such as gnomes, ghosts, a strange thing known as a leprecorn, and strange triangles with eyes littered throughout the journal. She found that the second half of the book was blank, and that there was a hastily scribbled message on the last pages:

_Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed, I'm being watched. I must hide this book before He finds it. Remember—in Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust._

_TRUST NO ONE!_

Twilight blinked. She had figured this was going to be a silly, comical Loop that she'd just have to live through while being forced to suffer through Stan's sense of humor.

But this book had many things in it that wouldn't be in a normal happy Loop... like that one page with lots of blood stains.

It looked as if the author of the journal might have been insane...

"Hey! Whatcha looking at?"

Twilight yelped in surprise. She dropped the book to see Rainbow Dash hovering in front of her. "Rainbow!" she gasped, shaking her head. "Don't do that! Ser- _Do you have wings right now?_ "

"Um, yeah? Why? It's not like anyone can see me out here -"

" _That's not the point!_ We are _normal_ humans without wings!"

"Fine..." Rainbow Dash muttered, her wings vanishing. "Ya know, I probably could just fly without the wings -"

Twilight's glare indicated that that wasn't acceptable either.

"You're no fun." Rainbow Dash leaned in closer. "Now, _what are you looking at?_ "

"It appears to be a strange book filled with all sorts of secrets..."

"Cool..." Rainbow said, joining Twilight as they pored over the amazing secrets of the journal...

* * *

As Twilight and Rainbow Dash walked back to the Shack, they heard Stan yelling at the top of his lungs. "GET THE PINK ONE AWAY FROM MY MERCHANDISE!"

Twilight sighed, rushing into the Mystery Shack. They found Pinkie jumping up and down with excessive energy. "OHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOYOHBOY!" She grabbed Applejack by the face. "I still can't be _lieve_ that we got you a date this quickly!"

Applejack sighed. "Neither can I. I was tryin' to sabotage the whole thing..."

"YOU MUST BE DESTINED FOR SUMMER ROMANCE!"

"Pinkie, are ya sure you're all right? This isn't like you -"

"I'M LIKE EVERYTHING!" Pinkie grinned.

The doorbell rang.

"Thatmustbehim!"

Applejack moaned. "No. Please no..."

"Come on, everyone, let's meet AJ's new boyfriend!"

"I'm tellin' ya, this is an absolutely horrid idea and he's not my boyfriend!"

"That's just what you think..." Pinkie said, grinning. She flung the door of the Shack open. "HI THERE!"

At the door was a tall boy wearing a dark black hood. His skin was pale, his eyes were distant, and he had what appeared to be blood on his face. "Sup," he said.

Pinkie pushed Applejack forward. Applejack put on a fake smile. "Uh... hi there."

Rainbow Dash poked her head forwards. "What's your name?"

"Uh... NORMAL! _man!_ "

Stan facepalmed. "Every time..."

Pinkie shook her head. "Silly, your name is Norman! Come on!"

Twilight blinked. "Are you bleeding, Norman?"

"Uh... it's... jam," "Normal Man" responded.

Stan shook his head. "That's it. I'm out. Again."

Pinkie shoved Applejack closer to "Norman." "Now go have fun, you two!"

Applejack looked at everyone with a pleading look as Norman walked off with her.

Pinkie grinned. "This is great!"

Rarity, Fluttershy, and Twilight all exchanged glances. "Uh... yeah, no."

Rainbow Dash, however, had a completely different reaction -

"OH MY GOSH! He's a zombie! LIKE THE BOOK SAID!" She grabbed Twilight by the face. "Let's go save her!"

"Now, Rainbow..." Twilight said. "I'm sure he's not a zombie. I'd be able to sense the undead. And while there is magic about him, that is probably just because of all sorts of weird magic in the area -"

Rainbow Dash grabbed the journal and opened it up to the page on the Undead. She read aloud. "Known for their pale skin and bad attitudes, these creatures are often mistaken for teenagers. Beware Gravity Falls' nefarious zombies!"

"DUN DUN DUUUUUN," Pinkie added, grinning.

Twilight shook her head. "As I said, I would detect the undead."

"Yeah!" Pinkie said, bouncing. "And plus, wouldn't it be AWESOME to have a ZOMBIE FOR A BOYFRIEND?"

Rarity blinked. "Darling, are you sure you're okay? You're being more... extravagant than usual."

"This is nothing. Wait till you see me towards the end of the summer!"

"What?"

"I'm being mysterious..." Pinkie said as she hopped out of the room backwards.

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Come on, guys! We need to form a rescue team!"

"Uh... no," Twilight said. "He's not a zombie. No need to go crazy, Rainbow. Unless you have proof -"

"Fluttershy!" Rainbow Dash said, pointing. "You and me are going to spy on Applejack and Norman all day!"

"Um... why?"

"For the admirable goals of proof and blackmail!"

"Um... okay."

Rarity and Twilight rolled their eyes. "You're on your own," was the general consensus.

Rainbow Dash cracked her knuckles. "Let's do this."

Fluttershy sighed, wondering once again why she had let herself be dragged into this.

* * *

Soos, handyman of the Mystery Shack and the man in the question mark shirt, was screwing in a lightbulb in the attic. Red light streamed through the triangular stained-glass window. Soos shuddered. He always felt like that thing was watching him.

He briefly looked around, wondering if there was someone to talk to. There wasn't. He sighed. Yet another lonely day working in the Shack. The sextuplets were nice, but all of them were doing things not-attic-related.

He might be here all day screwing in lightbulbs.

Was this a metaphor for life? An eternal screwing of lightbulbs, doomed to continue until the end of time?

Was the eye in the window reminiscent of a higher power observing his every move, watching his lightbulb screwing, waiting for the day he messed up?

Was there a point to being this philosophical?

Soos shook his head. His wisdom was both a blessing and a curse. Maybe he should get some comfort food...

"SOOS!" the voice of Stan yelled from the floor below. "THE PORTABLE TOILETS ARE CLOGGED! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!-"

After innumerable "again"s, Stan finally ran out of breath. "Just... just fix them," he said, hoarse.

Soos saluted to Stan, even though they were on completely different floors. "Duty calls, lightbulb."

* * *

"Okay, Fluttershy, what zombie-like things have we seen Norman do so far?"

"Uh... stumble around as if he had no control over his body..."

"Good..."

"Fall into an open grave..."

"Good..."

"And break a window in the diner."

"Good. I think we've got enough."

"I still think Norman's perfectly normal."

Rainbow Dash groaned. "CAN'T YOU SEE? Something's off about him!"

"But he doesn't smell like any sort of death. I should know."

Rainbow Dash didn't bother asking how she would know. "But... You know what, I'm just bringing this evidence to Applejack."

"Um... she's not the one who's in control of whether she sees Norman or not."

Rainbow Dash blinked, realizing.

She had to convince Pinkie.

"Great." She grabbed the camera from Fluttershy, and rubbed her hands together. "Let's go to Pinkie -"

"Why would you need to go to me?" Pinkie said, holding up a camera.

"AUGH!" Fluttershy screamed in surprise.

Rainbow Dash was not amused. "Why do you have a camera?"

"They're just so cute together!" Pinkie said, grinning.

"You're turning into Cadance. That is not a good thing."

"Oh come on! It's fun! Hey Applejack!"

Applejack poked her head out of the bush. "Is he gone?"

"He's been gone for a couple hours."

"Good. He's... unnerving."

Rainbow Dash turned to Pinkie. "See? Even Applejack thinks he's off!"

"She just has cold hooves - um, feet," Pinkie responded, grinning. "Now come on, Applejack, we need to get in some kissing practice!"

"WAIT WHAT -"

"Oh not with me, silly! With a leaf blower!"

" _WHAT?_ "

Rainbow Dash yelled after them. "NORMAN IS NOT WHAT HE SEEMS!" She held up the book. "SEE?"

"GNOMES?" Applejack yelled as she was being dragged off.

"What?" Rainbow Dash looked at the book, which was open to the gnomes page. "No! ZOMBIE!"

Applejack gave her the "seriously?" look before she was dragged out of sight.

Rainbow Dash sighed. "Great... We've got nothing." She groaned. "There's gotta be some sort of concrete evidence on him..."

Exactly two hours later, Rainbow Dash was still reviewing the video footage. A lot of Norman acting weird, but nothing completely indicting. There he was attempting to hold Applejack's hand before she swatted it away. There he was munching on her hat and getting a punch to the face. There was him getting the "THIS IS NOT A RELATIONSHIP" speech and just going "ger." There was him losing his hand and reattaching it. There was him with a -

Wait WHAT?

Rainbow Dash rewinded. Sure enough, Norman's hand had fallen out of its sleeve and he had quickly picked it up and reattached it. Rainbow Dash yelled. "FLUTTERSHY, WE NEED TO-"

She realized she was alone outside in the middle of the forest. Fluttershy must've left at some point.

"Great," Rainbow Dash muttered, summoning her wings back. "Guess I gotta do this myself..." She took off into the woods, trailing rainbows.

* * *

Norman and Applejack were alone in the forest.

Applejack was resigned to spending the rest of the day with him before locking herself up in the Mystery Shack's cellar for a week. The guy either just couldn't take a hint or had no brain.

No brain...

...nah. He couldn't be a zombie. Nah. That was just crazy talk.

"Uh.. AJ?"

"Yes Norman..." Applejack sighed.

"I've got... something to tell you before we go any further with this."

Applejack facepalmed. This guy was not up to date on social interaction. "Look Norman you don't hafta do anythin-"

"But I have to... Don't freak out, okay? Keep an open mind. Be cool." Norman reached to the zipper on his jacket, unzipped it, and pulled it off.

Applejack's jaw hit the floor. Standing in front of her were five gnomes. Two acting as the legs, two acting as the body and holding the arms, and one acting as the head.

"Um... so, yeah. We're gnomes. First off. Get that one out of the way," the gnome on the top said with a voice that was no longer brooding teenager, and more annoying middle aged man.

Applejack continued to stare, gaping.

"This is awkward, isn't it. Well. I'm Jeff, this is Carson, Steve, Jason, and -"

"Schmebulock," the lower left foot gnome said.

"Right Schmebulock. ANYWAY! Long story short, we have been looking for a new queen, and -"

Applejack didn't even stop to think about what she was doing. She bucked them. She had long ago figured out that a combination of a handstand and a power kick could accomplish more-or-less the same thing her pony bucking could. The gnomes went flying.

"No," she said.

"Oh, come on. I didn't even show you the ring ye-"

"I SAID EEEENOPE!" Applejack said, glaring down at Jeff.

Jeff looked up and glared. "Fine. We understand. We'll never forget you, Applejack."

"You bet you won't," Applejack said, having had enough of the whole ordeal.

"Because we're going to kidnap you."

"Wait, WHAT?"

* * *

Rainbow Dash yelled at the top of her lungs. "AJ, I'M COMING! JUST HOLD ONTO YOUR BRAINS A LITTLE WHILE LONGER!" She briefly wondered why she was taking this so seriously. Applejack would be just fine. Probably. Then again, she didn't think he was a zombie. So that could be a problem.

Rainbow Dash arrived on the scene to see Applejack standing over five gnomes, each of which were continually barfing rainbows. She blinked. "What... happened here?"

"Norman was a bunch of gnomes. And they turned out to be a bunch of jerks. Oh, and they tried to kidnap me."

"What else is new," Rainbow Dash deadpanned.

Jeff stood up, shaking his fist. "You will regret this! GNOMES OF THE FOREST! ASSEMBLE!"

Rainbow Dash and Applejack watched as hundreds of gnomes poured out of the woods, running into each other. They watched as a pile of around a thousand gnomes piled into a single, giant, humanoid shape. They had become a giant gnome of gnomes. The gnome of gnomes roared in anger.

Rainbow Dash didn't bother to ponder how a being that was literally just a thousand gnomes stacked on top of each other could be roaring. She simply opened the Journal. "What's it say about gnomes... Ah, here... Little men of the forest... Weaknesses... _Unknown?_ "

Applejack facepalmed. "Seriously?"

Rainbow Dash grabbed Applejack and flew away just as a gnome-of-gnomes' fist tried to crush them. "NEW PLAN! FLY AWAY!"

"YOU WILL COME BACK HERE, HARPIE! YOU DO NOT MESS WITH THE GNOMES! WE ARE AN OLD AND POWERFUL RACE!"

"Yeah, well... uh..." Rainbow Dash had been about to say that she wasn't a harpie when she realized that that actually was pretty close to what she was right now, wings and all. 'Uh... well, you're slow!" She took off, leaving a trail of rainbows.

"FOLLOW THE SKITTLES!" Jeff yelled.

"What are skittles?" the gnome below him said.

"It's what humans call barf trails."

* * *

"And now, folks, come look at the world's most distracting object!"

Stan had long ago replaced the old distracting object with one that looked identical but had an actual distracting enchantment. He pulled the string.

All the customers of the Mystery Shack stared at the device, unable to look away. Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie, and Twilight gazed deep into its swirling movements.

_It's simply darling..._ Rarity thought.

_It makes me think of fluffy non-murderous bunnies..._ Fluttershy thought.

_Books!_ was the only word in Twilight's head, for some reason.

What Pinkie was thinking was, literally, _zdwfk zlwk ph._ No telling why.

The only person in the Shack not looking at the world's most distracting object was the teenage cashier, Wendy, a redhead who was busy being bored out of her skull. She studied the knots in the mismatched conglomeration of real-wood and fake-wood planks that made up the ceiling. She was so into the boredom she didn't even notice the rumbling of the ground as a giant gnome chased Rainbow Dash and Applejack back to the Shack.

"Rainbow! We can't let this thing destroy the Shack!"

"What do you suggest? Fight it?"

"Well, we are Loopers. We could do all sorts of things."

"Oh. Yeah. Right." Rainbow Dash dropped to the ground, causing Applejack to slam into the ground.

"HEY! Coulda done that a little SLOWER."

"Maybe. Didn't feel like it." The cyan human (or harpie?) turned to look at the assailant. The gnome of gnomes was running towards them.

"Any particularly interesting ideas on how to take this thing out?" Rainbow Dash asked, turning to her friend. She blinked. "Why is your face all red?"

"Pinkie's 'kissing practice' came with hazards. Like a leaf blower stuck to your face -" Applejack's eyes lit up. She reached into her subspace pocket, grinning. "Aha! I DO have one in here!"

She pulled out a leaf blower the size of a pine tree, and pointed it at the gnome of gnomes.

The gnome of gnomes stopped, and stared.

"How are you holding that?" Jeff yelled down from his place at the top of the gnome of gnomes.

"Does it matter? I'm pointin' it at y'all!"

"Riiiiight. You know what? ATTA-"

The gigantic leaf blower turned on, blasting the gnome of gnomes into its fundamental parts (a lot of gnomes) and spreading them out across the forest. The gnomes growled and yelled before running off into the bushes.

Jeff stood up. "YOU WILL FACE THE WRATH OF THE GNOMES -"

Applejack pointed the leaf blower at him at point-blank range. "You were saying?"

"Uh. Right. Bye." He took off as fast as his little legs would carry him (which was about as fast as a one-legged cat).

Applejack and Rainbow Dash cheered, rushing into a hug and laughing.

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash yelled, grinning. She flipped open the Journal to the gnomes page, taking a pen out of her Pocket. "Weaknesses: LEAF BLOWERS! WOOT! This deserves a party!"

Another excited hug followed, before the two walked back into the Shack.

Stan watched them, lightly sipping his Pitt Cola.

So they escaped the awkward sibling hug. That wasn't too unusual. As far as he knew, anyway.

He smiled. They were nice girls. As they walked into the Shack, he gave them a smile. "You know what? I overstocked on inventory and I need to clear some stuff out. You six can get something from the gift shop. On the house."

Twilight blinked. "You mean, free? Without paying?"

"Sure. Why not. Now hurry, before I change my mind."

Rainbow Dash instantly grabbed a rainbow baseball cap with a lightning bolt on it. "This is mine." She grinned.

Twilight took a triangle-shaped pendant with an eye in it, because it looked interesting. Applejack took a crossbow. Rarity took one look at the gift shop and decided the only thing she even remotely liked was a shiny pen.

Pinkie Pie yelled, "GRAPPLING HOOK!" She grinned, holding the device for all to see.

Stan laughed his head off. "Sure, sweetie, you can have the Grappling Hook. Go climb some dangerous cliffs for Grunkle Stan."

"YAY!" Pinkie said, running out of the Shack.

Wendy and Soos walked up to Stan. "Uh... Mister Pines?" Soos said, twiddling his thumbs. "We were wonderin' if we could, uh..."

Wendy took over. "We'd like something from the gift shop, too."

"I pay you two to do work. I don't pay them." Stan grinned. "I'm amazing!"

Wendy sighed. "Fine," she said, walking back to the cash register.

Soos saluted, walking back to the lightbulbs.

Stan smiled. This day had gone well. So far so good.

Of course, he knew that eventually the new people and locations in town would affect the Loop somehow...

He would have to keep going.

* * *

22.3 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 167.15.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 3: Legend of the Gobblewonker**

"I'M BORED!" Pinkie screamed at the top of her lungs.

Applejack blinked. "Pinkie..." She said, gesturing to the table. "We have thirty different kinds of syrup here. How can you be bored?"

Rainbow Dash moaned from the floor. "Yeah... I mean I just chugged three bottles of the stuff... Question... who convinced me to do that?"

Stan rushed into the room, flipping his eyepatch off one eye to the other. "I DID! Because stomach aches are terrible! Haha!"

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Ugh...."

Twilight turned to Stan. "Legitimate question: how did you convince Rainbow to do that?"

"Easy. Told her it would be a contest with Applejack."

Rainbow Dash moaned. "Too. Much. Syrup."

"I'M STILL BORED!" Pinkie yelled.

Stan's visible eye lit up. "Hey, I have an idea. Who wants to put on some blindfolds and get into my car?"

"YAY!" Pinkie screamed.

Everyone except for Rainbow Dash lightened up with Pinkie's yay and responded with a resounding "YEAH!" Then they all thought about what they had just agreed to for a few seconds. "Wait WHAT?"

Rainbow Dash simply moaned.

* * *

Twilight Sparkle had experienced many people who were absolutely terrible at driving in every shape and form. She had met smart people who for some reason couldn't turn left. She'd met idiots who would smash through everything. She had met people who would somehow crash vehicles without ever touching the gas pedal.

Stan Pines was something else entirely. He was somehow managing to make the most angular turns, the most brutal accelerations and braking, and actually _launching the car into the air_. And yet, somehow, the car didn't seem any worse for wear and nobody suffered any sort of physical damage. Unless you counted Rainbow Dash's stomach agony. (She managed to keep her lunch down though.)

Then again, Twilight supposed that _maybe_ the experience was a tad heightened because she was blindfolded.

Twilight's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Stan's car smashing through a fence. Then the feeling of old car tires on beach sand. (Twilight briefly reflected on the fact that she'd experienced old car tires on beach sand enough to identify it while blindfolded.)

Then, to the joy of all present, the car _stopped moving_.

Twilight threw the car door open and jumped out. She instantly found herself tripping and landing face first in some water.

_At least i'm clean now... Haven't had a shower since I got here..._

Stan's voice reached her ears. "Blindfolds off!"

Twilight and her friends ripped the offending blindfolds off their faces. They blinked, adjusting to the brightness of the sun.

They were obviously at the Gravity Falls lake, formed by the waterfall spilling off of the right half of the odd cliffs. There was a small island in the center of the lake, and there were lots of people in fishing boats on the shore. It was, evidentially, fishing season. Stan grinned. "TAH-DAH! It's fishing season!"

Twilight and the Elements took a moment to absorb the absurdity that was the town of Gravity Falls fishing. The old waitress, Lazy Susan, was holding a pan over the water hoping to coax fish to just jump in. This world's version of Derpy was waving a muffin under the water with her hands, sending ripples everywhere (and overturning the boat. Somehow.) Toby Determined was taking a picture of a man with a giant fish, the flash causing the man to promptly drop the fish back into the water before falling into the water himself. Sonata was on a boat filled with empty tacos. Wendy's dad and her brothers were literally grabbing fish out of the water with their bare hands and beating them up with punches. The boys cheered as their father beat the fish into submission, and nearby a man stared on with glee, saying "Get 'em! Get 'em!" Nearby, the cakes were apparently being the most successful with worm flavored cake as their bait.

Stan grinned. "Look at this! Fishing season! Time for some quality family bonding!"

Twilight blinked. "...bonding?"

"Yeah! We go fishing in our little boat, sail the seas for adventure, and get tasty fish!"

Applejack squinted. "Why d'ya wanna _bond_ with us all of a sudden?"

"Come on this is gonna be great! Some official Gravity Falls fishing, one time offer for you Loopers right now! Seriously! Come. Fish. Fishing's good right?'

"Perhaps..." Rarity said, not sure.

"Oh come on! What could be better than you, me, and a bunch of corny jokes for ten hours?"

Fear appeared in the eyes of Rarity, Applejack, Twilight, and Pinkie. Pinkie began shuddering. Anything but bad jokes.

Twilight looked around quickly. _There must be some way out of this..._ She thought for a moment. _I could just tell him we don't want to go._

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an old man screaming. "I SEEN IT! I SEEN IT AGAIN!" The old man in question, local insane elder man McGucket, leapt onto Stan's car, bellowing to the beach. "THE GOBBLEWONKER IS BACK! I SEEN IT! COME QUICK BEFORE IT SCRABDOODLES AGAIN!" He started making extremely odd and angular gestures with all his limbs.

"OOH!" Pinkie lightened up. "I can do that happy dance as well!" She proceeded to imitate McGucket's moves perfectly. In midair. To his credit, McGucket wasn't even fazed by "Pinkie being Pinkie" and instantly grabbed her by the shoulder. "NO! IT'S A JIG OF GRAVE DANGER!"

At this point the ranger in charge of the beach came out and sprayed McGucket as if he were a cat. "Hey hey! Stop scarin' people! This is your last warning Dad!"

Twilight winced inwardly. This old man had obviously lost his marbles, which was bad enough, but he also had a son who apparently didn't want anything to do with him. She sighed, knowing that this was a common occurrence across Yggdrasil, knowing that this was just how things were. It didn't make it any less sad.

Old Man McGucket yelled in a strange old-timer voice. "I HAVE PROOF THIS TIME! BEHOLD! THE DOCK! It's the Gobble-dy-wonker what done did it! It had a long neck like a gee-raffe! And wrinkly skin like... uh... question, why isn't there an older person in this audience with wrinkles I can point out?"

Stan was currently hiding behind a dumpster. He was _not_ going to be called old and wrinkly again.

"The beast chewed my boat up to smithertootinoons, and shim-whammies over to SCUTTLEBUTT ISLAND! YOU GOTTA BELIEVE ME!"

The sheriff simply smiled. "Attention all units! We got ourselves a crazy old man!"

And the entire beach started laughing at McGucket as he walked off, dejected and muttering. "Aww, donkey spittle..."

After the crowd cleared, the ponies-turned-human looked at each other. Pinkie grinned. "We all know what this means."

"MONSTER HUNT!" They cheered. Well, everyone except Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, the latter of which was quiet as a mouse, and the former of which was still delirious from syrup.

McGucket, somehow back at the dock, yelled "MONSTER HUNT!" as well. Everyone except Pinkie just stared at him blankly. He sheepishly backed away.

At that point, Soos pulled up in a large motorboat named the S. S. Cool Dude. "Did you dogs say something' about a monster hunt?"

Pinkie cheered. "SOOS!" She said, instantly leaping onto the boat. "I hereby commandeer this boat for the sake of MONSTER HUNT!"

Applejack shrugged. "I don't see why not."

They began to go towards the boat (or, in Rainbow Dash's case, stumble) when Stan walked up to them. "All right, all right, let's think this through! You _could_ go waste your time on some stupid monster-finding adventure, _or_ you could spend the day learning how to tie knots and skewer worms with your Grunkle Stan!"

* * *

Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie yelled "WOOHOO!" at the top of their lungs, ready for adventure. Rarity was on the other side of the boat, talking to Soos about fashion. Surprisingly, he had some rather interesting ideas. The handyman was a man of many skills.

"So, darling, how do you drive this boat?"

"It just goes straight unless I hold the wheel!"

"So we're just going straight."

"You got that right Little Diamond!"

"Do you have a nickname for everyone?"

"You're Little Diamond... then there's Blitz, Cowgirl, Sparky, Flutters, and Pinkie."

"Pinkie most certainly is just... Pinkie."

"Indeededoo. Whoops I should probably go to the wheel before we crash into somethin'."

As Soos went to the wheel, Twilight, Applejack, and Pinkie were discussing the plan.

"So, step 1: we find the Gobblewonker."

"Uh-huh." Applejack agreed.

"Step 2: determine if hostile or not."

"Gotcha..."

"Step 3: Depending on the result of step 2, either confront or—"

"THROW A PARTY!" Pinkie said, wheeling out party cannons, some with "Nessie" designs on them.

Applejack chuckled. "How many cannon designs do you have?"

"I lost count at a trillion!"

"Uh-huh. So if hostile we confront, if not, we make friends. Convince it to stop eating people's boats."

"But what if it needs boats to survive Twilight?"

Twilight sighed. "There's no way in the realm of possibility that it _needs_ to eat boats..."

Beneath the waters, something watched them, eyes glowing.

* * *

Stan was pleasantly surprised.

Fluttershy had opted to _stay with him_.

He could count the number of times a visiting Looper offered to stay with him from the start on his hands. Heck it was such a problem he rarely asked anymore. He didn't like being on the old Stan o' War alone.

Of course the experience was soured by the continual moaning of stomach-ache Rainbow Dash. He was beginning to regret his little Syrup prank.

"So, since you already know how to fish, how about a bit of a competition? Biggest fish wins!"

Fluttershy smiled warmly at Stan. "Okie Grunkle Stan!"

Stan grinned. He was actually having _fun_. He, for once, was happy. This was great. Fishing with a niece (even if it wasn't his regular niece) and having a nice day on the lake.

Also he had managed _not_ to mess up Reginald's proposal by that horrid "HER AIM IS GETTING BETTER" Joke.

"Joaje." He muttered, remembering a particularly unpleasant vision of a Hublike universe he had been gifted several hundred Loops ago.

"What was that Grunkle Stan?" Fluttershy asked.

"Nothing Flutters. Nothing at all." A fish bit his hook. "I GOT ONE!"

Fluttershy smiled. She recognized a man who needed company when she saw it. "Nice!"

Rainbow Dash moaned. "Can you two stop being so cheerful!"

"Kid, if I ever hear that sentence come out of your mouth again I will personally dunk you under the water where there are electric eels."

"There... aren't electric eels here."

"I have a Pocket filled with all sorts of things."

"You aren't supposed to hold living things—"

"DNA replication gun."

Rainbow Dash moaned. "Carry on with... urk.... one sec..."

* * *

"HERE WE ARE! Scuttlebutt island!" Pinkie said, gesturing towards the sign nailed into a random tree.

Soos held up his hand, covering up the "scuttle." "Hey look. 'Butt' island!"

Pinkie observed the sign. "I think scuttle island is better. Imagine this thing getting up and scuttling around. Like a beautiful spider!"

The five friends continued onwards, looking through the strange mist that penetrated the island.

"Question, darlings..." Rarity said, glancing left and right. "This island is perfectly visible from the beach correct?"

"Yah. What's your point?" Applejack wondered.

"Well how is there an extremely dense mist here?"

Twilight blinked. She hadn't noticed that. Crap. That was probably bad—

At that point they heard an intense roar in the distance.

Twilight flicked her wrists, ready to cast magic. Applejack took out her lasso. Pinkie.... continued whatever it was she did. Rarity backed up.

Soos looked at Twilight's hands. "Woah Sparky! Are you some kinda wizard or somethin'? That'd be wicked cool!"

Twilight blinked. "Sure. Wizard. Let's go with that and _not_ magical unicorn."

"What?"

"Nothing." The group slowly moved towards the sound, seeing a silhouette in front of them. It was perfectly still, and looked vaguely like a head.

"Ready girls?" Twilight asked.

Soos was the only one who responded. "Totally, dog."

They moved forward, ready to face the beast, only to see a bunch of beavers chattering on a broken boat.

Only Pinkie understood what the beavers said, and she burst into hysterics. "AHAHHAHA!"

"Pinkie? What is it?" Twilight asked.

"You really don't want to know! Ahahhaha!"

Twilight blinked. "Ooookayyyy...."

"But... what was the sound then?" Applejack asked.

"BEAVER WITH A CHAINSAW!" Pinkie pointed at the chainsaw, grinning like a madwoman.

Applejack immediately subdued Pinkie. Pinkie + chainsaw never ended well. Even though there usually wasn't death of any kind, the result was generally beyond terrifying.

Twilight shrugged, magically tossing the roaring chainsaw into the water. "Okay then... what now?"

"Maybe he really was crazy...." Applejack muttered.

Pinkie just stared into the water, longingly looking at where the chainsaw was. Even though she had several thousand chainsaws in her Pocket, she still wanted to add another to her collection. A beaver-chainsaw was something new...

Then she heard the chainsaw noise again.

That was odd. It couldn't possibly be making that noise underwater... Her pinkie sense went ballistic.

"GUYS SOMETHIN—" She was interrupted by a large sea-beast rising out of the water and slapping her to the side. It roared.

"The Gobblewonker!" Twilight said, gasping. "It really is real!"

Applejack walked right up to the great beast. "Now listen 'ere reptile, we don't want no trouble, but we would appreciate it if you'd stop attacking people's boats—"

The Gobblewonker roared, lunging for Applejack. She leapt backwards, landing firmly on her feet. "Suppose that was expectin' too much..."

Twilight cracked her knuckles. "Let's teach this lizard a lesson..."

"Darlings... do we really—"

Applejack raised a hand. "Rarity, there comes a time in every Looper's life when they just want to beat the tar out of some giant lizard."

Rarity sighed. "Fine... I just have the feeling this isn't going to go well."

* * *

"Okay listen up troops."

Fluttershy listened intently. Rainbow Dash was able to sit up without moaning, but that was about it.

"Since we've caught a grand total of log, moss, and other fishing poles on this trip, it's time to do what I do best—"

"Lure the fish in with your charm?"

"Nope. Steal fish from other people."

Fluttershy blinked. "That doesn't seem particularly nice—"

"Oh come on let's just have some fun being con-men. Er. Women. Human? Pony? I don't even know anymore. The point is that they have fish and we are going to take them. Any skills you bring to the table?"

"I can talk to most animals." Fluttershy offered

"I can.. URK! Fly!" Rainbow Dash said, before leaning over.

"Yeah, multicolored tomboy? Take a rest, we've got this. Fluttershy, we are going to pull up and I am going to make a utterly and completely terrible joke. While they're distracted get their fish."

"Um... You know I don't really think..."

"MISSION GO!" Stan yelled, rowing towards another boat, filled with Manly Dan and his sons. "Hey there pops! Wanna hear a joke?"

"If this is about Wendy being lazy you're the one who hired her." Manly Dan growled.

"Oh this is nothing about it! Just a joke! Seriously! How many lumberjacks does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

Manly Dan hefted his axe and glared Stan in the eye.

Stan realized something at that moment.

Manly Dan was a lumberjack.

"Uh... ABANDON MISSION!" Stan yelled, rowing away at high speed.

Manly Dan roared. "BOYS! GET IM WHILE I HEADLOCK THIS FISH!"

The same man from earlier shouted "GET IM! GET IM!" with astounding glee.

"THATS RIGHT TYLER! THOSE ARE MY BOYS!"

Stan rowed faster.

* * *

"WHAT IS WITH THIS THING?" Twilight yelled as the Gobblewonker just completely _ignored_ yet another magic blast. "Reptiles should be affected by that! ITS AN ANTI-REPTILE SPELL FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!"

Applejack tied up the Gobblewonker only to have her lasso rip. "It's also ridiculously strong. What is this thing's deal?"

It roared, charging once more.

Rarity sent a magic blast at it. While nowhere near as powerful as Twilight's, they still had a decent amount of power behind them.

What surprised Twilight was that the Gobblewonker actually seemed to _feel_ the normal spell.

"What spell was that?" Twilight asked.

"Just a normal one! Magic beam of some kind! Nonspecific!"

Soos laughed. "Dude you're a wizard too?"

"Yes and Pinkie is as well; get over it, Soos."

Soos looked at Pinkie, who was getting up from the ground. "Can I burn it?" She asked Twilight.

"I'd rather you didn't. Chaos fire is terribly hard to put out."

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie said, appearing behind the Gobblewonker somehow. "TWILIGHT! SHOOT THE LEG WITH A NORMAL MAGIC BEAM!"

Twilight did so, and the leg exploded. Pinkie took a screwdriver out of her pocket and rammed it up the hole. Sparks flew.

"What?" Twilight said, confused, as the Gobblewonker fell to the ground.

Pinkie grinned. "When it hit me I figured out that it was metallic, a machine! That's why your anti-reptile spell didn't work Twilight! And I just noticed a small break in the leg!" She grinned, completely innocent looking.

"It's... a machine?" Rarity said, blinking.

Twilight used her magic to pop open a hatch on the side of the machine, revealing a control room with McGucket inside. "Aww banjo polish!"

Everyone's jaws dropped (excluding Pinkie). "McGucket?" Twilight managed to say."W-Why?"

"Uh... uh.... AW I just wanted attention..."

"What?"

"Well, first I just hootenannies up a biomechanics brain wave generator, and then I learned to operate a stick-shift with my beard!" McGucket said, demonstrating his ability to use his beard as a limb.

"Uh... Why?"

"Well... when you get to be an old fella like me, nobody pays any attention to you anymore.... My own son hasn't visited me in months! So.. I figured maybe I'd catch his fancy with a fifteen ton aquatic robot! AHAHAHHAHAHAHAH...." He sighed. "In retrospect, it seems a bit contrived. You just don't know the length us old-timers go through for a little quality time with our family..."

"Did you ever consider talking to your son?" Twilight asked.

"No sir! I got to work straight on the robot! I made lots of robots in my day! Like when my wife left me and I created a homicidal pterodactyl-tron! Or when my pal Ernie didn't come to my retirement party and I constructed an eighty ton SHAME BOT THAT EXPLODED THE ENTIRE DOWNTOWN AREA! AHHAHAHHAHAHH! Well, time to get back to work on my death ray! Any of you kids got a screwdriver?"

Twilight blinked. "Pinkie does."

"Why thank you miss."

Twilight stared at the obviously crazy and most likely evil scientist. She probably shouldn't try to help him get back on his feet or he'd try to conquer the world or something. She really shouldn't. She reallllllly shouldn't....

"I have a better idea," she told Old Man McGucket, cursing her good nature.

In the end, she supposed she would stop him if he did go on a rampage. . .

* * *

"What are your sisters doing?" Stan asked the two Equestrians on his boat.

"I'm... not sure..." Fluttershy said, cocking her head.

The four girls, Soos, and Old Man McGucket knocked on the door the ranger occupied. McGucket's son came out. "What do you want?"

Twilight took a breath, time to put on the twelve-year-old-girl charm... "Ranger, we found this old man sitting on an island all alone, mumbling to himself about how he missed his son and he seemed really sad. We figured we could bring him to you and since, you know, you're a Ranger and all you might be able to do something."

McGucket smiled, looking into his son's eyes. "So, Tate. Uh... sorry 'bout ruining your beach..."

"Dad..." He said, blinking. He closed the door, and walked back inside the house.

McGucket sighed. "Welp. We tried. Thank ya anyway."

Twilight sighed. "Keep trying. He'll open up eventually."

"You really think so?'

Twilight smiled. "I know so."

Then, the door opened again. Tate stepped out with a baseball and a some gloves. "Dad. Think we can finish that game we never got to?"

McGucket got tears in his eyes. "You betcha' sonny! Now remember the ratio of the curveball to the air resistance..."

"I know Dad..." Tate said, smiling.

Twilight grinned. "Mission accomplished girls. We got to face a lake monster AND solved a friendship problem! BONUS!"

Pinkie's sense twitched. "Something's going on..." She looked around, unable to see anything odd. She shrugged. Maybe it was just an itch.

Stan, however, saw something. In the distance, he saw three young kids with binoculars trying to hide behind a bush. He recognized the kids, they stopped by the Mystery Shack a lot this Loop, calling themselves the Mystery Crusaders.

He frowned. They were watching them.

He wondered why.

Pinkie's sense tingled again, and she turned towards the lake just in time to see something surface for a few seconds.

Something very reptilian.

She smiled. The real Gobblewonker was saying hi. How nice.

Then Tate's curveball hit her in the back of the head. "OW!"

Everyone laughed.

The rest of the day was spent with baseballs, fishing, and tales of monster hunts and robots...

* * *

pbvwhub fuxvdghuv vslhv jr!

* * *

**Compiler's note:** And so it begins.


	29. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Two of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-09. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two of Eight**

22.4 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 170.5.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 4: Headhunters**

The Mane 6 and Wendy were watching TV. On the screen was a duck in a Sherlock Holmes hat and a constable.

"I'm afraid your services won't be required here, sir." The constable said. "My men have examined the evidence, and this is obviously an accident."

Then the duck started quacking, with subtitles appearing to translate it from duck: "An accident, constable? Or is it... Murder?!"

Fluttershy gasped, turning red. "That naughty duck!"

Applejack sighed. "He wasn't sayin' what it said he was sayin' was he?"

"Not at all..."

Wendy shrugged. "If you were a duck being forced to act on a substandard show, I'm sure you'd love to get away with as much as possible."

Rainbow Dash muttered something about "animal translation spells." Her nose was deep in Journal 3. Twilight was half reading over her shoulder.

Soos ran in. "DUDES! You'll never guess what I found!"

After various responses (ranging from "cute bunny" to "annoying dog" to "time machine.") Soos shook his head. "Nope! A SECRET ROOM!"

Everyone left the TV quickly, rushing into the secret room. Soos slowly opened the door, revealing a bunch of wax figurines.

Rarity blinked. "An old abandoned... wax... museum?"

"So lifelike..." Twilight commented.

"Except that one." Rainbow Dash said, pointing to one that looked like Stan.

"HELLO!" Stan said, grinning like a madman. Everyone jumped. He never got tired of that. _Ever_. Though that one time he had cloned himself several times was even _more_ amusing.

"Behold, the Gravity Falls Wax Museum! Stuff. It was one of our most popular attractions. Before I forgot all about it. The first time, anyway."

Wendy cocked her head. "First time...?"

"Oh wake up." Stan said, gaining a confused look from Wendy and a chuckle from a few of the Equestrians.

"Anyway, my personal favorite was Abraham Lincoln. However..." Stan sighed, gesturing to a pile of wax goop. "He appears melted. Like the sun wanted to wrestle his pointless life from him..."

Twilight blinked. "Wax statues aren't alive."

"Right, right of course." Stan said, waving his hand dismissively.

Pinkie grinned. "I WILL MAKE YOU A NEW WAX FIGURE!"

Stan groaned. He knew it'd be her. The wax figure day was always a hard one for him. But hey, he'd get through it. He always did.

He put on a smile. "You really think you can make one of these puppies?" He snorted.

"Grunkle Stan, I'm an arts and crafts and parties and chaos and pink and energy and power and magic and cotton candy and sugar and cake and sweets and dreams and happiness MASTER! Of course I can make one!"

Stan blinked, slowly taking all this in. Old loopers had an odd way of making him feel even older. It was a paradox.

"Uh... sure. MAKE YER GRUNKLE PROUD!"

Stan was 90% sure he knew what the wax statue was going to be. As usual. But not before she shot a million ideas at a brick wall.

* * *

Stan had not meant that literally when he had thought it, but in hindsight...

"SHALL I MAKE A WAFFLE WITH ARMS?" Pinkie asked a magic 8 ball while blindfolded. She then tossed the ball into a wall, shattering the ball. Pinkie then turned to look at the angle of the sun and test the wind. "Guess not." She said.

Stan blinked. "What the..."

Then an 8 ball hit him right in the face.

"THE 8 BALL HAS SPOKEN!" Pinkie said. Stan swore he saw pink fire light up behind her with various eyes inside it. But when he blinked, it was gone. He shook his head. The Loops were making him go insane... And not the fun kind of insane either.

"I SHALL GET TO WORK!" Pinkie declared, plucking some of Rainbow Dash's hair for supplies as she ran past.

"Wh— OW! HEY!"

"Sorry Dashie! Need rainbow powered paintbrushes and your hair is just naturally rainbow infused!"

"Um. Next time use scissors?"

Pinkie paused. "I never thought of that..."

* * *

Later, The Mystery Crusaders, Apple Bloom Corduroy, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo (just Scootaloo) were in the audience of the Mystery Shack's "grand reopening of the Wax Museum."

Of course, they weren't there for the free pizza. (Well, maybe Scootaloo was). They were here to watch. To be SPIES!

And of course to see creepy wax figures. Because, duh, creepy wax figures. Awesome stuff.

They watched as Stan walked up to the podium. "You all know me folks! Town darling, Mister Mystery! Also ladies, quit staring at me like I'm the devil incarnate. Thank you!"

Silence greeted the strange man.

"I give you enchantments and wonderments, novelties and befuddlewhatsizbitz, the likes of which the world has never known in the history of all timelines! But enough about me. Behold... ME!" And with that, Stan uncovered the one Wax Statue not out for the public to view: a perfect replica of Stan himself, except with glitter added. It was _very_ shiny.

Also if you looked at it in the wrong light it appeared to be on pink fire.

Sweetie Belle stared. "So shiny..."

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo groaned.

Pinkie leapt up and took the mic. "HELLO! THANK YOU FOR COMING TO THIS PARTY! I made this sculpture with my own two hooves! Or.. Hands! Or whatever! IT IS COVERED IN MY BLOOD, SWEAT, TEARS, PINK FIRE, HAIR, NATURAL GLITTER, AND OTHER FLUIDS!"

The Mystery Crusaders pondered this before recoiling in disgust.

"I SHALL NOW TAKE QUESTIONS!" Pinkie yelled, a party cannon going off.

Apple Bloom frowned. There was something really off about this Pinkie girl. She made special note to watch her closely.

McGucket asked the first question. "Old Man McGucket, local kook. are the wax figures alive? And follow-up question, can I survive the wax-man uprising?"

Pinkie grinned. "YES! NEXT QUESTION!"

Apple Bloom cocked her head. "Yes?"

Scootaloo rolled her eyes. "That answer meant nothing. If they were alive, she answered yes to that. If they weren't, she answered yes to the kook surviving. She's clever."

Sweetie frowned. "How can she be clever if she made a wax Stan?"

"I have no idea." Scootaloo said.

"We shall solve this conn... conun... conundrum." Apple Bloom said.

Meanwhile, the questions were still going on. "Toby Determined, Gravity Falls Gossiper. Do you think this constitutes a wonder of the world?"

Stan put a stupid grin on his face, obviously enjoying this. "Your microphone's a turkey baster, Toby."

"It certainly is..."

"Put Toby Determined down as someone to watch." Sweetie said.

"Eh why?" Apple Bloom said. "He's just as weird as everyone else here."

"Exactly."

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom rolled their eyes before continuing their observation.

Berry Punch jumped up. "You PROMISED FREE WINE!"

Pinkie shook her head. "No. You must've misread the flyer. What we have instead is..." Pinkie said, grinning. "FREE PIZZA!"

From literally nowhere, it began to rain pizzas. Everyone was happy, particularly Free Pizza Guy, who ate one of them mid-flight in one bite. Pinkie gave him a trophy.

Maud, for some reason, sprinkled pebbles on a pizza and walked away with it.

The Mystery Crusaders stared on, slack jawed.

Perhaps _this_ was why they were watching the Mystery Shack... Spontaneous pizzas were not normal...

* * *

Stan sighed.

It had happened again.

Wax Stan's head had been chopped off.

He had figured out how to prevent this from happening long ago, but he was trying to go with it. And thus, Wax Stan had to suffer.

It was a euphemism for his life, really. Because Stan was Stan, people had to suffer.

One person in particular.

He watched as, of course, the mane 6 defied the sheriff and his deputy and decided to investigate the murder of Wax Stan and bring the perpetrator to justice. Everyone did. Stan thought he knew who the culprit was, but he couldn't be sure. The Loops liked to mess with his head and have other beings kill Wax Stan than the expected ones.

He cautiously eyed Wax Sherlock Holmes.

Next Loop, he was turning that one into a Ducktective statue.

He watched as the mane 6 found the axe, as they wandered around gathering clues, avenging him.

Of course he went along with it, with his "AVENGE ME!" speech and jumping around in mock anger.

But in reality he was just... sad. This statue always reminded him of the person he was in baseline.

A person he still was, to some extent. A lying cheat.

And not the amiable fun kind either. A backstabber.

He sighed again.

He also noticed that those Mystery Crusaders were following the kids around.

He wondered why...

* * *

"So, Mystery Crusaders, what do we have?" Apple Bloom asked.

"We observed them investigating the "death" of Wax Stan." Scootaloo said, holding up the pen pad. "We have witnessed them somehow get past the security of the "Lumberjack Bar." We did manage to follow them, at the cost of Sweetie getting a black eye..."

"I told you we should have made fake IDs as well!"

"Woulda taken too long." Apple Bloom said. "Go on."

"Then we watched them realize the axe was left handed, so Manly Dan couldn't have done it... Then we watched them go through and investigate everyone who as at the pizza party... Lost a lot of pencil lead... and then accuse Toby Determined. We all know what happened next." Scootaloo said, shuddering at the memory. Who on earth spent hours kissing a cardboard cutout of a reporter... Who did that???

"Anyway, Toby was shown to be innocent, and everything turned out to be pointless." Scootaloo frowned. "We also observed Rainbow Dash look deep into some Journal with the number 3 on it. And I swear that Pinkie girl defies all logic."

Apple Bloom nodded. "Stan will be holding a funeral for Wax Stan later today. We should be there to watch it."

* * *

Stan always held the funeral.

He could never bring himself not to. It was too important to him.

Perhaps it was an attempt to undo his wrongs. Perhaps it was an attempt to make peace with everything.

Whatever it was, he always cried.

_Always._

Even in those amazing variants where _he_ was here with him, he still cried.

He ran out, Soos and Wendy following him, leaving the mane 6 in the room with the wax statues.

Rarity looked around. "How did he convert this place into a ceremony room?"

"He's a Looper." Twilight said. "Does he need to follow logic?"

Pinkie butted in. "Who said anything needs logic??"

"Good point."

Twilight sighed. "We didn't solve the mystery..."

Applejack frowned. "Wait. You just said it."

"Oh no." Twilight said, looking around panicked. "Okay so where's the clue here that we are going to find seconds too late?"

Rainbow Dash pointed at the body of Wax Stan. Specifically, his foot. "That hole... matches the footprint we found..."

Slowly, the mane six turned to see the wax statues turn towards them.

Wax Sherlock Holmes twirled his pipe and glared. "Ah yes, they found us out didn't they chaps? It's a shame they're too late to do anything—"

The wax figures, now alive, moved in to attack.

* * *

"Hey!" "Get off!" "No you get off!" "Toteming is a science!" "Not if your foot is in my eye!"

"Girls!" Apple Bloom said. "Hold still! I can't see in the window!"

Sweetie and Scootaloo shot death glares at each other, but held steady. Apple Bloom stared in through the window.

"Is that... pink fire?"

Then a wave of liquified wax poured out of the window with a force of a tidal wave. The Mystery Crusaders were completely covered.

And it began to harden.

"ACK!" Apple Bloom yelled.

Scootaloo tried eating her way out while Sweetie just went "EWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEWEEWEWWEW!"

The voice of Pinkie could be heard from inside. "Yeah, taking the candle away from us wasn't very effective was it?"

"Pinkie." Twilight said, trying not to lose it. "Please put out the chaos fire."

"Oh sure. Right away."

"I think you melted Wax Stan's head as well."

"YOU DID _WHAT?_ " The voice of Stan could be heard.

The Mane 6 blinked, before nodding to each other and dashing off in separate directions.

The Mystery Crusaders trekked back to their base, the wax caked onto them.

The report of that day was inconclusive.

* * *

Li rqob Prulduwb kdg slqn fkdrv iluh...

* * *

22.5 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 171.6.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 5: Gideon and Ghosts**

Go to the Tent of Telepathy, Twilight had thought. It'd be a good idea, Twilight had thought. It would annoy Stan and it would be much more interesting than watching the utterly brainless TV shows this Loop had, Twilight had thought. Maybe he really was psychic and could be interesting, Twilight had thought. This could be fun, Twilight had thought.

Now Twilight was being levitated in midair with a pair of shears directed at her face.

She was really, _really_ , tempted to just burn the little ventriloquist dummy and get it over with, but he had an air of _importance_ about him that Twilight had learned to detect from millennia of looping.

So that was out of the question.

To be honest, Twilight hadn't really expected it to go like this. The strange boy had asked Rarity on a date. (The thought of which was absolutely disturbing to begin with.) Rarity had shut him down.

The first time it was a gentle "no".

The next time involved a bit of slapping.

The third turn down Rarity called her friends (or siblings) in.

It was quickly discovered that the little "psychic" was a big. Fat. Creep.

Who also, for some reason, had a folksy voice that made no sense in an eight year old.

"Y'all are in the way of my sweet Rarity Diamond! I will have her! Ya hear? YA HEAR?"

Applejack had done her human-form-buck to get the boy far faaaaaar faaaaaaaaaaaaaar away.

And yet, somehow, he was back, using his now apparent psychic powers to point a pair of shears at Twilight's face.

She cursed herself for thinking his plot line was over.

"Now... You are just one of five in the way of my conquest of Rarity! She will be mine!"

"Look, Gideon. You probably aren't aware of this but back home she already has a guy. He's named Spike and he's quite nice—"

"I SHALL BLOW HIM OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET!"

"Yeah okay kinda figured you'd say that..." Twilight muttered. "Was worth a shot I guess..."

"Now be a good little sheep and lose your face—"

"GIDEON!" The voice of Rarity yelled throughout the warehouse.

"Darlin...?" Gideon said, a smile growing on his face. "I knew it! You've come to me!"

"Yes yes now put my sister down please..."

"Of course my sweet—" Gideon said, lowering Twilight.

What happened next involved Rarity levitating Gideon's necklace right off him, and then proceeding to toss the pudgy child around like a golf ball.

"OW! OW! HEY! DARLIN! I THOUGHT—"

"YOU THREATEN MY FAMILY, HAVE THE NERVE TO FORCE YOURSELF ON ME, AND ABOVE ALL WANT TO WIPE SPIKE OFF THE FACE OF THE PLANET!" Rarity stared deep into Gideon's eyes. "YOU. MADE. A. BIG. MISTAKE."

Twilight was quickly reminded why she never got Rarity mad...

* * *

Gideon roared. (Or tried to, with all his bruises it kinda came out as a MArGFFF!)

His amulet was gone. His precious Rarity had just been mind controlled to beat him up. How cruel!

She was being kept away. That was the only answer. She couldn't think that of him. He was a true gentleman!

Gideon was not known for his knowledge in the matters of romance.

He pulled out handmade dolls of the entire pines family and set them up on a replica of the Mystery Shack.

Kid was beyond creepy.

Gideon picked up the Twilight doll. "What are you going to do without your precious amulet???" He mimicked.

He grinned, pulling a book out of a bookshelf. "Ohohohoh... You'll see. You'll see." He looked at the cover, which displayed a golden six-fingered hand with a "2" on it.

Far away, both Pinkie and Rainbow Dash twitched. They exchanged glances.

"How'd you get that?" Pinkie said, confused. "You don't have Pinkie Sense..."

"No..." Rainbow said, looking at Journal 3. "But I do have this... I wonder what it means?"

Pinkie, with a faraway look, spoke in a monotone voice. "That plot is coming..."

"What?"

"Dashie you seriously aren't going to make a butt joke about that remark?"

Rainbow Dash was completely bewildered. "I. Wait. What? Plot? But. Uh..." She shook her head. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"AB-SO-LUTELY NOTHING!" Pinkie said, grinning.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, not thinking more of it.

* * *

"So. Uh. This is awkward. Today's the day one of you is supposed to get a crush on Wendy, or at least reveal it to everyone." Stan said, looking at all six of them awkwardly. "Uh..."

Everyone stared back at him blankly.

Pinkie spoke first. "I PUT FORTH APPLEJACK AS TRIBUTE TO WENDY!"

"PINKIE!" Applejack yelled. "You do realize there are TWO problems with that right? One, I don't want to. TWO, she's the older sister of Apple Bloom this loop! IT'D BE LIKE DATING MYSELF!"

"Aw okay..." Pinkie said, dejected.

Twilight frowned. "Isn't she like three years older than us? In this age range that generally isn't an accepted thing..."

Stan shrugged. "I said nothing about her returning the affection."

"Ah. Tragic and overused plot line."

"Tell me about it." Stan said, proceeding to choke on some Pitt Cola. "Anyway, you kids probably want to join Wendy and her friends in their little outing. Go forth and have fun."

Rainbow Dash and Twilight shrugged. Why not.

* * *

"STAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" Twilight yelled at the top of her lungs as the entire abandoned convenience store's gravity went upside down.

"I'm going to punch him when we get back." Rainbow Dash muttered.

Wendy looked at the two of them. "What's he got to do with this?"

"Uh..." The two of them said, trying to think of a way out of this,

A possessed Fluttershy quickly provided a distraction by blowing up a shelf full of popcorn.

"Okay okay..." Twilight said, thinking hard. "There's probably some reason behind this and we have to be able to solve this without sending Pinkie crazy..."

Rainbow Dash quickly flipped through the Journal. "Um... There's some stuff in here about using a silver mirror..."

"Yeah I don't think that's going to work." Twilight muttered. "Since we have no silver mirrors."

"Check your Pocket."

"Oh... Wait. I've got it. What was everyone else doing when they were... "haunted?""

"Being sarcastic? Cellphone?"

"TEENAGER STUFF!"

"So—" Rainbow Dash blinked. "It can't be that simple. No. It can't."

Twilight poked her head out. "HEY GHOST!"

"YES?" Not-Fluttershy said, turning a full 180 with the head.

"I'M NOT A TEENAGER!"

"OH I'M NOT SURE ABOUT THAT. YOUR MIND IS VERY IMPRESSIVE, THERE IS NO WAY YOU'RE THAT YOUNG."

"Oh. Great. The one time being a Looper is a disadvantage-"

"WHAT THE HECK IS A LOOPER?" Wendy asked.

"Uh..." Rainbow Dash said, looking around nervously. "How about we just agree that that'd take too long to explain and just scar your mind more than it already is?"

"Ah." Wendy responded.

Twilight was quickly levitated by the ghost, and... just vanished.

Rainbow Dash blinked. Twilight would have at least tried to defend herself at that point. How did the ghost—

Pinkie roared, revving up a pink flaming chainsaw. "ALL RIGHT GHOST! This is an exorcist's old weapon from something so long ago you couldn't even comprehend the eon! AND I WILL USE IT TO SEVER YOU FROM FLUTTERSHY!"

"WON'T THAT HURT HER?"

"Eh probably but she's been through worse."

"YOU WILL NOT USE IT!" It said, snapping Fluttershy's fingers (in such a way that made them break). The chainsaw vanished.

Pinkie began to light herself on pink fire. Her voice deepened. "You are going to regret—"

"Wait!" A little voice said, running into the room. Apple Bloom fell to the floor, Sweetie and Scootaloo close behind her. "These are our friends! Please don't hurt them! We're just kids!"

Fluttershy was instantly dropped and a pair of old ghosts appeared. "Oh just wonderful! Children! Hello there!"

"Hi!" Sweetie said, suddenly not as afraid. "Yeah can you not hurt them? Please? They're nice..."

"And one of em's mah sister!" Apple Bloom yelled.

The two ghosts frowned. "We could let them go... if you did a cute dance and song."

The Mystery Crusader's eyes lit up. They asked for the ghosts to give them their special costumes...

* * *

"TAKE YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS OUT OF HERE! THAT RACKET WAS WORSE THAN RAP MUSIC! WHAT ON EARTH IS WRONG WITH CHILDREN THESE DAYS?"

The teenagers, mane 6, and Mystery Crusaders left the building running. Some from the horrible racket that the Mystery Crusaders had let out rather than the ghosts themselves. (Twilight hated that song. Every time it appeared, it was just _bad_. Not even the Looping crusaders could seem to sing that song well, although they hadn't tried that much.)

After they paused to take a breath, everyone began laughing.

"THAT. WAS. AWESOME!" Wendy yelled, high fiving some of the guys. Rainbow Dash whooped and Pinkie ate an entire packet of Smile Dip.

Fear struck Twilight's heart. _Oh no..._

For the moment, however, Pinkie didn't explode. That wouldn't last long though.

The teens were happy. The Mystery Crusaders were happy. Everyone was happy and laughing and having a good time.

Except Robbie, the annoying guitar player guy.

"Look at these kids! They're just lame kids who got us into a big mess!"

"Um..." Wendy said, cocking her head. "As I recall they saved us."

"Whatever." Robbie muttered.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. What a dolt.

She quickly turned to the Mystery Crusaders. "Now... what were you three doing there?"

"Uh... Uh..." Apple Bloom said, trying to think of a way out.

"We were watching you!" Sweetie said, grinning.

"Why?"

"MYSTERIES!"

Rainbow Dash sighed. "It's likely going to get dangerous. Please stop watching us. And Scootaloo?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop drawing pictures of me in that notebook while I'm talking. Actually just stop it."

"What? But how did you know?"

"Maybe I'm psychic." Rainbow Dash said, grinning. "Now stop watching us. We don't like to be spied on..."

Fluttershy walked up. "I mean, we forgive you, but it is a little creepy..."

The three hung their heads. "We're sorry..."

"Oh don't be sad..." Fluttershy said. "You can hang out with us now! I'm sure everyone's really happy you saved them."

The three crusaders looked at the group laughing and having fun. "Ya think so?"

"I know so."

"YIPPEE!!!"

At that point, the Smile Dip settled into the consciousness of Pinkie. "OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH I WANT MY CHAINSAW BACK!!!!!"

Everyone stared blankly as the abandoned store went up in flames.

* * *

"We're not gonna to spy for ya' anymore." Apple Bloom said, looking up. "It's rude and they're nice people."

"Rainbow Dash is coooooool..." Scootaloo said, trying hard to resist the urge to sketch.

"Basically, we're lettin ya do yer own work. We won't tell on ya though, yer nice enough for that."

"But we're going." Sweetie said. "You do your own thing."

As the Mystery Crusaders walked off to join their suddenly large circle of friends, their "employer" frowned.

Lyra folded up a large mint-green journal engraved with a design of two five-fingered hands.

She supposed she'd have to investigate on her own now.

All the better.

* * *

Obud Khduwvwulqjv-Slqhv

* * *

22.6 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 171.6 continued.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 6: The Diner**

Rainbow Dash stumbled into the Diner, clothing in tatters and looking like a haggard mess. Her wings were manifested, although folded up.

The patrons of the diner gave her a glance, but quickly got back to their coffee. It was way too early in the morning to deal with a harpie.

And it wasn't like they'd remember any of this in an hour anyway.

Rainbow sat down with the rest of the 6 and Stan.

"Uh... Rainbow?"

"Yes Stan?"

"The only thing you're wearing for a top is a big leaf."

"I had to go with what I could find."

Rarity blinked. "You _do_ keep extra clothing in your Pocket right dear?"

Rainbow sighed. "Went through all five outfits today."

"What on earth were you _doing?_ "

"Well Stan remember when I was trying to karate chop that plank of wood?"

"And you failed miserably?"

"I still think it was rigged."

Stan grinned. "So what if it was? You needed a lesson in humility."

"Uh-huh yeah. So I stormed off into the forest punching trees down and stuff..." Rainbow went on, taking the smoothie Derpy Hooves managed to bring to the booth without anything breaking in a spectacular fashion. After quick slurk, she continued. "And then I sorta got involved with some manataurs in a bit of a manliness tester..."

* * *

"HOLE OF PAIN!"

"I CAN TAKE PAIN!"

"ACROSS A GORGE!"

"I CAN HAVE WINGS!"

"MUSCLES!"

"I HAVE WING MUSCLES!"

"WRESTLING!"

"TAKE THAT MANATAUR!"

"WARPAINT!"

"AAAAAAAAA!"

"DRAMATIC SHIRT SHREDDING!"

RIIIIIP!

"ONE HIT KNOCK-OUTS!"

PUNCH.

"YELLING FOR NO REASON!"

"AAAAAAAAA (reprise)"

"EPIC TRAINING TAPE"

"THIS SOUNDS LAME!"

"DRAMATIC CRITICISM!"

"THIS SOUNDS LAME!"

"Tea Party."

"SMASH ALL DISHES!"

* * *

"...Then of course I was told to, for the final test, kill the Multibear beast. Turns out he's a nice guy, even if he does have odd music tastes. So I returned and told the manataurs that I wouldn't do their dirty work." Rainbow guzzled the rest of the smoothie. "Then. Well. I went back and announced that I wouldn't do anything to the bear. Then..."

* * *

"What are you some kind of girl???" Tirek, king of manataurs roared.

"ACTUALLY YES!" Rainbow said, grinning, pulling the only dress (and last outfit) she had out of her Pocket. "TAH-DAH!"

Gasps were heard around the group.

"Man you guys are stupid." Rainbow observed.

"But.. But..." Pupitaur said. "How? HOW ARE YOU SO AWESOME!"

"FEMALES CANNOT BE AWESOME!"

"RUN MY BROTHERS! RUN FROM THE ABOMINATION!"

Tirek stood, glaring at Rainbow Dash before enveloping her in flame.

* * *

"...and that's what happened to my dress. My other outfits were consumed by the tests. Two by the hole of pain."

Stan rolled his eyes. "That was dumb."

"I know." Rainbow Dash said, grinning. "I now know I can pass a manliness test."

"You didn't take out the Multibear—"

"I did bring them a T-rex head."

Stan blinked. "...Fair enough." He said, chugging some Pitt Cola. (He had long ago mastered the art of swallowing the pit.)

Lazy Susan walked up to them, saying "WINK!" while looking at Stan. She giggled. He laughed nervously.

Rainbow Dash's face turned into a sly one. "Oh? Oh what's this? What exactly is happening-?"

"I told the Pinkie and Rarity that I _didn't want to get hooked up with her this time!"_

"Oh darling..." Rarity said, a bit sheepishly. "But she seemed perfect at the moment..."

Twilight blinked. "What is WITH everyone and playing MATCHMAKER this Loop?"

"Demonic influence?" Pinkie offered, her eyes going completely white.

Stan blinked. "Just to be clear, she's NOT a demon. Right?"

"Oh no of course not." Rarity said, smiling.

"She's just a Goddess of Chaos." Fluttershy said.

Stan took a spit-take, launching the Pitt into Fluttershy, knocking her out cold.

"TWENTY MANLINESS POINTS!" Rainbow yelled.

Stan backed away slowly. "You don't mean... one of THOSE Chaos Gods? Please no." Stan said, backing away, bad memories flashing across his mind.

"I take it you've been to 40k then?" Twilight asked.

Stan turned to glare. "I. Absolutely. Hate. Those. Guys."

"Oh the looping ones are much nicer..." Fluttershy offered.

"Can it Empress." Stan grumbled. "WHAT is SHE?"

Pinkie stood on the table in front of Stan. "I am Pinkamena Diane Pie Pines, Chaos Goddess of Parties, Fun Lord of the Sith, The One Who Sends Shoggoths Gibbering in Terror, the Joy of Faust, the One with Cosmic Pinkie Sense, the One who is Sometimes Made of Cotton Candy, the Pink One of Many Skills, Seer of ALL and BEYOND, The Koopa King's Former Roommate, Part-Time Eldritch Abomination, and I am here to SPREAD PARTIES!"

Stan just stared, unblinking. After what seemed like many long minutes, he spoke.

"So, worse then?"

"AB _SO_ LUTELY!"

Stan turned to Twilight. "Yeah. She's the second most terrifying thing I've ever met."

"What's the first?"

"You'll find out." Stan said, his face clouding ominously.

"I already know." Pinkie said, staring deep into Stan's soul.

"Yep. This just got weird. Goooodbye." Stan said, standing up and walking out.

The mane six were left in the diner. "So..." Applejack said. "Anyone got a new shirt for Rainbow?"

"The leaf functions just fine." Rainbow said in a huff. "I can survive on my own clothing skills."

Applejack blinked. "Uh-huh. Yeah. You do realize that there's a caterpillar on it slowly eating it away."

"FIIIIIIIIIINE."

"Ooh!" Pinkie said, grinning. "I have just the thing!"

And that was how Rainbow Dash ended up wearing a pink sweater.

* * *

Stan walked out of the diner, breathing heavily.

That pink girl. That pink girl was just... bringing back many bad memories.

He was fully aware old loopers had really impressive resumes and he was fully aware that Pinkie wasn't listing even a small percentage of what she knew. He had heard about her, the Looper who was able to retain many many many abilities between loops. The party pony. The creature that had only one purpose in existence: to party.

That wasn't what concerned him. (Although his rather unpleasant experiences with the other Chaos Gods had been horrid, he could at least understand them after a bit of thought.)

The vast majority of people he came across he could understand, analyze, figure out how to swindle or otherwise.

Pinkie defied that. However, plenty of people out-swindled him throughout the Loops.

No - What concerned him is the WAY she did it. Complete randomness. A look of all-knowing. Staring into spaces where there was nothing, and somehow knowing too much. A mind that is always working, continually plotting things out. A mental state that _seemed_ random, but couldn't be, because it got so much done.

She was a being of nigh-unimaginable power.

And she had a mind frame suspiciously close to that of Stan's enemy...

* * *

Lyra sat at the diner, observing. She was sitting at the same table as Berry Punch and Bon Bon, carrying on a conversation of sorts. In reality, she was just trying to look like she was. She had discussed with Bon Bon the art of pretend conversation. Bon Bon was controlling the topic, and Lyra was nodding and apparently fixated on the conversation. Berry Punch was there as an unwitting part of the plan: she was drunk as a skunk and was talking louder than a wolf howled, and Bon Bon was responding. With the three-way dynamic of conversation leader, crazy drunk, and quiet responder, it looked like they were having a very in-depth conversation to the casual observer.

Lyra was, in reality, scribbling in her Journal under the table. (She had long ago mastered writing without looking at the paper.) And was making note of Rainbow Dash's... well, _wings._ Not to mention that the girl was all beat up like she'd just been through a trial.

Lyra pondered this. Possible run in with the manataurs? Multibear? Nah the Multibear was a nice guy. Bit odd taste for music though...

Pinkie and Twilight were the other ones she was watching closely. She had caught Twilight using magic effortlessly, which should be impossible. Everything Lyra ever found needed some form of energy conversion, and more often than not an incantation of some sort. From what she observed Twilight had just used magic with no outward change, no loss of energy... Perhaps she just wasn't using enough or had some kind of magi crystal?

Then there was Pinkie.

Lyra had forty pages on Pinkie.

She still understood nothing.

Pink fire seemed to be a theme with her, as were the party cannons. She was either the most friendly person ever, or the most ominous. Lyra didn't get it.

The other three, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity seemed more or less normal. Lyra suspected she just hadn't found out what they were capable of yet.

As the six of them walked out of the diner, Lyra folded up her book. "Bon Bon, let's go."

Bon Bon nodded.

The two left Berry Punch (drunk as a skunk) talking to nothing.

They walked out, carefully avoiding the red-hooded men surrounding the diner...

* * *

Ylen naq Fjrrgvr Qebcf fubhyq ernyyl gunax Oreel Chapu...

* * *

22.7 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 174.12.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 7: Guitars and Dancers and PINKIES!**

"Duplicating copy machine." Twilight said, observing the rundown machine before her. "I would question how it's still functional in this state, but you'd all probably just say—"

"MAAAAAAGIIIIIIC!" Pinkie said, spreading her hands out slowly.

Fluttershy looked at the thing, blinking. "So... what are we going to do with it again?"

Twilight took out some random sciencey tool from her Pocket. "We are, of course, going to do SCIENCE to it."

"What else?" Pinkie said, grinning. "I'll grab the soap bars!"

Fluttershy blinked. "Why would we need soap bars...?"

"Reasons!" Pinkie said, depositing several dozen bars of soap on the floor. Then she blinked. "OH NO! I have to help with the party today! I can't do both at the same time!"

Slowly, the pink pony-turned-human angled her head towards the beat up copy machine.

"No, Pinkie." Twilight said. "That's just a bad idea."

"Okay Twilight." Pinkie grinned. "I'll just clone myself the regular way then!"

Twilight blinked. "You can't be serious—"

* * *

Stan was slightly disturbed.

Pinkie was _everywhere_. Even more _everywhere_ than usual. She was in the bathroom, in the rafters, outside planting things, on the roof hanging streamers. He knew he should have called off the party, but he'd decided to go with it. Go as baseline as possible...

Now the entire Mystery Shack had balloons. Everywhere. And cannons filled with (he hoped) confetti.

Confound those ponies, they were driving him to—

"BOO!" Pinkie said, causing Stan to fall backwards onto his back. "Did I getcha? I gotcha! WHOO! Here have a cupcake."

"Uh..."

Seconds later she came back. "Hey, did I pass through here a while ago?"

Stan blinked. "Uh..." He blinked, an idea coming to him. "Oh. Yes, just a ways to the left." She grinned, bouncing off.

Stan quickly jumped into the back room, checking the duplicating copy machine. Long ago he had discovered how to see what exactly it had copied recently. So if it showed Pinkie getting copied...

He looked at the records. There was no mention of copying Pinkie Pie. What was there, however...

"Thirty metric tons of soap? What on earth?"

* * *

Soos was playing on the keyboard. "Soos is best DJ." He said, hitting the explosion key over and over again.

Rainbow Dash leapt over. "So.... keyboard. What other sounds does it make aside from "boom?""

"A dawg, it can make all sorts of noises! Like blood curdling zombie screams!"

"Cooooool."

"And, of course..." Soos dramatically raised his hand, pointed his finger, and pressed down on the key. The speakers let out a "Ye-AH!"

"Yes!" Soos said, grinning.

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Okay then. So what's the plan for the party, exactly?"

"Dance off slash karaoke!" Soos grinned. "There'll be a bunch of punch and the dancers will dance till the house falls down!"

Rainbow Dash leaned in. "Want to make it more interesting?" She said, producing a guitar from her Pocket.

"Woah dude where'd you get that?"

"The seat cushion over there, you just didn't see it. Now, how's about instead of just a dance-off..."

* * *

Pinkie smiled at the party. She was proud of her work. And Stan was still fretting internally about how she had managed to do it.

Or maybe he was fretting about the thirty metric tons of soap. It wasn't like she read his mind or anything. Perhaps she should...

Applejack was nearby, a little bored. She wasn't really into the party, so she had kinda just sat next to the wall. She was trying to get into that perfect position where she could have her hat over her eyes, lean effortlessly against the wall, and fall asleep without anyone noticing. It was a skill she had developed.

"...Hi." A small girl in a green shirt next to her said. "Are you attempting the ancient art of sleeping while standing?"

Applejack blinked, turning to the girl. "Uh... yeah. Howd'ya know?"

"I have tried it many times myself, though to no avail. It is why I have a headache today." She giggled. "I'm Candy. The large one behind me with the iguana is Grenda. And the one behind her is... Uh...."

"Lyra Heartstrings." Lyra said, walking up to shake Applejack's hand. Applejack took it, not giving it a second thought.

"So what are y'all doing here?"

Grenda pounded her chest. "I'M HERE FOR THE PUNCH!"

"Grenda it does not involve any actual punching." Candy reminded her large friend.

"I DON'T CARE. I WILL MAKE IT HAVE PUNCHES!"

"CAN IT HAVE TACOS?" Sonata shouted from the background. Nobody listened to her. She became dejected.

Candy shrugged. "She is a bit over the top. I am here to watch her."

Lyra shrugged. "I'm just here because party. You don't get many parties in Gravity Falls."

Applejack twitched. Her Element of Honesty had suggested something was up here. A half-truth. "Really?"

"Well I suppose the Northwests organize a party every year or so, but nobody lets them in. And the rest of the 'parties' are just people messing with Old Man McGucket..."

The old man in question let out a yell and started dancing hillbilly style. "I can't feel my legs! It makes it so much more interesting!"

Applejack blinked. "Mmkay then... Anyway I'm just goin' to be sittin' here till the end—"

"Oh look what the poor wretches dragged in!" A blonde girl said, stepping up to the four of them. "Look at all you pathetic losers! You know, you're not good enough for even this party!"

"I live in this place, ma'am." Applejack retorted.

"Oh look. _Excuses._ How quaint. Nice accent by the way. Sure to attract all the best hillbilly guys."

"I CAN ATTEST THAT IT WORKS!" McGucket yelled, now unable to move his legs.

The blonde girl chuckled. "But you're new, so I'll give you a pass this once. I'm Pacifica Northwest, and what I say is law. And I say that the four of you are cramping the style of this already substandard party—"

Pinkie ran right up to Pacifica. "Did. You. Just. Say. Substandard. Party?"

"Did you really think this was a good party? I mean the balloons are tacky, the house is falling apart, and what on earth are those cannons even _for?_ "

"FOR PARTIES!" Pinkie said, growling. She slowly backed away. "I have my eyes on you. All of them."

Applejack really hoped that Pinkie didn't bring out any of her Eyes of Chaos...

Pacifica turned back to them. "Now, all of you get off. Shoo. We don't need you cluttering up the place."

Candy and Grenda sighed. "We suppose you are right...." They began to turn away, dejected.

Pacifica was about to leave when Applejack stomped her foot on the ground. "I won't stand for this." She muttered. "These three just want to have a nice party and enjoy their time here! You've obviously made it your mission to make them and others feel worthless. Well let me tell you something; Miss Northwest, you are nothing more than a petty rich girl who just thinks she can stomp all over everyone. Well I won't stand for that, Miss Northwest. I'm not budging. They are _staying._ "

Pacifica glared. "Where did your accent go?"

"I happen to think you're one of those shallow types who listen to accents rather than actual words."

"Who on earth would _choose_ to talk like that?"

"People like me who like who they are." Applejack glared. "And I have a feeling that you are secretly a little insecure about yourself."

Pacifica glared. "You know what—"

Her thoughts were cut short when Soos let out the announcement. "And now, we have our karaoke dance off! But our great friend Rainbow Dash has suggested that we make things more interesting! So, instead of just a simple dance, there will be teams! There will be someone playing an instrument and someone singing! Do whatever you want, but prepare for awesome music battle! I realize that it's kinda no longer karaoke, but just treat it like something that makes life more interesting, downs!"

Rainbow Dash leapt up to the stage, holding her guitar up high. "I'll play music! Who's dancing? I hear Pacifica, the dancing queen, is in the audience!"

Applejack smirked, turning to Pacifica. "How about we settle this in a little competition? Or do you even have anyone willing to play music for you?"

Pacifica snapped her fingers. "SUNSET! Play the guitar!"

Applejack watched as unAwake Sunset walked up, strumming a guitar. "Of course, Pacifica." She grinned menacingly.

Applejack leapt up to the stage, grinning. "Rainbow, you and me versus the two of them. Let's do it."

Rainbow Dash blinked. Applejack wasn't talking in countryisms. It wasn't hard to tell why.

_Okay... throw out giving other people even a chance at winning. We're going to give them the utter and complete awesome beat down!_

Sunset strummed her guitar, and the competition began.

To be fair, Pacifica and Sunset did pretty good. Pacifica wasn't just some rich kid who won because they were rich, she did have some skills. And _every_ version of Sunset ever met knew how to play the guitar with at least some skill.

If Applejack and Rainbow Dash hadn't been Loopers, they would have been beaten.

However....

Rainbow Dash moved her fingers across the strings of the guitar faster than was physically possible, making it sound like she was playing two of the instruments at once. Applejack performed a bunch of exceedingly complex dancing maneuvers, purposefully avoiding bucking and other "uncivilized" and/or "hillbilly" moves. She was going to beat this rich girl at her own game. She even used complex ballet maneuvers. Everyone stared as she did continually more intricate maneuvers. At one point, Rainbow dash "ponied-up," but people didn't pay much attention to this. Applejack's dance was just so.. surprisingly graceful. Of course this was the entire point.

When it ended, Applejack did a dainty bow, turning up to grin right at Pacifica. "How's that, miss Northwest?"

Pacifica's eye twitched. "You... You..."

"Now that wasn't even my best performance." Applejack walked right up to Pacifica. "Now, miss Northwest, I can be just as uptight and proper as you. I just choose not ta'" She returned to her normal voice. "And that's jus' fine with me. Now SOOS! How'd we do?"

Soos leapt up, yelling like a monkey. "THAT WAS A HEATED BATTLE DUDES! Now, the team who gets the most applause will win! Let's hear it for.. Rainbow Dash and Applejack!"

The clapping for the two Loopers was astounding, loud, and everywhere. Candy and Grenda clapped profusely. Lyra simply took notes on what had just transpired on the notebook she had behind her back.

"Now let's hear it for Pacifica and Sunset!"

The clapping for the two of them was small, and seemed forced. Pacifica steamed, pulling a roll of hundred dollar bills out of her pocket and waving them in the air. The amount of people clapping increased, but in the end, it wasn't even close. She seethed.

"So." Applejack said, walking up. "Can ya' see that you aren't the best simply because you're more civilized? Can you also see that some people _like_ it down here where there aren't so many fancy rituals and shenanigans? Like forks. I could never understand the fascination with forks..."

Pacifica glared. "You were just faking. You don't actually have any status!"

Applejacks eyes sparked. "You have no idea, Pacifica."

She glared. "Come on girls! We're leaving!" She began to storm out.

She didn't make it far, as suddenly several dozen Pinkie Pies ran into the dance room.

"THE SOAP PILE IS GOING TO EXPLODE!" One of them yelled.

"EVERYONE FIND SOME COVER!" A second said.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!" A third said.

The real Pinkie Pie blinked. She was sure she'd gotten rid of all the clones...

Then of course the soap exploded.

It was later discovered that Twilight had taken a Pinkie clone for study with the soap. She did SCIENCE with the soap, Pinkie clone, and the duplicating copy machine. She let the three things sit in a closet while she read some stuff from the Journal.

Said "stuff" was a spell that made things work at optimum efficiency. The copier copied, the pinkie clones got more... pink..., and the soap exceeded critical mass and exploded.

Twilight still wasn't sure how that was possible, but she decided further experimentation simply wasn't worth it. Perhaps in another Kerbal Space Program loop she'd try it as a new type of rocket fuel.

Lyra, of course, recorded everything.

* * *

Wkh vluhqv zhuh rqfh d phqdfh, exw Vrqdwd mxvw zdqwhg wdfrv.

* * *

**Compiler's note:** Well, that was a thing.


	30. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Three of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-09. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Three of Eight**

22.8 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 175.4.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 8: In Which a Treasure Hunt takes place...**

"AAAAAAApppplejaaaaaaack....." Rainbow Dash said, pointing at the Journal. "Don't you hate Pacifica's guts????"

"I don't hate 'er." Applejack responded. "I just want her to realize she's not queen of the world. She needs to be knocked down a few pegs."

"Then we can prove that her family is a fraud using this lead right here!" Rainbow Dash said, pointing to the Journal's page vigorously.

"I'm not out for revenge Rainbow, and I'm not in th' mood to go on a crazy treasure hunt."

"Who said it was a treasure hunt?"

"Your expression." Applejack rolled her eyes. "You can go if you want, I'm going to try and change her rather than just beat her up with embarrassing secrets."

Rainbow Dash grumbled as Applejack walked off.

"Dashie...." Pinkie said. "I'll help you!"

Rainbow Dash turned to her friend. "As long as you don't just use your Pinkie senses, Eldritch powers, Force powers, or anything else I'm not thinking of to just find it automatically. I want this to be a _fun_ treasure hunt!"

Pinkie nodded vigorously. "Of course! TO ADVENTURE!"

The two friends left the shack to go treasure hunting...

* * *

Advisor Celestia stood up so quickly, her sister, Advisor Luna, looked concerned. "What is it?"

"Someone has found the trail." She said, peeking out of the blinds. "The Mayor is no longer in a position to protect this town's secrets..."

Luna sighed, dramatically taking the headphones off her head. "Can't we just let them get it? I've almost beat the enderdragon..."

"Your games can wait, Luna. This is a matter of national security." She squinted. "I wonder if they'll manage to lead us to it..."

"That seems silly. If we want it hidden the best thing is to not even know where it is ourselves." Luna remarked.

Celestia sighed. "We still have to find out what is going on. Come. We must find some people who look like they are investigating."

* * *

Lyra Heartstrings took out her binoculars and watched closely.

_9 AM, RD and PP left the building. Left observation post to pursue._ She recorded. The "observation post" was just a really densely leaved tree.

As the two walked away Lyra noted that Rainbow Dash wasn't using her wings, and Pinkie Pie wasn't... just appearing places randomly. Good. That made them easy to track.

She scribbled more notes, making yet another note to try and figure out why the regular citizens never seemed to notice (or care) about the wings... She looked at her watch, realizing she hadn't written a date down.

Huh. Was it Pioneer Day already?

This could be interesting.

* * *

Stan was driving into town. "Play it cool Stan." He kept muttering. "It's just Pioneer Day. Loop after Loop you do this, over and over. It's not that bad. It's just another stupid holiday in a stupid town..."

Fluttershy, who was in the back seat of the car, blinked. "Stan? Why are you so... tense? Do you need a massage or something?"

"NO I DO NOT NEED A - wait you can do that?"

"I've calmed down a bear with a simple wrench of their neck before."

"Huh. I can respect that." Stan frowned. "Nah, this isn't anything. This is just Pioneer Day. And I have to drive into town..."

"WHY do you have to drive into town?" Applejack asked.

Stan blinked. "Reasons." He said. "A certain ventriloquist dummy needs to be put in his place."

"Ah. Say no more." Applejack said, leaning back in the car.

Minutes later Stan was running for his life from the woodpecker that married the creepy guy (Stan wasn't even sure if he _had_ a name). Stan had a grin on his face despite this. If he got this correct, the plan would occur seamlessly. The little Gideon twerp would be arriving shortly and would insult the bird in his presence, resulting in fake psychic boy ending up in the stocks for insulting a woodpecker!

What he wasn't expecting was to trip over Celestia.

"AUGH!" He yelled, falling over, and conveniently landing right into the stocks. "What? HEY! THIS ISN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN!"

Celestia stood up, mud all over her nice official Advisor suit. She glared. "Stanford Filbrick Pines, how interesting."

"Look, lady." Stan said, realizing that this was someone important. He checked his loop memories. _Really should start checking them in more detail soon as I Awaken..._ "...Advisor Celestia, can you just help me out of here? I was-" The woodpecker took that moment to hammer at his skull." OW! OW! HEY! HEY! OW! HELP ME!"

Celestia smirked. "It's Pioneer Day. Putting an innocent man in the stocks is a common occurrence." She yelled out. "HEY EVERYONE! THROW SOME TOMATOES!"

Luna came up behind her sister. "Celestia... There's no need to be cruel-"

"He knocked me over into a pig sty."

"That was the street."

"Might as well be a pig sty."

Luna sighed, looking at the now-tomato-covered Stan with sympathy. Celestia marched off, and Luna followed, planning to come back and release Stan later.

Stan grumbled. He was in the stocks. Again. He had really tried to avoid this and—

Oh no. That meant...

"Why hello there Stanford Pines!" Gideon said, walking up in a strange cowboy outfit. "I reckon you must've done something mighty nasty to get into the stocks here!" He observed the quickly emptying bowl of fruit. "Such a shame not to give you yer full experience... Howsabout we do this?" He stood up on a crate. "Ladies and gentlemen, the Tent o Telepathy is donatin' a dozen barrels of fruit for the express purpose of peltin' this here man!" Gideon began to cackle.

"I don't think so." Applejack said, stepping into the confrontation. "Y'all should just go home. This man did nothin' wrong."

"Oh but that's where you're wrong little miss Pines.' Gideon said, his eyes becoming full of hatred. "Ya see, your uncle here has been scamming this town for as long as anyone can remember!"

"Yer like, what, ten?" Applejack said. "How can you be sure 'bout that?"

"I AM PERFECTLY CAPABLE OF KNOWING THE HISTORY OF THIS TOWN THANK YOU VERY MUCH!" Gideon yelled, before calming himself down. "Now... you just be on your way and we'll complete our pelting of the sleazy scum."

"Ah... no." Applejack said, walking up to the stocks, intending to simply break them with a kick.

"You dare go against the will of the town?"

"Ain't my town." Applejack responded, readying a kick. Gideon simply pointed. "There's your target."

The fruit went flying.

* * *

"Pinkie."

"Yes, Dashie?"

"Why are you folding the ancient scroll into a paper hat?"

"It just seemed like the right thing to do!"

"Follow up question. Why is there now an obvious map on the hat?"

"Probably because whoever made this scroll wanted someone to fold it into a paper hat!"

"Pinkie. Do you have any idea how many types of paper hats there are? What are the chances that you folded the right one?"

"Almost a hundred percent. Seriously Dashie, I expected you to be more aware of plot necessity at this point."

"Yeah. Okay. I'm just going to roll with it. I think it goes to the museum. TO ADVENTURE!"

Lyra picked up her notebook and followed them. She scribbled down "Cloud Cuckoo-lander skills?" into her notebook, and created _another_ table for "weird things Pinkie Pie does."

She followed them into the Gravity Falls Museum of History. The receptionist offered them a balloon, but Pinkie just produced several out of her Pocket and passed them out to everyone. Smiles were had and a receptionist was ticked off. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie fist bumped and continued to look at the art in the museum.

Pinkie quickly did a number of cartwheels, did one of her trademark extreme gasps, and flipped Rainbow Dash upside down. "Look! It's an angel pointing!" She said, solving the puzzle before Rainbow Dash even saw the upside down art.

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Wow. That was fast. Uh..."

Pinkie ran out, dragging Rainbow Dash with her.

"Hi Lyra! Bye Lyra!" She said, leaving Lyra a bit dumbfounded. The minty girl quickly shook her head, continuing on with her investigation of them. She wondered what they were trying to uncover...

Behind her Celestia and Luna poked their heads out from behind a statue.

"Why are we following _children_ , sister?" Luna said, obviously annoyed with this whole extravaganza.

"Luna, you should know that children are the ones with the best ideas. The minty one is obviously investigating the other two. The other two are probably on the trail..."

"Or they could just be enjoying Pioneer Day." Luna mumbled. "Like I should be, at home, playing Super Amazing Wagon Adventure."

"...Oregon Trail?"

"Good grief, no, that's a horrid game."

Celestia rolled her eyes. "We just need to follow them."

Minutes later, Lyra was writing down _most unusual and convoluted locking mechanism ever devised: hanging your nose off a statue's finger._ How on earth had Pinkie thought of that?

She shrugged, watching as the two unusual siblings walked down the suddenly-visible staircase into the depths of who knows where.

Lyra followed. What she saw astounded her.

As the traps of the hallway triggered, Pinkie just started... _teleporting_ around everywhere, seemingly without any focus at all. An arrow was about to hit her? ZIP suddenly elsewhere. Rolling boulder? NOPE on top of the boulder. Some kind of bear trap? Suddenly there's a stuffed bear in it.

Oh and Rainbow Dash took on her "harpy" form. Not as interesting.

Lyra blinked, scribbling down what she understood... and what she didn't. Then she continued on, cautiously. The two of them had triggered all the traps. Eventually she came to a chamber. Rainbow Dash was reading from a scroll.

" _Let it here be recorded that Nathaniel Northwest, famous in his native Gravity Falls for standing in the park and hitting himself with a large boating oar until he blacked out, was chosen to become the patsy mayor of Gravity Falls. Northwest spoke in a series of grunts and screams and often yelled his trademark phrase: 'I am going to eat this entire oak tree because I am a powerful wizard!'_

" _The fabled founder of Gravity falls was, in fact a fraud. His last moments on Earth were spent choking on a giant piece of bark, attempting to live out his beautiful dream. He was hated by everyone that knew him. He will not be missed._ "

Rainbow Dash stopped reading. "Well, that's what we came here for. TAKE THAT PACIFICA!"

"She's not here right now Dashie. Keep reading."

" _Thomas Jefferson was actually just two kids in an overcoat standing on each other's shoulders. The current and forever President of the United States is actually Santa Claus. Under the reign of Mr. Claus, America is not a democracy, but a jollyocracy. The statues at Mount Rushmore are actually gigantic presidential-faced robots that will be called into action when America needs them the most.An enormous, evil, time-traveling baby from another dimension is frozen in an Atlantic glacier. Fortunately, glaciers never melt, so we should be fine. Writing jokes for cartoons is more important than sleep. If you recite the pledge of allegiance backwards, you'll gain secret wizard powers! (This one is true, kids! Try it at home!)_ "

Rainbow Dash and Lyra took a moment to pause at the sheer amount of absurdity this document contained.

"How many people do you suppose actually _read_ all of this?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Not enough!" Pinkie said, grinning. "That's why we're reading it! For everyone!"

"For who?"

"Just keep reading."

" _The true founder of Gravity Falls was: Sir Lord Quentin Trembley III, Esq._ " The 'harpy' blinked. "Who on earth is Sir Lord Quentin Trembley III, Esquire?"

"Exactly who you weren't supposed to find out..." Celestia said, coming out of the shadows.

Lyra yelped. She'd been followed. Crap. She should have been watching her back.

Celestia walked towards them slowly. "Now since you're here I suppose we might as well tell you what actually happened... now that you know-" She was interrupted by a series of beeps behind her. She turned around to see Luna playing on a gameboy. "Luna!"

"Gotta catch Rayquaza..."

"Ugh..." Celestia muttered, returning to the three children. "Watch this." She said, readying a reel of film.

"Actually I have a pretty good idea what you're going to show us!" Pinkie said, grinning. She took in a deep breath. "Sir Lord Quentin Trembley III Esquire was an amazing man who ended up being the eighth and a half President of the United States due to all of his opponents being crushed in a landslide and then made several amazing things like the negative twelve dollar bill and the depantsipation proclamation and appointed babies to the supreme court and fought a war against imaginary man eating spiders all the while founding a town named Gravity Falls in his crazy endeavors and grinning like a cute madman while he researched a way to immortalize himself in peanut brittle and he succeeded look over there!" Pinkie pointed at a giant block of peanut brittle with a man from pioneer times imprisoned inside.

Rainbow Dash blinked. "He looks like Han."

Lyra stared in disbelief at Pinkie, then at the block of peanut brittle, then at Rainbow Dash, then at the two Advisors. "Uh..."

"By the way..." Rainbow Dash turned to Lyra. "Why were you following us?"

"Simple curiosity, Rainbow Dash." Lyra said, smiling. "You are most interesting." She pointed at the blue girl's wings.

"Oh those. Those are normal." Rainbow Dash said, completely serious.

Pinkie giggled. "Actually they're only normal when you're a pegasus. Silly Dashie!"

Rainbow Dash shot Pinkie the death glare. "Pinkie. I thought you had fixed your keeping secrets problem."

"Yes! Yes, I did! I just thought it'd be fun to see Lyra's reaction!"

Lyra was scribbling notes profusely.

"Anyway." Celestia said, folding her arms. "We're going to crate you off to Washington D. C. and let the higher-ups deal with you."

"Crate?" Lyra asked.

_Minutes later..._

"Oh." Lyra said. "An actual crate."

"I think we're being loaded onto a train..." Rainbow Dash observed. "I shall save us!"

Pinkie leapt up. "How about we simply-"

"No Pinkie. I want to _do_ something on this treasure hunt other than just follow you and your intuition around!"

"It works doesn't it?"

"It isn't really that fun."

"Oh. In that case, I won't tell you to break the peanut brittle."

Rainbow Dash face palmed. "I'm just going to get out of this a fun way." She grabbed a chainsaw from out of her Pocket and began to cut through the box.

"Luna do you hear something?" Celestia asked.

"Nope." Luna said, completely engrossed in the boss music.

Rainbow Dash lifted the chainsaw for another swipe, hitting the peanut brittle that encased Trembley. The sweet candy broke apart into a million pieces, revealing a perfectly healthy man.

"And now I shall lead us all in a daring escape!" Trembley said, grinning. He took out his president's key. "I shall unlock this crate!" He bashed the key into the wood. "Hrm... wood... my age old enemy..."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Oh my gosh. Not another one. The Doctor was enough."

Elsewhere in the Loop, the Doctor Awoke. He felt like there was some stupid one-time-joke reason why. He hated that feeling.

Back on the train, Rainbow Dash was about to slice down the box when it simply fell apart for seemingly no reason.

Trembley shook his head. "No good. We didn't escape through the hole. Let's rebuild the box and try again."

Pinkie squealed. "I like you so much right now!"

Lyra sighed. "Can we just get off the train?"

Celestia stood in front of them. "No. No you may not. LUNA!"

Luna sighed. "What?"

"They got out."

"As I expected."

"As—wait you expected this?"

"We're obviously fitting into the "amusing villains" trope here, sister."

"What?"

"There's cake in the next car." Luna said rolling her eyes.

Celestia hesitated all of four seconds before rushing to the next car. Luna turned to the others. "Sorry about that girls. She's a bit... forward. Nobody will believe that there's an eight and a half President of the United States, anyway. And Trembley?"

"Yes?"

"Thomas Jefferson wants his salamander back."

"No. I'll never release him!"

Luna blinked. "That was not the response I was expecting... You all better go before Celestia gets back here once she realizes it was nothing but muffins from the diner. Now back to my game..."

Lyra, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, and Trembley all leapt off the train and mostly all hit the ground hard.

"That... that was stupid." Lyra muttered.

"IT WAS SILLY." Pinkie and Trembley said at the same time.

Rainbow Dash simply glided down to them. "Well. This has certainly been a day."

They all paused as Celestia's cries of rage rang out across the country.

"That's quite the variant of her there..." Pinkie noted.

"I think she was better than some of them. Remember that time she was basically king Sombra?"

"Oh! What about that time when..."

Lyra took this moment to slip away before they had time to question her. She'd have to be more careful. They knew about her now...

In the distance, a top secret agent stood on top of the train, watching. The agent was supposed to be watching Trembley, but she was actually watching Lyra much more closely. This just got complicated...

* * *

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash returned to the mystery shack to find Applejack and Stan covered in bruises.

"It _had_ to be pineapples." Applejack muttered.

Pinkie and Rainbow Dash decided not to tell her about embarrassing Pacifica with what they had found.

* * *

Djhqw Vzhhwlh Gursv

* * *

22.9 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 175.4 continued.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 9: There is no pig.**

"Have you seen any time anomalies around here?" The very bald time traveler known as Blendin Blandin asked Twilight.

Twilight had half a mind to respond with "The entire existence of this world here is dependent on a time anomaly the likes of which you could not comprehend" but decided against it, as the official time-travel types tended to never stop with the questions. She simply responded with "aside from yourself, no."

Blendin sighed, putting his face in his hands. "I-I-I gotta find them..."

"I suppose I could help." Twilight offered. "But in order to do _that_ I'd need to know how your time machine works."

"Your mind could not possibly comprehend this technology!"

Twilight recited an entire textbook's worth of knowledge on Quantum Mechanics in two minutes. Blendin simply stared at her in disbelief. "I... I suppose you can understand. Maybe we'll even recruit you... B-but I c-can't promise anything!"

* * *

Twilight walked up to Rainbow Dash. "I just got a portable time machine." She said, grinning.

Rainbow Dash looked up from the Journal. "Seriously? Cool! How functional is it?"

"It doesn't seem to have any location selection, only able to make sure you don't end up in space. But it measures out time for you to travel." She said, producing a tape measure. "I am now basically an apprentice time traveller to this... Blendin Blandin. We went to see the founding of the town by Mister Trembley. It was just as weird as you made it out to be." Twilight blinked. "He really did have a weird fascination with peanut brittle..."

Rainbow Dash grinned. "So now we have a time machine. What are we going to do with it?"

"Dunno." Twilight said. "Time Travel within the loops is always strange. Outside of the Doctor's loop it tends to become really easy to cause a crash... And I would ask Stan but he'd probably just swindle me or something."

"Swindle you for what?"

"That's the thing. I don't know. He's really good at getting what he wants..."

Rainbow Dash shrugged. "How about we experiment? Find a small event and change it a little. Possibly make the world a better place..."

Twilight Sparkle looked out the window at Stan's makeshift carnival that had been set up yesterday. There were obviously several rides that he kept in his Pocket, and a few Pinkie had donated. It was actually somewhat impressive. Of course the "fair" was likely absolutely crappy and lame in a true baseline. She'd ask Stan about that later. If he actually talked about the loop. Ever.

Soos ran across the fair screaming. "THE GIANT STUFFED CATERPILLARS ARE ALIVE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES EVERYONE!"

Rainbow Dash and Twilight blinked, looking out the window at the fairgrounds. Sure enough, the giant stuffed caterpillars were alive, crawling all over everything. They were destroying the fair.

Stan, of course, was nowhere to be found. As usual when all heck broke loose.

As the fair was destroyed, a lightbulb went off in Rainbow Dash's head. "Let's try to stop the caterpillars from attacking!"

Twilight shrugged. "I don't see why not. Since the time machine exists going back a day shouldn't be a problem." Shouldn't...

Twilight grabbed Rainbow Dash and pulled out the tape of the time measure, going back a few hours. They vanished in a puff of light. They re-appeared as Stan and Soos were setting up the fair.

"Ah there you two are." Stan said. "Hammer this post into the ground would you?"

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. "You most certainly have a hammer in your Pocket."

"Where's the fun in that?" Stan responded, grinning. "SOOS! Give them your hammer!"

"But Mister Pines! That's my prized possession!"

"Last time it was a screwdriver."

"...Last time?"

"Nevermind." Stan said dismissively. "Now set this fair up!"

Twilight and Rainbow Dash re-set up the fair, watching out for the Live Giant Stuffed Caterpillars. They didn't have to wait long. A few hours later the fair was in full swing, and everyone was playing the games. Some were riding the double ferris wheel, and then... there was the bottle game.

Sunset was in a rage for some reason. She grabbed a tennis ball and threw it at the bottles, knocking them all down. They shattered into a million pieces, sending strange magical dust everywhere. This caused all the Giant Stuffed Caterpillars to come to life, attacking everything.

Twilight nodded, heading back in time with Rainbow Dash. She simply went to the bottle game, took the bottles, and placed them in her Pocket. No more problem. She turned to her friend, smiling. "Easy as cake."

The two walked off, so happy of themselves.

Then they heard something shatter behind them. Somehow, Sunset had managed to step on a shard of glass, causing the magic to disperse into the air. And the Caterpillars attacked again.

Twilight's eye twitched. This was going to be one of THOSE wasn't it?

* * *

"Attempt thirty-seven..." Twilight spoke into the recorder. "Bottles and all glass shards have been placed in a sealed box within Pocket. The Giant Stuffed Caterpillars have been buried underneath the volcano. I am observing both using remote trans-dimensional video surveillance. I will find out what's activating these things..."

The video feed went fuzzy, and suddenly there was a on top of her head, eating her hair in time with "It's raining tacos."

Her eye twitched.

* * *

Rainbow Dash had long ago stopped helping Twilight with the caterpillar problem, and was instead spending every time back in time embarrassing Robbie in extremely more interesting ways.

She had already gone through the classics: a whoopee cushion, sudden appearance of a dress, pants becoming really tight, hair turning a bright pink, and ice bag down the pants. She had gotten the last idea from that time they were at the convenience store. Poor Thompson.

She grinned. This time she took something Malon had invented when her branch's other Loopers weren't around to mess with her.

" _Freeze-dried cucoo! Just add water!"_ Rainbow Dash grinned deviously, opening the pouch and pouring out the powder. She then put a single drop of water on the powder, and suddenly a full-grown white cucoo was sitting in front of her, clucking.

Rainbow Dash gently lifted the cucoo and placed it in front of Robbie's path.

"Out of my way stupid chicken!" He said, kicking it.

The swarm descended.

Rainbow Dash broke out into hysterics as Robbie ran away screaming.

* * *

"Attempt one-hundred and seventy-two..." Twilight said, hair a mess and completely mental at this point. "The stuffed caterpillars were burned, locked in an alternate dimension, tossed into a singularity, enchanted with the most powerful magic known I know, and the glass bottles have had magic locks placed on them before I tossed them into deep intergalactic space. Then I set temporal locks around them using the Time Measure! There's no way-"

A Live Giant Stuffed Caterpillar ran into her.

"SON OF A-"

* * *

Rainbow Dash grinned again.

Let Robbie flaunt his tight pants.

Let Robbie take dramatic poses.

Let everyone stare at him because while he thought he was wearing tight pants, he was just in his pink underwear with pink ponies all over it.

Hehehehehhehehheh.

* * *

Twilight threw her hands in the air. "THREE HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO: FAILURE. WHAT. AM. I. DOING. WRONG?"

"Twiliiiiiight...." Pinkie said, walking up. "You should realize at this point that this universe operates under "you cannot change anything" time rules, at least for this event."

"But... but... but..." Twilight twitched. "There has to be a way to stop such a simple event-"

"Oh, the easy way to do it is to simply make sure Gravity Falls never existed by going back to the foundation of the town and altering the geographical formations so that Quentin Trembley didn't fall off a cliff and found the town. Easy."

Twilight slowly turned to Pinkie. "...I'm just trying to change a little thing..."

"I know. I know all three hundred and fifty."

"I've only tried three hundred and forty-two-"

"You forgot to count six and tried two times without recording anything."

Twilight didn't even ask how Pinkie knew all this. "Just... It's got to be solvable..."

"No," Pinkie said, grinning. "No, it doesn't. You should know that from being around me so long."

Twilight sighed. "Fiiiiine...." She put down her recorder. "Let the stupid fair get eaten by caterpillars..."

Pinkie grinned. "Good Twilight. Now let's go get RD and stop all this..."

"Yeah..." Twilight said. They found Rainbow Dash quickly, who was unleashing a giant cat on Robbie.

Rainbow Dash grinned. "This is going to be fun."

To her surprise, Robbie actually manned up and punched the cat across the face. The giant cat fell to the ground, knocked out.

Wendy walked up to Robbie "That was so cool dude!"

"Yeah I suppose it was." He flexed his arm. "So... I've been meaning to ask you... We've been hanging out a lot... I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me?"

"...Sure."

Twilight and Rainbow Dash's jaws dropped. Pinkie just snorted.

Rainbow Dash blinked. "That's... that's not right. That guy's a jerk."

"It's... her decision Rainbow Dash..." Twilight muttered.

Pinkie snorted again. "He gets the sub-standard balloons."

Blendin appeared. "YOU THREE! YOU HAVE BEEN CAUSING TIME ANOMALIES LEFT AND RIGHT!"

Pinkie raised her hand. "I haven't been traveling through time at all!"

"THEN WHY HAVE I DETERMINED THAT YOU ARE THE TIME ANOMALY?"

"Oh. Nature of being, I suppose. Silly willy I'm not dangerous! Well, unless you ruin a party or break a pinkie promise..."

Blendin growled. "You are going to give me that Time Measure!" He yelled, holding out his hand.

"There's still so much we can discover with it!" Twilight retorted. "Let us study more!"

"No! You cannot, not while that close to a living time anomaly! Plus, y-you've been abusing the power. S-so HAND IT OVER!"

Pinkie grabbed the Time Measure, pulling out the tape to a random time. "Sorry. Nope. Bye!"

The three of them appeared in front of a hungry T-rex.

"Huh." Pinkie said. "Fluttershy would be useful right about now."

Blendin appeared on top of the T-rex. "G-give it back!"

Twilight simply grabbed the machine and went to another time. They appeared in front of the Mystery Shack, though it was snowing and it appeared to be newer. The words "Mystery Shack" weren't even on it.

A man opened the door. He blinked. "Who are you three?"

Pinkie took a deep breath. "We are from the future and we are here to-"

Twilight shut her up. "Sorry to bother you..." She took a closer look at the man, cocking her hand.

Rainbow Dash gasped. "Stan?"

"Hrm?"

"You are Stanford Pines right?" She asked.

"Yes." The man narrowed his eyes. "Why are you asking?"

"Just well-" She blinked. "Wait. You aren't Awake are you?"

"What on earth are you talking—" He stopped talking, drawing his crossbow. "I have no argument with the Time Baby, Blendin. Leave me alone."

Blendin, who had appeared behind him, held up his hands. "W-w-woah hey hey! K-keep it cool man! I'm j-just here for these three!"

"Take them and leave." He said, gesturing with his crossbow. "Go on."

Blendin quickly grabbed their Time Measure and took them back to their time. "Now, you three should know full well that—"

Two beefy Time Agents appeared behind Blendin Blandin. "BLENDIN BLANDIN. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR CAUSING TIME ANOMALIES!"

"What? No! I've been framed! It was those three kids!"

"Those are technicolor ponies Blendin."

"Them— wait WHAT?" Sure enough, before him were three technicolor ponies. He blinked. "I'm losing it."

The time agents vanished, and the three equestrians returned to human form. "Pinkie..." Twilight said, turning to her unusual friend. "Why did you do that?"

"Do YOU want to go to time jail?"

"But why—never mind." She shook her head. "Let's just continue on with the Loop..."

She looked at Stan, who was playing with Soos, laughing his head off. He seemed so jovial now.

Yet, his unAwake self seemed... scared. Terrified. A bit crazy.

Almost as if they were completely different people...

* * *

Stan chuckled.

They would never find out that HE was behind the Live Giant Stuffed Caterpillars.

He put _his_ Time Measure back into his Pocket.

Well. That was fun.

Not really baseline, but totally worth it.

* * *

Wkh pruh Vwdq wkh phuulhu!

* * *

22.10 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 176.1.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 10: The Grrrrrreat and Powerful Trrrrrixie!**

"Come one, come all, to the Grrrrreat and Powerful Trrrrrixie's show of mystery and magic!" The blue-colored human snapped her fingers, causing her tiny traveling cart to literally explode into an open stage. "Grrrravity Falls! Prepare to be utterly and completely AMAZED!"

The people of the town clapped excitedly. "THIS IS AMAZING! WE'VE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE THIS BEFORE!"

Trixie disappeared in a puff of smoke, reappearing suddenly with a rabbit in her hand. She then stuffed the rabbit into her fancy hat, shook it around, and produced a storm of butterflies. She smirked, snapping her fingers, causing two large swords to appear in either of her hands. She threw them into the air, and they _didn't come down._ She snapped her fingers once more, causing the swords to fall to the stage. The blades hit a loose board, causing it to flip around in circles, launching a package of peanut butter crackers into the air. Trixie grabbed them, and began to much and bow at the same time.

"This is just a taste of what you can see at the Grrrrrreat and Powerful Trrrrrrrixie's show! Come one come all! Trixie's magic will make you believe the impossible and question reality itself! Shows at eleven, three, eight, and ten. The peanut butter crackers are not for sale."

And with that, Trixie vanished into her stage-cart thing.

Twilight and Rainbow were in the audience, the former with a thoughtful look on her face and the latter rapidly flipping through the Journal.

"The Journal does mention that some people have latent magical power within them, but there is always a source of some kind or reason..." Rainbow Dash blinked. "Did you sense any magic coming from her?"

"If she has any she's either hiding it extremely well or it's not enough to be felt over the latent magical properties of this area."

Rainbow Dash kept flipping through the Journal. "There's nothing here about testing for magic..."

"I could probably figure out if I could cast a scanning spell." Twilight smirked. "Though where would the fun be in that?"

"Investigation time!" Rainbow said, grinning. "Time to see what's up with Trixie..."

Elsewhere in the audience, Pinkie grinned. Oh boy, they were no longer the new po—people in town. She could throw a party! And nothing was going to stop her!

She looked up, an annoyed expression on her face. "Oh yeah? Wanna bet?" She paused. "You're on!" She was gone instantly. Nobody even saw her move.

Next to Pinkie, Lyra had been recording data. _Seems to be talking to some voice... an entity of some kind?_ She turned to the stage, wondering about Trixie. Could she be related to all this somehow? She set up a new page, labeling it _Trixie._ She scribbled a few notes about the impressive magic show display, and how the town seemed to enjoy her show. She scribbled furiously.

"Lyra..."

"What is it Bon Bon?"

"You really should stop with all that conspiracy stuff. You're going to get involved with something-"

"I should never have told you about the sisters..."

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. "You know if you don't talk to me there's nobody to talk to. You live all alone in that big house at the base of Northwest Manor. You need me to talk to. And those three kids don't count."

"They can be helpful-"

"And they are exceptionally stupid." Bon Bon said matter of factly.

Lyra opened her mouth to object, then shut it. She looked back at the stage where Trixie had been. "Bon Bon you know me. I can't just let mysteries lie. I have to figure them out."

Bon Bon sighed. "Fine. Just be careful okay? Don't want anything happening to you-"

"I'll be fine Bon Bon." Lyra said. "I know more about what's going on in this town than anyone. I can handle a possible mage." And with that Lyra left, leaving Bon Bon with a torn look on her face.

Near the front of the crowd, Gideon was seething. "She dares come into town? MY town? And open up a magic show?" He stomped his foot. "She will regret this..." He turned to yell at the cart. "I WILL GET YOU OUT OF TOWN WOMAN!"

Trixie poked her head out and threw a half-eaten mango at the little kid. "The Great and Powerful Trixie objects to your tone. Be off."

Gideon's eye twitched. "You have no idea what you've just done... YOU WILL FEAR ME!"

"Trixie finds that most unlikely."

As the little kid ran off in an angry huff, the two sisters watched.

"Could she be one of us Luna?"

"Maybe."

"Perhaps we should investigate..."

"Maybe."

"Think we can find out anything about-"

"WOO HOO YES I WON I JUST BEAT R-TYPE AHAHHHAHAHAHHA!"

Celestia glared at Luna. "Put your portable arcade away."

"But..."

"Put. It. Away."

Luna slowly nodded.

The crowd dispersed, and the various factions went about their business...

Poor Trixie.

* * *

Trixie did a little dance, humming a tune. "Never gonna give you up, never" There was a knock at the door. She sighed, opening it. "Yes? Who wishes to see Trixie?"

Apple Bloom was standing in front of the cart. "Ahm terribly sorry miss Trixie, but Ahm lookin' for mah friends. I think they are somewhere around here."

"Trixie shall assist you in finding your friends." Trixie said, smiling to herself. "Where would they be?"

"Ah dunno." Apple Bloom said. "Could be any of these buildings 'round here. I'm gettin' worried."

"Fear not little one, Trixie shall find them for you!" She waved her hand, and it seemed to sparkle. "Let's go search that old barn."

"Yay!" Apple Bloom said, lighting up.

From a nearby tree, Lyra took notes. _Sparkling hand, confident demeanor. Likes children apparently._

In _another_ tree, Twilight was taking notes. _Seems to be following Apple Bloom around. Why is Apple Bloom out here?_

Apple Bloom stopped in front of a worn-down barn. "Uh..."

"What is it little one?" Trixie asked.

"Ah uh... dunno what Ahm supposed to do now..."

"What do you mean?" Trixie asked, this time narrowing her eyes.

"Well Ah was supposed to lead you here and—oops."

Lyra facepalmed. She should have listened to Bon Bon.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Another voice said from behind Lyra, causing her to fall out of the tree. Hanging from the tree by one foot, she saw Rainbow Dash flying in front of her.

"Oh. Hi. Observing Trixie." Lyra responded.

"Like you were observing us?"

"Pretty much yeah."

"I have a few things to say to you-"

Rainbow Dash didn't get to say anything, as Trixie noticed them. She pointed her finger. "What are you two doing?" She blinked, looking at Rainbow Dash's wings. "Trixie must know how to get those! Tell Trixie where you got them."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Uh... Joe's wing shop?"

In the other tree, Twilight rammed her head into the bark. This gave her a headache, causing her to fall out and hit the ground with a THUD.

Lyra laughed. "Ha! She was observing as well! Thought you were better than me _did_ you?"

Rainbow Dash glowered. "Shut up."

"I bet I'm the one who gave you the idea-"

"I said shut up Minty."

"Only Bon Bon gets to call me Minty."

"MINTY MINTY MINTY MINTY."

Lyra twitched. "I'm LYRA!"

Trixie tapped her foot impatiently. "Why are all of you watching Trixie?"

"MAGIC!" Apple Bloom volunteered. The three others fixed her with death glares.

"If you wanted to see Trixie's great show you could have simply waited-"

Celestia and Luna watched from afar, unsure of how to proceed.

"Perhaps we could simply walk up and ask everyone what is going on?" Luna suggested.

"No. We must be stealthy. None must know of this."

"Sis. All of those present obviously know about magic and the weirdness. What harm could there be?"

The older sister glared. "We will be stealthy and not interfere! We will ask Trixie when she is alone."

"Sister..."

"Seriously Luna, you have to learn to appreciate the art of stealth more! The less we are in the open the better."

"Sister..."

"Come to think of it you should learn to put your games down and appreciate life itself more. Get out of your cave and come into the sun."

"Sister..."

"WHAT?"

"They're watching you yell at me."

"I AM NOT YELLING—" Celestia stopped, turning to see Lyra, Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Trixie, and Apple Bloom staring. Apple Bloom and Rainbow Dash had popcorn. Lyra was furiously scribbling.

Celestia's eye twitched.

"So..." Luna said, turning to the others. "What's been happening with you?"

Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Been investigating things. Trying to figure out what Lyra's up to. Cake. That sort of thing."

Celestia's eyes brightened at "cake." "You wouldn't happen to have any cake with you?"

"No." Rainbow Dash said, lying through her teeth. She had metric tons of cake in her Pocket for variant Celestia emergencies. This was not one of them.

Celestia frowned, and returned to a state of not-sure-how-to-handle-this-situation.

Luna sighed. "Forgive her. She can be a bit... off. Actually she is a bit off. Do not worry, she will not harm you. Probably."

Trixie growled. "Why are all of you people so interested in Trixie?"

Luna decided honesty was the best policy. "We were hoping you would know something about magic."

"A show woman does not reveal her secrets, and Trixie is no different!"

"I do not mean show magic, I mean-"

"THERE YOU ARE!" Gideon yelled, arriving on the scene. "I WILL CUT YOU TO SHREDS!" He said, holding a solid black sword that was obviously too big for him.

Trixie blinked. "Trixie is amused by your antics. What could you hope to do with that... thing?"

"This is no normal sword fancy show woman! This is the blade of darkness! Of demise! It will drive you insane just by touching it! I will-"

He tripped over his own chubby legs. He quickly stood back up, dusting himself off. "Mmkay gotta check myself here... Give me a sec folks... Gotta get my shirt adjusted... one moment... now! READY! FACE MY WRAT—" He blinked. The sword was gone.

Rainbow Dash, flapping above him, was holding his sword. "Looking for this?"

"YOU GIVE THAT BACK RAINBOW DASH PINES!"

"Mhm.... Lemme think about that... Nah. Not really feeling it right now."

"I WILL BREAK YOU-"

Then, something exploded in the middle of them, sending streamers and balloons everywhere. Pinkie erupted from nowhere. "WELCOME TO GRAVITY FALLS TRIXIE LULAMOON!" She yelled, leaping into the air. She grinned.

Then she frowned. Everyone had run off except for Twilight and Rainbow Dash, who simply sighed and walked away.

Pinkie let out a sigh. Then she looked up. "So... did either of us win the bet?" She paused, as if listening to someone. "Hey! You said— I have a photographic memory and you know it!" She rolled her eyes. "Okay so it's just a memory spell same thing. So no you do not get the floating baby head."

She walked off.

* * *

Trixie's mind was stuck on one word: _Nope._

_Nopenopenopenopenopenope._ She quickly packed up her cart, got in, and made it go. She pressed the hidden levers and the cart rolled out of town quickly. _Nopenopenopenopenope._ She turned it up to maximum speed, trying hard not to even look at the forest or behind her. _Nopenopenopenopenooe._ She took out her stash of peanut butter crackers and started nervously munching. Her comfort food.

She took a marker and wrote on her map in big large red letters over the state of Oregon: NOPE.

* * *

Stan had been watching the arcade all day.

Nothing. Had. Happened.

His eye (currently the one that was under his eyepatch) twitched. He got the feeling that he had missed something. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was getting too old for this.

Scratch that. He'd been too old for this for thousands of years. That didn't stop Yggdrasil.

* * *

Idxvwlfruq qhjohfwhg wr whoo wkhp dqbwklqj derxw wkhlu srzhuv. Wkhq vkh ydqlvkhg, ohdylqj wkhp wr wkhlu fdnh dqg ylghr jdphv. Lw uhpdlqv d pbvwhub wr wklv gdb krz Oxqd kdg ylghr jdphv lq wkh 1700v.

* * *

22.11 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 176.1 continued.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 11: The Gideon Pile**

The scene before them was not the weirdest thing they had seen in the Loops.

Though it probably made it into the top thousand.

A tiny pinkie pie was bouncing on top of Gideon's head, with a bunch of Diamond Dogs strewn about everywhere overtop of a crystallized flower that had taken on the shape of Sombra only moments before. Around them were several gigantic deer and miniature elephants, and a few living giant stuffed caterpillars.

Oh and Pinkie was holding a flashlight with... Pinkie powers. That had somehow managed to turn the sky into a psychedelic pink and was giving everyone in the town illusions of flying manta rays.

Nobody was exactly sure what to do now. To everyone's surprise, Rarity ended up being the one to march up to Gideon and stare him in the face.

"Ah, my darlin' Rarity! Can you perhaps get me out of here-"

Rarity glared. "Don't you 'darling' me Gideon. I am older than you can possibly imagine, and am _way_ out of your league. I have been through the destruction of entire realms of existence and have crafted shawls out of materials that would make your mind explode simply by looking at them. I may not be as good at magic as many of my friends, and I may not have as much experience, but I still have the capacity and skill to control an entire planet should I desire. Such things are not ladylike, and I personally would never do such things under normal circumstances. You, on the other hand, seek to control me, to make me your own using your own power. Don't make me laugh. You know nothing of the arcane, nothing of true power. You are just a little man, Lil Gideon. And this is the last straw. I have been _extremely_ generous. I've let you go about your antics and pester us since that seems to be your place in this world. Well, I've had it with you. I already have a man, and he is so beyond you I expect that your mind would simply break trying to comprehend it." She glared deep at him.

Gideon blinked. "Darlin? Have you gone crazy-"

Rarity waved her hand, and Gideon disappeared in a flash of white light. The Diamond Dogs let out a bunch of painful sounding arfs as the foundation of the pile was removed. They scampered off in random directions.

"What did ya' _do_ to him?" Applejack asked.

"Teleported him to a random location on the planet." Rarity responded, fixing her hair. "I doubt we'll see that ruffian again."

"Ah hope you're right." Applejack responded.

The six friends walked off, deciding to forget all about the little kid.

Lyra, who was sitting in a nearby bush, had heard everything. Her mouth was still hanging wide open. Her body was not responding to any neural input. (What little there was anyway). She fell out of the tree with a thunk.

She came to with Pinkie Pie looking down at her. "You're awake!"

"Uh..." Was all Lyra could manage.

"You might want to keep that hush-hush." The pink human cautioned. "Rarity doesn't go off like that all that often. It kinda embarrass her. She prefers just to be a lady and not a powerhouse."

Lyra blinked. "Okay..."

"Goodie! Just go home and don't bring this up. I'll give you a cupcake for it."

Lyra slowly nodded. She stood up, looking at Pinkie. "Who ARE you people?"

"We're Loopers!" Pinkie said, giggling and running off.

Lyra just stood in the clearing, her mind trying to process everything.

* * *

The Doctor stepped out of the Tardis, into London. He had been exploring time and space for a while this Loop and had already found a whole lot of nothing. Sure there were a few aliens and magic here and there, but it seemed like this world was _boring_.

Unless you counted the Time Baby. But The Doctor had quickly decided that messing with what amounted to a literal deity of time would probably end with a Loop crash.

So he'd decided to come back to London, one of his favorite cities. Humans were always fun, always interesting. Maybe he'd find a companion and the "boring" cosmos wouldn't be so boring anymore.

"AAAUUUUUGGGGGH!!!!"

The Doctor blinked. "Is that a pig squealing?"

Gideon landed right on top of the Doctor with a squeal. The Doctor sighed, picking Gideon up. "So, they literally fall from the sky now do they?"

"What?" Gideon asked.

"Been a while since I took a non-Looper child on board..."

"What?" Gideon asked again.

"Perhaps I could teach him about life and the cosmos-"

"What?"

"Oh sorry." The Doctor said, grinning. "Hello there! How would you like to travel across space and time?"

Gideon quickly put on his cutest lil' look possible. "Aw, I'd love to mister!"

"Well then! Allons-y!" The Doctor dragged Gideon into the Tardis, not noticing the child's very _very_ disturbing face. A face that had stopped many Loopers dead in their tracks. It struck fear into the minds of many, making them shudder to their very being.

That _face_.

Not that Gideon knew this. In his mind, it was a perfectly normal face to make. Needless to say, Gideon was disturbing.

The Tardis dematerialized with a VWOORRRP VWOORRRP VWOORRRP.

* * *

Jlghrq zloo uhwxuq.. dqg wkh Grfwru zloo kdwh klp zlwk d exuqlqj sdvvlrq

* * *

**Compiler's note:** And the adventure continues.


	31. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Four of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-09. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Four of Eight**

22.12 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 176.1 continued.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 12: Too Much Nightmare Night**

Pinkie Pie shoved a calendar into Twilight's face. "NIGHTMARE NIGHT TONIGHT!"

"It's called Summerween Pinkie—"

"SUMMERWEEN TONIGHT! I'm gonna go out and decorate the ENTIRE TOWN!"

"Pinkie wait!" Twilight yelled, but it was already too late. Pinkie had gone.

Twilight took a deep breath. She nervously walked to the door of the Mystery Shack, and slowly creaked it open.

Yep. Pinkie worked fast. Already the entire town was decorated with a combination of Halloween, Summerween, Nightmare Night, and Chaos celebratory designs. It was even separated out into a pattern, the colors of each of the four themes creating a strange, almost psychedelic, image. Twilight blinked.

She knew this was just the beginning as well. Pinkie was going to set up events, recruit people to prowl around scaring everyone, and to continually resupply the town with candy. And since Twilight knew Pinkie had a candy star in her Pocket, that was not running out.

Twilight really hoped Pinkie didn't accidentally give out some of the more... _exotic_ candy.

She sighed, supposing there wasn't much else she could do at this point. She'd just have to go along with it.

* * *

Wendy stared at Pinkie. Then at the house in front of them. Then at Pinkie.

"You're just _giving_ us this funhouse to party in all night?"

"YEP!" Pinkie said, grinning. "And candy will periodically be delivered since you're not doing the trick or treating thing." Then her face went dark and ominous. "But don't think that'll keep you safe from the scares of tonight..." Pinkie chuckled.

Wendy gave a thumbs up. "Sweet! You know your ability to throw a party for the entire town is amazing!"

"I've been perfecting it for a long time. I think I could throw a party for the entire multiverse if the laws of Yggdrasil allowed me to."

"What?"

"You heard me." Pinkie said, grinning and bouncing off.

Wendy shrugged. Who cared if it made sense or not, they had a sweet place to party now. Much sweeter than Thompson's house.

She called everyone.

* * *

Night had fallen. Screams were had, pranks were executed, and Pinkie was queen of the town. It took just a half hour for all the others to realize that Pinkie's scares, pranks, and treats were much _much_ better than anyone else's. She had been seen prowling around town with flattened hair, a knife, and a _very_ convincing murderous expression. Some "victims" even swore they had actually been impaled and saw blood, but they had felt nothing more than a strange tingling sensation and there was no cut afterwards. Then of course Pinkie would brighten up and give them candy.

There were also cardboard cutouts popping out from everywhere, and what appeared to be real monsters prowling the streets, asking for CAAAANDYYYY. They never harmed anyone, and some even took part in the trick or treat phenomena.

And the candy Pinkie had going around had all the children happy and their mouths watering. The various groups of kids, teenagers, and adults that had fun had decided to put aside their differences and declare a prank war on Pinkie and Associates.

Pinkie single handedly defeated them by trapping them all in industrial strength toilet paper that smelled like cupcakes. Then subjecting them to a lot of "monsters" made out of leftover party blowers. They were released shortly afterward, and were no doubt trying to make more plans, but Pinkie was confident they'd all fail.

Pinkie was having the time of the Loop. Nightmare Night/Halloween/Summerween/Chaos Festival was always so FUN! CANDY! PRANKS! SCARES! She jumped into the air and did a five-minute jig before landing.

Twilight walked up to her. "Pinkie, do you think you are going a bit overkill? People are getting really scared—"

Pinkie pointed to her designated "Panic building" where truly scared people could go and be shown what all the "monsters" and pranks were. But only if they were actually scared.

Twilight blinked. "But what about—"

"I have a fear-sensing spell engraved on most of the monsters. They will hunt down those who are scared, but those who have the actually dangerous kind of fear will be left alone. Silly Twilight, you should know I have everything accounted for!"

Twilight blinked. "Really. What if some magical creature from this town actually shows up?"

"Twilight." Pinkie said, staring into her eyes deeply. "Of _course_ some magical creature is going to show up. I'm ready for it."

"You sure?"

"Positive. I'm saving a _special_ spot for him in the party." She laughed mischievously. "BYE!!!!!!" She hopped off, getting back out her knife and putting the crazed look back into her eyes. "TIME FOR CUPCAKES! YOU'LL EAT EM AND LIKE EM!"

Twilight shuddered. Pinkie Pie trying to be scary was actually rather terrifying.

She often found herself wondering why on earth people wanted to be scared once a year...

"BOO!" Rainbow Dash yelled, causing Twilight to fall over. "AAHAHAHAAH! Your face was hilarious!"

"Let me guess. You're working with Pinkie on this?"

"Of course." The 'harpie' said, flapping her wings. "She and I are planning to drop by Lyra's place in an hour or so. Sweet revenge..."

Twilight blinked. "I'd like to accompany you, see what she's up to..."

"Meet at the street outside her mansion. Ten o'clock. And we have no doubt she's expecting us, little observer that she is."

Across the town, looking through a super-high-resolution telescope, Lyra smirked. "Oh yes I'm expecting you-"

"How on earth do you know what they're saying?" Bon Bon asked.

"I can lip-read!"

"You got the telescope balanced enough to do that?"

"Yep." Lyra said, grinning. "I've learned more than a few tricks from my investigations in this town. I'm going to use them."

"You've laced your house with all sorts of traps haven't you..."

"Of course Bon Bon!"

"Lyra.... I thought you were going for the stealth approach!"

"They know I'm watching them Bon Bon. The time for stealth is over. Time to test them directly." She flipped open her large Journal, the one she had made herself. The dual hand symbol shining on top of the minty-green hard cover. She smirked. "Time for in depth investigations..."

Bon Bon sighed. "You're on your own. Don't blame me when they drag you in by the seat of your pants."

"I'm prepared." Lyra said, packing up the telescope and walking back to her house.

It was time to finally use her knowledge...

* * *

Pinkie, Rainbow Dash, and Twilight stood before the mansion. It wasn't an overly huge mansion, but it was a mansion nonetheless. A crest of dual hands hung over the main doorway, and all the lights were off.

And everyone sensed a rather large amount of magic coming off the house.

Twilight turned to the other two. "So... is there a plan?"

"Just stand there and watch..." Rainbow Dash said, bringing out the Journal, searching for the right page. "Time for some real tricks..."

Pinkie began drawing patterns in the ground around Rainbow Dash, chanting in what Twilight identified as one of the many tongues of Chaos. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings, blasting air on the design around them.

Rainbow Dash grinned. "Aaaaaand...now." She said. Suddenly, several dozen daemons of Chaos (most attuned to Pinkie) appeared around the mansion, moaning and striking terror into whatever saw them.

Twilight blinked. "A bit extreme-"

Suddenly, several spires on the mansion lit up with an eerie green light, shooting ethereal lasers at the daemons. The lasers just passed through. Rainbow Dash groaned. "Crap. She knows they're illusions. Are you sure we can't use real ones?"

"Dashie, these are supposed to be tricks. Using actual daemons wouldn't be sporting." She grinned, her hair going flat and a crazed look getting into her eyes. Twilight backed away on instinct, but calmed down when Pinkie winked. "Let's go in directly..." She cackled.

Rainbow Dash smirked. "Oho. What should I go in as..."

"The six-winged fallen angel?" Pinkie suggested.

"Ooo that's a good one..." In a flash of light she sprouted two more pairs of wings and gained an evil look.

Twilight sighed. "You two are getting far too into this."

Pinkie grinned. "I know isn't it great?"

"Pinkie. When you look like that, please refrain from looking excited. My reflex is to teleport myself kilometers away."

Pinkie blinked. "How would that fix anything?"

"It... gives me space to think-"

"But virtually all versions of me can just go places without walking."

"It gives me psychological comfort Pinkie! Can we _not_ have this discussion while you look like an axe-murderer?"

Pinkie shrugged. "Okay. Now. DASHIE! KICK OPEN THE DOORS!"

"OKAY!" Rainbow Dash said, flapping her six wings and launching into the door. The door bounced her back like rubber.

She glared, cracking her knuckles. "Fancy door eh? Prepare for destruction!" Rainbow Dash summoned an axe into her hand and began hacking at the door, only resulting in "boing!" noises.

Then Pinkie opened the door from the inside. "Hi!"

Twilight didn't even bother asking how she had gotten in. The three just walked into Heartstrings Manor. It was eerily quiet, save for a constantly creaking chandelier.

Pinkie and Rainbow instantly went into stealth mode, and began to prowl around the house looking for their victim.

Twilight decided to just investigate. She walked around, investigating ancient paintings and old furniture.

She walked into a library, her eyes lighting up. "BOOKS!"

* * *

Rainbow Dash had to admit, Lyra sure was clever. She had already come across several anti-magic runes, and more than a few "imprisonment" spells. She had avoided all of them, of course, and had shown those ethereal lasers who was boss. Though the pie to the face had gotten her...

She licked the leftover cream off her face. Still tasty.

She flapped into a long hallway, cautiously flapping forwards. She quickly found that the hallway was completely featureless, no doors, no windows, and no runes or anything.

It took about a minute for Rainbow Dash to identify the infinite hallway.

Great. She tried flying backwards, but two minutes later the hallway showed no sign of ending. She frowned. She punched through the wall, only to reveal another hallway. She twitched. "LYRA HEARTSTRINGS!!!"

Lyra was watching as Rainbow Dash tried to move around inside the illusion cube. She slurped her milkshake, and took notes with the other hand. She was finding the... whatever she was trying to be right now... amusing. She was prepared to test the next item on her agenda, bringing out a clock talisman. "Loopers. Older than I can imagine. Let's see how you respond to time—"

Pinkie appeared suddenly, slapping the talisman out of Lyra's hand. "THAT'S A BAD IDEA!" She said, staring deep into Lyra's eyes.

Lyra shuddered. That was an intense gaze. "Tell me why it's a bad idea?"

"Time spells cast on us tend to cause reality to completely reboot."

Lyra laughed. "There's no way you're that important to reality itself."

Pinkie shook her head. "You. Have. No. Idea." She tossed the talisman into her pocket. Then she frowned, letting her hair poof back up to normal. "Aaand now I can't scare you. Great..."

Lyra stood up, frowning. "I deserve some answers."

Pinkie was no longer listening, instead she was giggling at Rainbow Dash trapped in the illusion cube.

* * *

Twilight had found an old newspaper article.

" _Millionaire Norman Heartstrings, second only to Preston Northwest in terms of wealth in the area, has just married local Esmeralda Pines, local woodswoman. While the town is full of support for the young couple, a few are saying Mister Heartstrings is just taking advantage of the young girl. Of course Preston Northwest has another set of complaints, saying that "our kind should not socialize with the lower class." the Northwests and Heartstrings have been at odds for a long time—_ "

Twilight blinked, looking at the next article.

" _Under mysterious circumstances, both Norman and Esmeralda Heartstrings were killed in a car crash yesterday. The roads were clear and there were no obstructions in the road, and yet the car somehow managed to go off road and crash right into a large tree, killing both instantly. Preston Northwest called this a "tragedy" despite going on a rant last week about the Heartstrings. Little Lyra Heartstrings has inherited her family's wealth—_ "

Twilight sighed. A sad story.

And given the nature of this town and its secrets, it was probably much more in depth than these articles suggested.

She heard a crash and a scream from the floor above.

_Just them messing with Lyra..._

* * *

"—still no way you're that important to reality itself. That's an impossibility."

Pinkie was about to respond, but another voice spoke first. "She truly is full of herselffff...."

Pinkie and Lyra turned to see a creature that looked somewhat like a thin and lanky cross between the slenderman and a scarecrow.

"You have been taking over my holiday..."

"Oh you must be the Summerween Trickster!" Pinkie said, grinning. "I was wondering when you'd show up! How do you like the party? EVERYONE is involved in Summerween just like you wanted!"

"You've taken over my point in life... If there are no deviants who hate the season... there is no point to the Summerween Trickster... You will end the festivities."

Pinkie gasped. "END THE PARTY? Never!"

"So be it..." The Summerween trickster took off his mask, revealing his true form: a heap of living candy. Lyra and Pinkie blinked, mildly amused by the thing's shape.

"YOU WILL BECOME ONE WITH ME—"

Pinkie started to eat the Summerween Trickster. The beast screamed out in pain and... pleasure?

The beast cried candy corn tears of joy as it died.

Lyra stared at the carnage before her, shuddering. Insanity Points + 2.

Pinkie burped moments later. The two stared at each other.

Then they began to laugh. Laugh long, and laugh hard.

"That was a little crazy..." Pinkie said, snickering.

"Sure was." Lyra responded. She took out her Journal, ripping out a page of notes. "Anyway I suppose I did learn that Rainbow over there isn't smart enough to get out of an illusion cube."

Pinkie giggled. "She should be. Probably just getting stubborn—"

"BUCK THIS INFINITE HALLWAY."

* * *

Twilight, scorched, burned, and frazzled from all of Lyra's traps, arrived to the sight of Pinkie, Lyra, and Rainbow Dash playing poker.

"Hey Twilight!" Pinkie said. "Want to join us? We're playing secrets poker!"

Twilight blinked.

"You know." Lyra said. "Offering pieces of information if you lose?"

Twilight shook her head. "I thought we were trying to-"

"WE'RE FRIENDS NOW!" Pinkie grinned. "She and I bonded..." Pinkie giggled.

"Yeah." Lyra responded. "It all started with her giving me a speech about being a Looper."

Twilight twitched. "YOU DID WHAT?"

"Turns out she can handle it Twilight!"

Twilight's entire body shook. "Y-you do realize that the Journal says there's NO one you can trust???"

"Don't be silly Twilight! ...can _you_ handle this?"

Twilight stormed off in a huff.

"All in." Rainbow Dash said, grinning.

Lyra revealed a royal flush.

"BUCK IT!" Rainbow muttered. Then she blinked. "How do I pay off an all in bet here?"

"Tell me ALL YOUR SECRETS!" Lyra said, staring deep into Rainbow's eyes.

Rainbow quickly flew away. Pinkie began to relate most of Rainbow's secrets to Lyra at 9000 words a second. Though she left out ones she thought should be kept secret.

* * *

From a nearby hill, Bon Bon sighed.

Lyra had gone and made friends with them. That... that wasn't good.

She was going to get way too involved now.

She had tried to protect Lyra...

* * *

Orvh d mrlqw, lqvdqlwb srlqw! Slqnlh Slh, Vfl il! Udqgrp ukbph, rk ixq wlph!

* * *

22.13 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - apparently failed to be compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as of this writing.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 13: Lyra**

Lyra had integrated rather well into the group in the Mystery Shack. It had taken all of two days for Stan to "officially" hire her to catalog the Mystery Shack items. Lyra believed that the Mystery Shack, being out near the woods, was closer to the weirdness she studied. Which was true, more or less. She unfortunately discovered rather quickly that nothing in the Shack was real.

And she and Stan butted heads a lot. It was mostly a good natured competition. Mostly.

"Oh so you think you're all clever?" Stan asked, hands on his hips.

"As a matter of fact I do!" Lyra said, defiant. "This entire Mystery Shack is nothing more than a stupid hovel with nothing even remotely interesting about it! All the attractions are obviously fake, the posters scare people away, and everything is overpriced to a ridiculous level!"

Stan smirked. "Kid, I know how to run a business. I could make more money on vacation than you could running this place."

"OH YEAH?" Lyra said, glaring at Stan. "I bet I could make more!"

"You're on kid!" Stan grinned. "You're in control of the shack for a week. I'll come back with more money than you can possibly imagine."

Lyra grinned. "Got it!" She turned around as Stan walked out of the Shack. "I'm the boss now, and we. Are. Going. To. Make. Some. Money! AND STAN WILL FALL!!!" She let out an evil cackle.

Twilight sighed, telling Applejack to follow Stan and make sure he didn't cheat using money from his Pocket.

* * *

Twilight, Lyra, and Rainbow Dash were out in the woods looking for a _real_ attraction to use in the Mystery Shack.

Then had come across a strange goblin-like thing.

Lyra flipped her Journal open. "Gremgoblin..."

Rainbow glared, flipping her Journal open. "...a large green beast of the forest..."

Lyra looked up. _Oh it's on._ "...and they collect in large herds, which make them hard to capture or neutralize..."

"...AH!" Rainbow said, smirking. "But there are sometimes loners who are usually very much attracted to cheese!"

"BUT NOT BLUE CHEESE! Blue cheese turns them into their rage-filled crazy mode that involves destroying everything in sight!"

"But that can be counteracted by Catnip!"

"WRONG! Catnip is a myth, it only makes them feel like cats. CatTAILS are the ones you want to use."

"That's only the swamp Gremgoblins! The forest ones are-"

"QUIT IT YOU TWO!" Twilight snapped. The two stopped instantly. "We get it. You are very proud of the books you found/wrote and wish to prove yours to be better than the other. We get it. We get it. But while you were bickering, I already caught the Gremgoblin. So there." She looked into its eyes. "What's with those eyes-"

"TWILIGHT DON'T!" Both Lyra and Rainbow yelled, but it was too late. Twilight stared into the eyes, and her mind broke.

She knew nothing but fear. Fear, entering her mind. Fear, in every part of her body. Fear, in the magic around her. She began to panic, letting loose tremendous magical power. Rainbow tried to stop her, but was cast aside.

Lyra quickly flipped through her Journal, trying to find something to cure savage fear. Something-

Pinkie appeared from nowhere, reacher her hand right into Twilight's mind. She stopped her insanity, simply blinking.

"Pinkie, why are you in my head?"

"You were suffering from mental manipulation." Pinkie responded, focused. "It played on fear."

"Pinkie, I'm an old Looper. There's no way that a simple fear inducer could-"

"It wasn't just a fear inducer, Twilight. It took your memories and your knowledge and created your worst nightmare for you. You're lucky I was here to remove it, you would have gone on a craaaaaazy rampage that might've crashed the Loop if I hadn't." She grinned. "But you're fine now and we can use this as an attraction! FEAR THE FEAR!" She bounced up and down.

Lyra blinked. "Can we just use _you_ as an attraction?"

"SUREY-DOKIE!"

* * *

"So..." Twilight said, holding Lyra's journal. "I think we've discovered that Stan actually _does_ have a real attraction locked away here." She poked the carpet, scribbling a few notes. "Interesting..."

Rainbow Dash, who was standing next to her, was rapidly trying to adjust her mane. "Darling, can you just hurry up and figure out how to reverse the effects?"

Wendy giggled, her hair puffed up at odd angles. "How about we play Twister on it before we do that? CMON IT'LL BE FUN..."

"If I end up in Soos' body someone's going to get my foot in their rear." Fluttershy growled.

"Uh... I don't mind being in Soos' body..." Soos responded.

Old Man McGucket thought about this for a moment. "Dudes. You know what I think'd be best here? I think I'd like to be in the body of a pig. That'd be amazing."

Rarity crashed through the wall, dizzy. "Okay, so found Twilight. She was in Bon Bon's body and was lost on a mountain."

Lyra glared. "Well why didn't you bring my body back? I wish to be creamy again..." She glared at Twilight. "Told you investigating was a bad idea."

Twilight just shrugged, scribbling more notes. "We can use this rug in many fun ways..."

* * *

Stan and Applejack returned a week later, car filled with millions of dollars.

Applejack frowned. "And you made all this money without using your Pocket?"

"Yep." Stan said, grinning. "And you have that Element of Truthfulness or whatever so you know too."

"Huh." She looked at the money all around them. "I take it you have experience making money on vacation then?"

"Game shows. They're the same every Loop more or less and even in variants I already know all the answers. Also helps that I have figured out the exact right things to do to get in the shows... heheheh."

"Yer a diabolical man Stan."

"DON'T I KNOW IT!"

As the two drove up to the Mystery Shack, all seemed normal. The S was still missing from the word "Shack," the goat was still prowling around eating stuff, and there was a giant pink building behind the Shack.

Wait _what?_

Lyra stepped out of the Mystery Shack, a bright grin on her face. "Ah, Stan! Welcome back to the Mystery Shack!" She gestured her arms wide. "Now complete with Pinkie's Emporium and a true Mystery..."

Lyra grabbed the two of them and dragged them into the main Mystery Shack building. Stan's eyes widened. The place was... awe-inspiring to say the least. There were oddities littered all around the Shack. Strange crystals that defied gravity, a ceiling painted to look like stars, floors crawling with ancient symbols, and artifacts of all kinds laid around in perfect organizations. Some glowed, some moved, some didn't. Most of his original attractions were gone, replaced with unusual things that moved, twitched, or glowed with strange magic. There was even what appeared to be some alien technology left in a corner. Strange machines were placed in the walls at different locations.

Stan did note, with pride, that the Rock That Looks Like a Face was still there. As was the Thing That Doesn't Exist.

He stared. "Well. Impressive. I've got to hand it to you-"

"This is only the main building. Pinkie's Emporium has many more unusual objects. You're lucky, a show is just about to begin."

They were led out of the Shack and into the Emporium. Stan quickly noted that it was bigger on the inside, and that there were rows and rows and rows of seats, all filled with people waiting for the show to start.

"How are this many people here..." Stan muttered.

Pinkie appeared in the air in front of them, wearing a magician's top hat and an eyepatch. She grinned. "Welcome one and all to Pinkie's Emporium! We have all sorts of fantastical things for you to see! From the Gremgoblin to the Gnomes to the Dragons, we have it all! And now... I shall give you a show!" She waved her hands, sending pink sparkles everywhere. A puff of multicolored smoke surrounded her, and in her place was a pink pony with a top hat and eyepatch.

Which then proceeded to speak. "I have changed into my true form! THE PONY OF MAGIC! And for my next trick, you will all get PARTY HATS!"

Stan yelped as a party hat was placed on his head over his fez.

Suddenly Pinkie was behind him. "Oh look, It's our founder, Stan Pines! Give him a hand!"

The audience clapped. Stan grinned, waving at the crowd.

"AND NOW WE ARE GOING TO CUT HIM IN HALF!" Pinkie said. The crowd went wild.

"Wait _WHAT?_ "

* * *

"So I made five million... and you made... three hundred thousand." Stan grinned. "HA! I did make more!"

Lyra pouted. "I knew we shouldn't have spent so much money on the Emporium..."

Pinkie shrugged. "Consequence of not using Pockets. We just grabbed what we could. And I would have preferred having more than a week to advertise worldwide. Parties take a while to get around..."

Lyra shrugged. "Oh well. It was sure fun to try. You can have the place back Stan. I want to spend more time on my research now."

"You go right ahead." Stan said, looking around. "Step one: turn this place back into a tourist trap. We can't have any REAL weirdness going on here after all."

"Why not?" Twilight asked as she walked up.

"Reasons which I have no reason to tell you." Stan said, walking away. "You're welcome to try and figure it out, of course."

"Oh come on! Did your baseline self know?"

"That's for me to know and you to... not."

Twilight frowned. "I could just read your mind!"

"That's true. But that'd ruin the fun and you know it!"

Pinkie raised a hand. "What are we going to do about the worldwide Emporium party I promised the world every sunday?"

_Next week, in Roswell..._

"WELCOME TO PINKIE'S EMPORIUM! Now relocated for your convenience!"

_Back in Gravity Falls..._

"LYRA! Why do I have a secretary?" Stan asked accusingly.

"Bon Bon is perfectly capable." Lyra retorted. "Plus, I'm the one who pays her."

"Actually since I'm the secretary I kinda pay myself."

"It's my money though."

"Finance is confusing that way."

* * *

"So." Lyra said. "Bottomless pit."

"Yep." Stan responded.

"How long have we been falling?" Rarity asked, trying to style her mane.

"Three hours, thirty seven minutes, and forty eight seconds." Twilight answered.

Applejack looked up. "You think Rainbow got to the top yet?"

"Unlikely." Twilight said, looking around. "From personal experience going up is actually impossible because of a localized spatial phenomena. We should just wait and we'll either get to China or be tossed out the top."

Fluttershy was coiled into a ball. She had been somewhat nervous before, but now she was sleeping soundly.

"Ah sure wish I could relax..." Applejack muttered.

"RELAX?" Pinkie said, grinning. "WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO RELAX? WE CAN HAVE A NO GRAVITY PARTY IN HERE!"

Lyra nodded. "I can respect that motive. Shall I arrange the streamers?"

"YES. YES YOU SHALL!" Pinkie responded. The two started to giggle.

They continued falling. Stan was counting in his head how much longer they had. _Just two more hours of this... you can do this Stan... just two more hours..._

* * *

The day was scorching hot.

The heat was unbearable.

The Mystery Crusaders had managed to drain the Gravity Falls pool, so there was no relief there.

Yet, despite this, Soos and Lyra were covered up in mysterious hoodies and ski masks.

They stood in front of the clothing department of the mall. They nodded to each other.

"PANTS REVOLUTION!!!!!" They screamed, entering the store to free all the pants from their horrible conglomerate masters.

Bon Bon, watching from across the mall, facepalmed.

* * *

Lyra and Rainbow nodded to each other. Rainbow took to the air, while Lyra began to recite an incantation from her Journal.

The full grown dragon roared in objection to their attack, belching fire at them. Rainbow deflected it with a kick (somehow) and continued flying to engage the dragon directly.

Lyra wrapped up her spell, an icy cold filling the area. She smirked as the dragon could no longer toast them. Now all she had to do was-

She blinked.

Fluttershy was cuddling with the dragon.

"OH COME ON!" Both she and Rainbow yelled.

* * *

Zhoo wkdw zdv udqgrp.

* * *

22.14 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 176.1 continued.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 14: Mixed Signals**

Fluttershy decided she was going to have an easy day. Just sit in front of the TV, relax, and watch the adventures of Ducktective. Such an adorable duck. So clever too. Perhaps one of these loops she could teach a duck detective skills..

"Hey Fluttershy." Rainbow Dash said from the doorway. "Do humans have sounds that can change their mental state?"

"It depends on what kind of human. Some, yes. Others, no. It'll almost always work if it was a magic sound."

"Well we don't have a way to magic scan it and Twilight's not going into the past so... Yeah. Will experiment." Rainbow Dash left.

Fluttershy continued her day of relaxing. She ignored the advertisement for Princess Loveacorn and her eighty-two accessories. The Gak, however, was harder to ignore...

"Hey Fluttershy!" Pinkie yelled from across the shack. "There's a band playing tonight! Want to come?"

"No thank you." Fluttershy responded. Pinkie didn't push it.

So there was mind controlling sounds at a band perhaps? That was a tad unusual. She wondered what kind of band it was... Ah well her friends could take care of it. She was relaxing today.

A few hours later Lyra walked into the room, scribbling random things into her minty Journal. "Note to self— Bon Bon desires to go to the concert. Must take her." She muttered. "Also gnome beard doesn't taste that bad."

Fluttershy blinked, trying to process the information. So mind controlling music that Bon Bon wanted to see. And the gnomes were involved somehow. Weird. But it wasn't her problem today... Today was relax—

"THE! WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!"

And that'd be Rarity fretting about something unimportant—

"SHE'S STILL DATING THAT JERK? THIS MUST BE REMEDIED! COME ALONG DARLINGS!"

Wait _what?_ Fluttershy was positive that Rarity was all for all the relationships going on right now... What could have changed it?

Rarity, in a bit of a huff, walked through the room. Fluttershy spoke up. "What was that about?"

"Oh nothing darling, you enjoy your relax day. Heaven knows you need it." She smiled. "We'll take care of all of this."

Fluttershy was about to respond but Applejack ran through the room, saying that Candy and Grenda had gone mad. Fluttershy could hear Lyra scream and Soos let out a "DUUUDE" noise.

Suddenly the Shack was quiet except for the TV.

Fluttershy put the weirdness out of her mind. This only worked until the evening, when she heard her friends return. Though there sounded like there were more footsteps than their should have been.

Then she heard the singing. The singing of a boy band in harmony.

"Oh no! The mind controlling band must be here! I have to stop them!" She leapt out of the chair and ran into the attic, ready to defend her friends. She threw the door open, giving off the Stare. "YOU LEAVE THEM ALONE!"

Then she saw five identical grown men acting like sad dogs, backing away from her Stare and whimpering.

She blinked. "Uh... Sorry..."

Pinkie face palmed. "Fluttershy! We just saved these guys from a horrible conglomerate of cloning! We have to find a way to release them into the wild! I SHALL MARRY ONE OF THEM TO A TREE!"

One of the men blinked. "That sounds... radically weird dog."

Fluttershy blinked. "But... what was all the talk about Mind Control?"

"Oh Rainbow Dash and Rarity are trying to stop Robbie from mind controlling Wendy with music. They should be at the pier now..." A rainbow explosion went off in the direction of the pier. "Oh goodie! Something went wrong!" She giggled.

"And what about the gnomes?"

"Something Lyra and Twilight are up to..."

* * *

There was a very tall and stripy woman in front of the two of them. She glared at them. "What are you two doing here? Most avoid me out of fear."

Lyra backed away. "...witch..."

Twilight held up a hand. "She's fine Lyra. Zecora's a good witch. Right Zecora?"

"I am certainly a good bud, for I do not desire your blood."

"That's vampires." Lyra said. "Witches usually want our youth or something."

"As you can plainly see, my face is as youthful as can be." Zecora responded.

"I suspect dark magic Twilight..." Lyra said.

"Trust me Lyra, I know Zecora from other times. She's a good witch. People just misjudge her because she secludes herself in the forest."

Zecora waved them into her hut. Inside was what Twilight had come to expect from Zecora: weird plants, strange animal bits, claws, and eyes. And a giant cauldron, constantly smoking with some potion or other.

Lyra, while still cautious, had begun to take frivolous notes. Again.

"Do you have anything that could be useful to us Zecora?" Twilight asked.

"I have many potions you could use, even ones that could light a fuse."

"Something to protect the mind from attack would be nice."

"That is something I most assuredly have, just wait a moment while I get the salve."

"That wasn't a perfect rhyme—" Lyra began.

"Perfect rhymes do not a witch make, but it is what a poet desires to take."

"What?"

Zecora made a "huff" noise before applying the salve to Twilight and Lyra. Nothing happened to Lyra, but Twilight began to glow. Zecora's eyes widened. "Most interesting effect, indeed. I think I have just the thing you need." She threw a few ingredients into the cauldron, muttered a few incantations, and produced a blackish-grey potion. "Drink this purple mare, and your mind will be without a care."

Twilight shrugged, drinking the potion. She quickly passed out on the floor. Lyra gasped.

"Time energy she has a lot, more than enough for my pot." She turned to Lyra. "Leave now before it is too late, or I may put you on a plate."

Lyra flipped open her journal and began to incant a fireball spell.

"NO STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING? IN THIS PLACE SOMETHING LIKE THAT WILL BE OUR UNDOI—"

BOOM.

* * *

Applejack completed her round-up of the gnomes. Finally. All done with those little varmints... She rolled her eyes as Lyra and Twilight, burnt and blackened all over, crawled to her feet. Lyra coughed and Twilight was passed out.

Applejack sighed. "What was it this time?"

"Fireball spell in Zecora's hut." Lyra coughed again.

Applejack sighed. "You really should know better..."

* * *

In the Tardis, the Doctor looked at the sleeping form of Gideon.

Over the... had it been weeks? He couldn't really tell because of the paradoxes. Over the unknown amount of time Gideon had been here, the Doctor had noticed that the kid had many problems. A bit of a cruel streak, a desire to control people, and a thirst for revenge. He wondered what on earth had happened to this kid to turn him into this.

Perhaps he could help him...

Maybe he just needed to see the quality of life in the galaxy. See some true beauty. Drive the idea into his skull...

Gideon stirred. He was dreaming. The Doctor hoped it was a good dream.

It was not.

For under Gideon's bed, his mysterious Journal 2 was opened to a page depicting a strange single-eyed triangle laid in a wheel...

* * *

Guhdpvfdshuhuv lv frplqj.

* * *

22.15 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 176.1 continued.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 15: In Which Our Triangular Overlord Arrives**

" _HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHA-_ HA _-HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!_ "

Twilight awoke with a start, breathing heavily. She looked over at the sleeping form of her friends. All were sleeping peacefully. (Well, except Pinkie, who was probably just bouncing around in her dreams again.) Twilight calmed herself down.

She tried to go back to sleep, but something was keeping her awake. She wasn't sure what. She frowned. Dark omens didn't keep her up at night anymore, she'd seen enough of them.

So something must be toying with her. She looked around, glaring at nothing.

Perhaps she could ask Stan in the morning...

* * *

"Nope. Nothing creepy going on at all. Except for the brown meat. What's in it? Nobody knows. All you know is that you can stock up for the apocalypse for it. So I'm going to sing a song..."

As Stan and Pinkie broke into a song about "brown meat and the apocalypse" Twilight simply sighed and walked away. Stan was not in a hint-giving mood. She wondered why exactly he was trying to keep so much from them. He obviously got some amusement out of it, but she sensed there was more to it... What exactly was he going for?

Maybe she should try to read his mind.

She shook her head. That'd be rude and just uncool. Nothing to worry about...

* * *

Pinkie Pie ran up to the rest of the Elements and Lyra. "A TRIANGULAR SHAPED ELDRITCH ABOMINATION IS INVADING STAN'S MIND!"

"What?" Twilight said, flipping through the Journal. She'd seen something like that before... "Ah here's the page. Covered in blood." Twilight cast a decoding spell on the words and blinked. "There's a lot of information here... let's see..."

" _Bill Cipher. LIAR. MONSTER. SNAPPY DRESSER. Is he watching me?_ " Twilight paused. "The next bit's crossed out... _Bill has proven himself to be one of the friendliest and most trustworthy individuals that I've encountered in my life. What a guy! I honestly can't trust him more. Not evil in any way, Bill is a true gentleman._ " Twilight blinked. "Looks like the Author changed his mind... _BILL CAN'T BE TRUSTED! Beware Bill. The most powerful and dangerous creature I've ever encountered. Whatever you do, never let him into your mind._ "

"Well that just sounds wonderful..." Rarity said.

Applejack sighed. "Looks like we've got an uber-powerful trickster in Stan's mind. Great. Looks like we gotta help 'Im. Does it suggest any way to help?"

Twilight read aloud. " _it is possibly to follow the demon into a person's mind and prevent his chaos._ Something about _REFLECTIVES THE LADIES DOMESTIC_ and _DO NOT SUMMON AT ALL COSTS_ and... ah HERE we go! _One must simply recite this incantation: Fidentus omnium. Magister mentium. Magnesium ad hominem. Magnum opus. Habeas corpus. Inceptus Nolanus overratus. Magister mentium. Magister mentium. Magister mentium._ "

Lyra quickly scribbled down the spell. "I think I can cast this. Translates to "Confidence of all. Master of minds. Magnesium to man. Greatest work. May you have the body. Inception by Nolan is overrated. Master of minds! Master of minds! Master of Minds!" She closed her Journal. "Long spell..."

Twilight stood up. "Girls... we must enter Stan's mind and evict this being from his mind."

Rainbow Dash put on a serious face. "We need to go deeper."

Applejack facepalmed and Pinkie giggled.

Lyra had already begun to set up a circle of candles around the sleeping figure of Stan. "Here we go..." She said, flipping open the book. "It's likely that this spell will send off a serious surge and make my voice sound really _really_ creepy. Be warned." She took a breath.

" _Fidentus omnium. Magister mentium. Magnesium ad hominem. Magnum opus. Habeas corpus. Inceptus Nolanus overratus. **Magister mentium. Magister mentium. MAGISTER MENTIUM.**_ "

Everything became an eerie color as everyone's eyes began to glow.

Everyone opened their eyes. The seven of them were standing in a completely black and white landscape, with what appeared to be a run down version of the Mystery Shack.

"Stan's Mindscape..." Twilight muttered to herself, looking around. "Very interesting..."

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and took flight. "Time to find that triangle guy!"

" _OH FINDING HIM WILL BE EASY!_ " Bill said, suddenly appearing in all his glory right in front of the Shack's door. He was a golden triangle with a single eye. On his bottom half, he had a flat bow tie. He had two arms and two legs, both of which appeared to be nothing more than black lines he probably generated just because he felt like it. And on top was one of the most snappy hats in existence. A long, narrow top hat.

Twilight found it hard to read him, seeing as the only expressive parts of his body were his limbs and eye. No real face to look at. "Well you've just made it easy for us!" Twilight waved her... hooves???

She blinked.

" _HAHAHAH! THIS IS THE MINDSCAPE KIDS. YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM IT!_ "

Lyra, who was still a human, looked at the six of them. "So this is what you look like..."

Twilight shook her head. "I can still take you down like this!"

" _THIS IS MY REALM, MAGIC, I REIGN SUPREME. THE MIND IS COMPLETELY UNDER MY DOMAIN. I CONTROL ALL, INCLUDING THAT GIANT BACON-A-SAURUS RIGHT BEHIND YOU!_ "

Twilight blasted the dinosaur with magic, burning it. Pinkie leapt into the air. "BACON!" And devoured the roasted dinosaur.

" _HAHA! I LIKE HER_!" He turned to the rest of them. " _NOW I'VE GOT A JOB TO DO, SO WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A PARTY WITH LAUGHTER OVER THERE AND JUST LET ME GO ABOUT MY BUSINESS?_ "

"Not gonna happen." Applejack said, walking up to Bill. "Yer gonna get out, or we're gonna make you get out."

" _AHAHAHAH! I'D LIKE TO SEE YOU TRY! COME INSIDE TO THE PARTY OF NIGHTMARES IF YOU DARE! THIS LITTLE SHACK HERE HOUSES EVERYTHING WITHIN STAN'S MIND. HIS LIFE WILL FLASH BEFORE OUR EYES. WON'T THAT BE FUN?_ "

Lyra stood up, pointing at Bill. "I'm going to be the one to hunt you down!"

" _OH YOU'RE SO CUTE. HERE. HAVE SEVERAL VOODOO DOLLS OF SWEETIE DROPS, HANDS._ "

Several dozen voodoo dolls of Bon Bon suddenly appeared in Lyra's grasp. She squealed and kicked them all away.

Outside of the Mindscape, Bon Bon felt like she'd just received a punch to the gut. This resulted in her choking on her coffee and spitting it all over. Berry Punch was not amused.

Lyra turned to yell at Bill. "You sick frea—and he's gone."

Pinkie poked her head out of the bacon pile. "Oh? We're supposed to go find him aren't we. ON IT!" She ran into the Mindscape Shack, leaving everyone behind. Lyra groaned, and followed.

Inside the Shack there was no sign of Bill or Pinkie. What there was were hundreds and hundreds of doors. Strange nightmarish creatures crawled around, and everything looked very... unreal.

Something occurred to Twilight.

"This is nowhere near big enough to be the Mindscape of a Looper." She said.

Fluttershy nodded. "He's probably showing us and Bill his baseline Mindscape."

Lyra scribbled in her notebook.

"Um Lyra?" Applejack said.

"What?"

"You realize this is just the Mindscape right? Your book won't get any of those notes."

Lyra blinked, a look of panic rising on her face. "I'll... have to remember things then..." She twitched. "This'll all be fine... Totally fine..."

Applejack groaned. "Time to prepare for a freak-out..."

They continued on into the Shack of Memories...

* * *

" _SO HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT IT, LAUGHTER?_ "

"Thought... no not really I'm just going along for now. OO CANDY!"

" _HAHAHAHHA I LIKE YOU. BUT YOU SHOULD CONSIDER MY OFFER. WE HAVE A RARE OPPORTUNITY HERE._ "

"Can we spread parties?"

" _OF COURSE WE CAN! WE CAN ALSO CHANGE THE FACE OF REALITY ITSELF! THE BEST PARTY IN EXISTENCE!_ "

"That sounds fun!"

" _HAAHAHAHHAHA THE WORLD WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT IT!_ "

"Cool!"

* * *

"You sure you want to go?" The Doctor asked Gideon.

"Yep Mister. This is my home. It's been a widdle fun, but I miss home."

"Okay. Gravity Falls, right outside the Tardis doors. Have fun!"

"Oh I will...." Gideon said under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. Just wanting to go home."

And with that Gideon left.

The Doctor stared ahead blankly as the doors closed. He sat there for quite some time.

He probably should keep an eye on him...

* * *

"I'm Stan and I was wrong... I'm singing the Stan Wrong Song..."

"Yep. These are baseline memories." Twilight said. "We're not here at all. Instead there are the twins. Dipper and Mabel, if I remember correctly." She looked through another door to see Mabel riding a pig and throwing streamers everywhere. "Pinkie would like her."

Rarity nodded. "They will meet one day. We know they're Looping. All we have to do is wait. And find Bill..."

"He's a master of dreams." Twilight cautioned. "He'll probably hit us with nightmares. Lots of nightmares—"

" _OH LOOK, SHE'S A CLEVER ONE._ " Bill said as he appeared from nowhere. " _HONESTY, GENEROSITY, LOYALTY, KINDNESS, MAGIC, HANDS. BEEN A WHILE._ "

"It's only been half an hour, varmint." Applejack muttered.

" _TIME IN THE MIND IS FLUID. FOR ALL YOU KNOW THE HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE HAS ALREADY OCCURRED AND YOUR BODIES ARE BURNING CORPSES. OR IT COULD JUST BE TWO SECONDS. THE UNCERTAINTY IS THRILLING!_ " He pulled a watch out of nowhere. " _NOT THAT I HAVE ANY PROBLEM WITH TIME... TIME IS JUST A WAY I'M BETTER THAN YOU!_ "

Twilight frowned. "Do you have to shout everything?"

" _IT'S SIMPLY HOW I TALK. AND THINK. AND EXIST. I AM THE EPITOME OF CAPS LOCK._ " He waved his hands. " _NOW WATCH AS I MELT ALL YOUR FACES OFF._ "

Sure enough, Twilight felt her face melting. She shook her head. "This is just a Mindscape Bill. Nothing here is real, and we can do whatever we want, just like in a dream."

Bill laughed. " _CLEVERER AND CLEVERER! YOU'RE GOING TO BE MOST DIFFICULT TO DEAL WITH! AHAHAHAH! CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!_ "

Twilight blasted a magic laser at him. He simply absorbed it and shot it back out. " _AH THE PROBLEM HERE IS THAT WE CAN BOTH CHANGE ANYTHING WE WANT._ " The small triangular being slowly grew to tremendous size. " _ **YET MY MIND IS LARGER THAN YOUR OWN. YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN ROACHES TO ME!**_ "

Applejack glared. "Oh yea? I bet you are nothing compared to us."

Bill's eye twinkled. Twilight shuddered. She didn't know why. " _I KNOW MUCH MORE THAN YOU THINK-_ "

"HEY EVERYPONY!" Pinkie said, appearing from nowhere. "I JUST FIGURED OUT WHAT TO DO! All of us together, wish him out of Stan's mind!"

Lyra blinked. "That's... actually a good idea." She focused, along with the other six. A hole in reality appeared beneath Bill.

He sighed. " _ **ENOUGH.**_ " And the world went white, the hole in reality simply vanishing. He dusted his hands off. " _I MUST SAY YOU'RE CLEVERER THAN MOST. THEN AGAIN MAYBE IT'S JUST THE NUMBERS. BUT I'M STAYING UNTIL I GET WHAT I WANT, AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. I WASN'T LYING WHEN I SAID THE MIND WAS MY DOMAIN. I COULD GIVE STAN A LETHAL ANEURYSM JUST BY FLAILING MY ARMS AROUND, BUT WHERE WOULD THE FUN BE IN THAT?_ "

"There wouldn't be any!" Pinkie said, grinning.

" _THAT'S RIGHT LAUGHTER! SHE GETS IT. UNLIKE THE REST OF YOU._ "

Twilight frowned. "That's it. I'm just going to eject you with-"

Suddenly, the entire Mindscape began to shake. "What's happening?" Lyra asked.

" _OH NOTHING MUCH. JUST KNOW THAT I FOUND THE INFORMATION I NEEDED WITHIN FIVE MINUTES OF ENTERING THIS REALM. I WAS SIMPLY KEEPING YOU ALL DISTRACTED._ "

"From what?" Rainbow Dash asked, obviously angry.

" _YOU'LL SEE AS SOON AS YOU LEAVE! HAHAHHAHAHHAHA!_ "

Rainbow Dash flew into the air and attempted to punch Bill square on. He simply flicked her away, resulting in her slamming headfirst into the ground. "Ow..."

" _HHAHAAH! IT REALLY IS FUNNY HOW DUMB YOU ALL CAN BE! ANYWAY, GOTTA DASH. THINGS TO PLAN FOR, BIG DAYS COMING. REMEMBER: THE MOON IS MADE OF CHEESE, PINK IS THE COLOR OF EVIL, CURTAINS ARE DESIGNED BY DOLPHINS, POMEGRANATES! BYE!!!_ "

And the dreamscape slowly began to fade...

* * *

Twilight woke up. She was in her human body again. She shook her head.

Stan groaned. "Ugh... why do I feel like someone threw a party inside my skull?"

"YOU'RE WELCOME!" Pinkie said, grinning.

"I've got a splitting headache now..."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "Uh... why are we on the couch outside?"

They looked around. Sure enough, all of them were on the couch and dumped somewhere in the forest.

"Hey Stan there's a note on your back." Applejack said, ripping the piece of paper off.

"Dear Stanford Pines, I have stolen the deed to the Mystery Shack! NOW IT'S MINE! Toodeloo! -Gideon."

Rarity's face contorted into one of rage. "Girls, I'm going to have a talk with him..."

* * *

"So _that's_ what you were doing!"

" _I KNOW? CLEVER RIGHT?_ "

"I dunno. If I hadn't limited myself like you asked I'd've known."

" _BUT WHERE WOULD THE FUN BE IN THAT, LAUGHTER? TRUST ME. IT GOES MUCH BETTER THIS WAY. WE CAN MAKE A GOOD TEAM._ "

"I don't know... you obviously seem inclined to dark humor."

" _YOU WENT ON CRAZY DARK HUMOR ON SUMMERWEEN. YOU LIKE THE DARK AS WELL. PLUS I SEE MUCH OF YOUR PAST, YOU ENJOY ALL KINDS OF FUN._ "

"As long as nobody gets hurt."

" _BE HONEST. YOU MEAN AS LONG AS MOST PEOPLE DON'T GET HURT._ "

"Er... yeah I suppose..."

" _OF COURSE. NOW, THINGS ARE ABOUT TO GO DOWN. SHALL WE?_ "

"Okie dokie loki! You promised giant robot. There will be giant robot right?"

" _I KEEP MY DEALS, LAUGHTER. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS._ "

"Gotcha! Time to prep the party cannons!"

* * *

Rarity walked towards the Shack, face in a permanent scowl. She had no idea how long Gideon had been here. She had no idea how he got the Shack. She had no idea.

She didn't care.

Apparently being teleported across the planet wasn't enough to take care of him.

She was going to have to take more... active measures. Perhaps just freeze him in time.

But not before she had a nice looooong talk with him...

She paused. The Shack looked a little different. Mainly the two-story tall giant Gideon robot.

How long had they been _in_ the Mindscape?

She shook her head. It didn't matter. This boy was going to be taken care of. Locked away where he could bother no-one ever again—

Suddenly, several dozen gnomes appeared, pinning her to the ground. "Ah my darlin' Rarity! How nice of you to show up?"

Rarity didn't even bother. She squinted, letting out a blast of magic, launching the gnomes far away. "This is enough Gideon. You will never have me! Stop trying! What kind of power play even is this? Trying to win me over by taking over the Shack?"

"Oh there's more to it than that." Gideon said, chuckling. "Too bad you'll be too enamored by me to think about it!" He took a potion out of his pocket. "LOVE POTION GO!" He said, tossing it, causing it to explode all over Rarity.

Rarity simply cast a clear spell, glaring at Gideon. "That won't work. Now excuse me while I trap you in time itself—"

Gideon sighed. "I was afraid that'd happen. But I had a backup!"

"Giant robot?"

"No that's secondary backup. This is first backup.'

Several of the gnomes suddenly transformed into exact copies of Rarity. She let out a sharp breath. "Changelings."

"Yep!" Gideon said, grinning. "And they'll do whatever I say as long as I keep feeding them love potions! Such a nice arrangement."

Rarity tried to fight the changelings back, but they simply copied her attacks. She growled, realizing these were power-copying changelings. A lot more difficult to deal with. She needed—

"GIDEON!" A british voice yelled, as the Tenth Doctor appeared over the hill. "WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING?"

"I was really hopin' not to have ta deal with you..." Gideon said, glaring at the Doctor. "This place is mine! Rarity is mine! Power is mine! And there's nothing you can do about it, DOC."

"I'm not Doc! I'm the DOCTOR! Not Doctor Who, not Doctor Whooves, and not Doctor Whatever. I. Am. The Doctor! And I cannot let you do this! This is a helpless girl—"

"Doctor it's me. Rarity."

The Doctor blinked. "Oh. You know now that I think about it you do look like her. Wonder why I didn't notice."

"You do tend not to notice things, darling."

"But I also notice lots of things! Give me some credit!"

"If you insist. Have any ideas for dealing with these changelings and Gideon?"

The Doctor took a thing out of his Pocket. It went ding.

Gideon, Rarity, and the changelings just stared at the Thing That Went Ding. Nothing happened.

The Doctor flicked a lever. It went ding again. All the changelings returned to their default form. Rarity let out a blast of magic, sending them far and wide.

Gideon growled. "IT'LL TAKE MORE THAN THAT!" He pressed a button on a remote, bringing the giant mech to life. "I WILL STOMP YOU!"

The Doctor sighed, taking out his sonic screwdriver. A leg of the robot fell apart, causing the giant to fall to the ground.

Pinkie's party cannons went off. "WOO-HOO! ROBOT EXPLOSION!" And with those words, the robot exploded.

"OH COME ON!" Gideon yelled, face contorting in rage. "THAT TOOK ALL DAY TO MAKE!"

Rarity walked up to Gideon. "Time for you to go away."

Gideon whipped out Journal 2, opened to a very specific page, and began to chant.

He never got to finish the spell. Lyra jumped in, placed a hand on his forehead, and recited the spell she has just learned. " _Fidentus omnium. Magister mentium. Magnesium ad hominem. Magnum opus. Habeas corpus. Inceptus Nolanus overratus. **Magister mentium. Magister mentium. MAGISTER MENTIUM.**_ " She entered his mind, and got right to work, unleashing several devastating spells in mere seconds.

Outside the Mindscape, Gideon coughed. Whatever spell he was trying to cast was just interrupted. "What the—OW." He said, grabbing his mind. "WHAT'S GOING ON IN THERE?"

Rarity stared at the scene unfolding before her. Gideon, little kid, was apparently going mad right before her eyes.

"AHAHAHA that tickles wait NO MOTHER NO! NOT THE FACE! FATHER GET OVER HERE AND GIVE ME MORE ICE CREAM! Rarity,... Darling... help... BE MINE! BE MINE AND SUFFER—Oh my gosh that's a banana cake isn't it—"

"PINKIE!" Rarity yelled. "Stop her before she goes too far!"

Pinkie nodded, transforming into pink fire and entering Gideon's mind.

Lyra was inside, stomping all over the Mindscape, destroying "Gideonland." Lasers shot out everywhere, giant sweet rolls destroyed entire buildings, and the moon was falling.

Bill Cipher was there, floating. " _SHE'S GONE A LITTLE NUTS. PROBABLY SHOULD STOP HER BEFORE SHE KILLS HIM._ "

Pinkie nodded, grabbing Lyra by the arms. "Stop it Lyra!"

"He was casting a spell to kill everyone!" Lyra spat. "I should return the favor!"

"That's not how it's done!" Pinkie said, restraining her.

" _SHE'S RIGHT. YOU CAN'T HAVE FUN WITH DEAD ENEMIES._ " Bill observed.

Lyra growled. "Why should I trust you, you floating dorito!"

Bill twitched. " _ **LET ME MAKE ONE THING CLEAR: I. AM. NOT. A. DORITO.**_ " He took off his hat and dusted it. " _ANYWAY, NOW THAT THAT'S CLEAR, YOU REALLY DON'T HAVE ANY REASON TO TRUST ME. BUT REST ASSURED, KILLING PEOPLE IS RARELY WORTH IT. KINDA REMOVES ANY CHALLENGE OR FUN._ "

Pinkie nodded. "It's also not nice. You could always try to redeem them! Make them better! Perhaps get him some therapy or something!"

" _HE'S GOING TO NEED IT NOW..._ "

Lyra frowned. "I'll ask Rarity." She left the Mindscape.

Pinkie and Bill stayed behind.

" _YOU DO REALIZE IT'S IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM TO RECOVER FROM THIS INSANITY RIGHT?_ "

"Yeah..." Pinkie said sadly.

Outside the Mindscape, Lyra took control of her body.

Gideon was a blubbering mess curled up in a ball on the ground. "HEHEehheheheEHHEHe FUN! FUN! Triangles...."

Lyra turned to Rarity. "Do you want him to still be around?"

Rarity slowly nodded. "Even he doesn't deserve this."

"He was trying to kill you all."

Rarity sighed. "While I thank you for protecting us, it wasn't necessary. We would survive."

Lyra frowned, turning to Gideon. He was still trembling.

Pinkie appeared again, constituting herself from the pink fire. "Well. He's lost it. I'll call the asylum. Maybe he can get some help."

Rarity sighed. "This was not how it was supposed to go-"

Stan walked up, harrumphing. "The kid deserved it. He causes us more grief than you can possibly imagine. He should have been carted off to the Looney Bin long ago."

Lyra picked Journal 2 off the ground and stuffed it into her jacket.

Everyone stood at the smoldering heap of a robot in front of the Shack.

"I'm not cleaning that up." Stan said.

Twilight walked up, sighing. She cleaned it up with a flick of her wrist. "There. Done."

"Good." Stan said. "Now let's get this... man baby off our hands and get the Shack back."

Gideon twitched. "Beware... Eyes are everywhere..."

"Yeah yeah kid we get it. Now off you go." Stan grumbled.

There was silence in Gravity Falls.

* * *

Ehw brx zdqwhg d vhfuhw glgq'w brx? ZHOO WRR EDG! Brx mxvw jhw wr nqrz wkdw wkh frghv irup khuh rq rxw zloo eh yljhqhuh. KHKHK. JRRG OXFN ILQGLQJ WKH NHBV!

* * *

**Compiler's note:** The adventures are getting stranger and stranger...


	32. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Five of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-16. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Five of Eight**

22.16 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic: 16: Behold, party**

It was the dead of night. Technically it was morning, if 2 AM could be considered morning.

Stan was sneaking down the stairs. He had stuck super-powerful sleep agents into the sextuplets' food yesterday, but they were Loopers. He had no idea if they were immune, resistant, or just didn't need sleep at all. So he had to be _quiet_.

He stood before the vending machine, perfectly still for a few moments.

"Here we go again..." He whispered to himself, typing the secret code into the machine. The snack-dispenser folded out of the wall, revealing the stairwell into the basement. He closed it behind him.

He descended the stairs, walking into the elevator, and going to the basement marked "3."

The Lab.

He had seen this place so many times. He had gotten used to the weird poindexter stuff hundreds of thousands of times. He knew what all of it was, and how all of it worked. He could get anything here working in a matter of minutes.

He was going to do it the old fashioned way this time.

He took Journal 1 out of the desk, taking Journals 2 and 3 out of his subspace Pocket. He couldn't risk trying to take them from the mane six. They were too observant.

He would just have to do it at the right time.

He opened the Journals to the pages that, when combined, depicted what was by far the largest deceive in the lab. A triangular portal with a single circle in it.

He pressed a few buttons, using the Journals as a guide. He wondered why he bothered looking at them, he had it memorized at this point. Press this button, throw this lever, blah de blah...

The portal activated, the circle in the center shining a spotlight on him.

"Aaaand it's working again." He looked down, growling. Where had his pants gone? Why did they always inexplicably disappear when he turned on the portal? It was really _really_ annoying.

He took some pants out of his Pocket, putting them on and grinning. He took a heroic pose. "And now... we wait until the fourth of July. Time to get back to normal stuff..."

He walked out of the lab, and went to bed.

Far away, some secret government agents detected some energy readings, just like they always did.

However, something different did occur...

Celestia woke up with a start, breathing heavily. "It's happening again."

Luna made a "mhm" noise.

"We must go and investigate at once!"

"Mhm."

"Luna!"

"Mhm."

"What are you- oh." Celestia facepalmed, realizing that her sister was glued to the television screen. Something was exploding.

"LUNA!!!"

"Just one more minute-"

"IT'S TWO AM!"

"But-"

Celestia raised a hand, blasting the screen with a sunbeam. Luna's jaw dropped. "BUT I WAS SO CLOSE TO A HIGH SCORE!"

"Luna. I sensed the Disturbance again. I haven't felt it in thirty years. Something is happening. Something big."

"You said that when your birthday cake went missing."

"I mean it this time Luna. We have to go out and... and..."

Luna rolled her eyes, standing up. "Well, I'm going out to get a TV. Call me if you think of anything we can actually do. We didn't know what was causing the Disturbance back then, and we have no idea what's causing it now."

"Maybe it's those kids..."

"You're already watching those kids."

"But..."

Luna left the room, leaving Celestia to pout. There had to be something she could do...

* * *

The next morning, three girls were examining Journal 2...

And Lyra was freaking out. She held up Journal 2 to the page with Bill. "There is a wheel of symbols around him! Why is no-one else freaked out by this?"

"Seen it all before." Rainbow Dash responded, really wanting to look at a different page.

Twilight shrugged. "It actually hasn't been exactly like this before. Haven't had an ancient wheel of symbols in a while."

"BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN???" Lyra exclaimed, waving the book around. "I mean look! This symbol is the same one I put on _my_ journal! There's one that matches the design on Rainbow's clothing! There's a grappling hook! _There's a taco._ "

Rainbow Dash sighed. "This could just be one of his tricks, you know-"

"But I've _seen_ these symbols _everywhere!_ Stan's fez. The heart on Robbie's sweater. The six fingered hand on the journals! WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN???"

"There there.." Twilight said, patting Lyra on the back, trying to keep the girl from hyperventilating. "We'll probably figure it out eventually. How about we just worry about Pinkie's karaoke party right now?"

"Why would we need to worry?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Because. She's scheduled a performance in the Pinkie Emporium at the same time."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "She cloning herself again?"

"She says she's going to try to do it with just items found in-Loop. She assured me it wasn't going to be the copier."

Rainbow Dash blinked. "How is she..."

* * *

"Here's your butterflies." Pinkie told the gnome, handing him the jar.

"Heheh. Thanks there little pony. Didn't know your kind still existed in these parts." The shady gnome responded, taking his jar of butterflies.

"We're still around. I disguise myself as a human more often than not. Now I held up my end of the deal, so where is it?"

The Gnome produced a ring apparently made of diamonds. "Here's your thingawhatsis. Got it from the Wreckage. Don't tell anyone I was here."

"Okie dokie lokie!" Pinkie said, grabbing the ring with her mane. She slipped it onto her hoof. "Now... time to party!"

And she was gone.

The gnome took out the butterflies, stuffing them into his beard. He giggled. "Butterflies..."

* * *

Later that night, the karaoke party was in full swing.

"You enjoying the party?" Pinkie asked, saddling up to Luna.

"I am." Luna said, drinking the punch. (She had realized it was spiked about an hour ago. She didn't care.) "Though my sister is making it most annoying..."

Pinkie turned her head to the tree Celestia was hiding in. "Yeah it is a little awkward when they're trying to be sneaky but you know they're there..." Pinkie shrugged. "Gotta go!" She leapt behind a box, adjusting the ring around her wrist. She was suddenly in the Pinkie Emporium, grinning. "Welcome to the show! Now look at this gigantic bugbear and be astounded!" The audience cheered. Pinkie juggled bugbears for a few minutes, before diving under the stage and returning to the Shack, this time to launch some party cannons just as Rarity wrapped up her song.

Then she leapt back to Roswell to turn into a pony right before everyone's eyes and do a little jig involving chimicherrychangas.

This was her continual existence for the night. A nice challenge. Of course if things just started going wrong she could start cloning herself or using teleportation or any number of other things. But she was going to see how long she could keep this up...

While Pinkie was at the Emporium, a covert car pulled up to the shack. Out stepped two official looking government types.

The reactions were varied. Many people carried on as if nothing was happening. Luna made herself scarce, but watched in interest.

Rainbow Dash groaned. "Great. Agents... Always fun."

Twilight sighed. "I suppose we better go talk to them... hello misters, what brings you here?"

"I'm Agent Powers." A tall, older man said, flashing his ID. "This is Agent Trigger, my associate. We are here to investigate something of the utmost importance. We must ask, have you seen anything unusual around here?"

While Twilight was attempting to discern if these were Mulder and Scully type agents or the bad government type, Lyra was having a completely different reaction.

She stormed into the Mystery Shack. "STAN! THERE ARE GOVERNMENT AGENTS HERE!" She grabbed her hair. "We've got to burn all the evidence!"

Stan blinked. "You know I'm supposed to be the one that freaks out at this point, right?"

Lyra grabbed him. "We. Have. To. Hide. All. The. Magic. Stuff."

Stan nodded. "Of course... Speed cleaning! SOOS!"

"Yes Mister Pines?" The large man responded.

"Put up the fake wall, take out all the old attractions, and try to sell some government agents some overpriced shirts!"

"On it!"

"Lyra, you're with me. You're the cataloguer-"

"Actually that's Bon Bon. She's got everything organized."

"Whatever. She's not here right now. You're the next best thing. Find all the stuff and throw it down a trapdoor. And we just cross our fingers and hope Pinkie doesn't-"

The sound of Pinkie's trademark "NEW PERSON!" gasp was heard.

"-Do that." Stan said, rubbing his forehead. "We're doomed."

Lyra shrugged. "It gives us more chance to hide stuff. HURRY UP."

Outside, Pinkie was greeting the agents. "Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie! You may know me as the creator of the Pinkie Emporium!" She bowed, still in her pony-performer state. "You must forgive my form, the tricks are a bit hard to deal with over hundreds of miles." She grinned sheepishly.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight simply stared at her, slack jawed.

Trigger began to snicker. Powers turned to him. "What is that sound you are making?"

"It's a laugh." Trigger responded. "You should learn it sometime."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. I fail to see the merit in this sound."

Trigger face palmed. Powers turned to the girls. "Girls, you must tell us, have you seen anything weird around here?"

Twilight cast the silence spell on Pinkie, hoping the pink mare would get the hint to not say anything. "Not really, unless you count this karaoke party here. It's really weird."

The human form of Bulk Biceps and Manly Dan were having a "YEAAAAAH" contest on stage.

Powers blinked. "How is that weird?"

Trigger face palmed. "Sometimes I wonder why you're in charge of this division."

"I was told it was because I was not easily fazed."

Trigger sighed. "You, girls, no weird stuff?" The girls shook their heads. "Good. We shall be off."

Powers nodded, handing them the card. "Spread these around, anyone can call us if they saw weird things this way. Now we must speak with the owner of this establishment."

" _Establishment._ " Trigger emphasized.

Twilight tensed. Great. The inside of the Shack was undoubtedly filled with magical artifacts and things that would draw a lot of unwanted attention, and it was always annoying to deal with government types. She tried to think of a way out of this-

Soos walked up to the Agents. "Hey doods want to buy some shirts?"

"Why on earth would I want a cougar shirt?" Powers asked.

Trigger shrugged. "I think it looks cool, but I think it's a mountain lion."

"PUMA!" Someone in the crowd yelled.

"PANTHER!" Tyler yelled in response.

"TABBY CAT!" McGucket yelled. Everyone fell silent. McGucket groaned, walking off in a huff.

Powers shook his head. "We do not need to waste our time with pointless paraphernalia."

Stan poked his head out of the Shack. "Why on earth wouldn't you want to buy my shirts? Come on you two, come in, come in, a Shack of Mystery awaits...

Five minutes later the Agents had bought two-hundred bucks worth of useless junk, and and decided that there was nothing worthwhile in the Shack.

Stan and Lyra bumped fists. A job well done.

"Now we just have to find Bon Bon..." Stan said, looking over the crowd. "We need to recatalogue everything we just shoved into Pinkie's mane..."

Meanwhile, in Roswell, Pinkie reached into her mane to find a rubber chicken.

She found a skull of lost secrets instead. That had a bombchu in it.

"Uh oh." Pinkie said. She quickly tossed the object behind her, where it instantly exploded. It reacted with the eldritch walls, creating a strange fractal pattern which instantly turned everyone's head into cupcakes.

Pinkie sighed, waving her wand and changing everyone back. "Sorry about that folks, looks like I misplaced my rubber chicken!"

Everyone laughed at that. Well, those who weren't suffering a cupcake-related existential crisis.

* * *

"I wonder if we actually detected anything last night..."

Powers shrugged. "The techies can debate it when we get back."

" _Back_ " Trigger emphasized.

"Actually, you two won't have to go anywhere."

The two agents whirled around, guns drawn. Before them was a really short person, dressed all in black. Her pink and blue curled hair at her sides. She lifted her sunglasses. "You've been lied to."

"And just who are you?" Powers asked.

" _Who?_ " Trigger emphasized.

"The name is Drops. Sweetie Drops. And there is much more going on than you're privy to..."

* * *

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* * *

22.17 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 17: Lyra alone**

"Hey Rainbow Dash, I found out that there may be a hidden bunker beneath a tree in the woods, want to check it out?"

Lyra was greeted only with the sound of the harpie sleeping on a cloud.

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Hey Twilight, want to go exploring?"

"Can't right now Lyra." Twilight said, levitating Journals 2 and 3 in front of her, opened on the pages that seemed to connect. In front of the journals were many technologically advanced components, presumably from her Pocket. "I'm trying to figure out what this is..."

Lyra rolled her eyes. "You realize we'll need Journal 1 to complete that right?"

"Doesn't mean I can't experiment." Twilight said, moving the pieces around. "Maybe it needs to be bigger..."

Lyra shrugged, walking down the stairs. "Hey Pinkie, want to-"

"Sorry can't! I accidentally opened up a portal to the Warp in the Emporium and I have to clean it up! Want to join me?"

Lyra blinked. "Uh... no."

"Okie! Good luck on that bunker!"

"How did you- never mind." Lyra decided to try Applejack next. "Hey Applejack, how about some adventuring?"

"Ahm sorry Lyra, I promised Luna I'd help her distract Celestia for a while. Poor girl needs some relax time."

Lyra nodded, furrowing her brow. Well she might as well ask Rarity.

"Stan! Darling! Do you happen to know how long your bathtub allows me to soak?"

"Uh..." The old man said, scratching his head. "I really don't know. Nobody's asked that before. Feel free to experiment with it as long as you want."

"GREAT!" Rarity said, rushing into the bathroom and locking herself in. Lyra sighed. Who else could there possibly be...

Minutes later, Lyra couldn't believe she was doing what she was doing.

"Hey, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, um. Hi. What brings you here?"

"I was looking for someone to go adventuring with."

"Oh I'm sorry..." Fluttershy said, frowning. "I've got to help the Gnomes rebuild their house since the dragon burnt it down."

Lyra drooped. "Okay... I get it..." She walked away, entering the Mystery Shack. She knew Soos wasn't even in the Shack today. The only other person she could think of right now-

"HEY BON BON! I know adventuring isn't your thing, but think of what we could uncover in a mysterious bunker!"

Bon Bon gave Lyra the "really?" look.

"Oh come on! Fun! High adventure! Mysteries!"

Bon Bon raised her eyebrow.

"You never know, it might be fun."

Bon Bon frowned.

"You're going to convince me to stop this line of conversation without even saying a word aren't you."

Bon Bon nodded.

Lyra groaned, leaving the Shack. Then she frowned. Why did she need anyone anyway? She explored all on her own all the time before she'd met everyone! She'd solve the mystery on her own!

She took the page she'd magically photocopied form the Journal, instructing her in how to access the bunker.

It was time to go Into the Bunker.

* * *

The place was amazing. So many traps, mysteries, posters, and items fit to prepare a small group for any kind of apocalypse, be it nuclear, cosmological, or even the destruction of the planet. She noted with some respect that the entire place was filled with vacuum sealed locks.

The Author must've been preparing for something big to happen thirty years ago. Something big and bad. Did he stop it from happening? After all, the world didn't appear to be recovering from any kind of apocalypse.

She popped a mini sweetroll into her mouth, chewing thoughtfully. This was most interesting...

She found a door that led outside the bunker and into a large cavern, supposedly where the Author would keep experiments too large to keep in the sealed building. She ventured out, curious. She walked up to a glass cylinder that was cracked and broken. Whatever'd been in there was long gone.

Or it was still in here, waiting to slurk up her brains.

Lyra quickly took out her own journal, flipping to the pages that had quick and easy-to-use spells on it. She looked around cautiously.

Then she heard something roar. Something _big_. She whirled around, seeing a shadow of some kind of strange, tentacled monster. A really, really _big_ tentacled monster.

She shouted out the words for a fire spell, launching a jet of flame before turning tail and running.

With annoyance she realized she didn't have time to open the vacuum sealed doors. She ran deeper into the cave.

She could hear it chasing her. Making strange slimy noises. She grunted, leaping over rock after rock, stalagmite after stalagmite. Or was it stalactite? That thought caused her to lose focus and run right into a stalactite. She fell to the ground dazed. In her daze, she saw the shadow of the creature rearing up, ready to move in. Then the shape of a man attacked the creature, tearing out its tongue. The creature roared in frustration, and Lyra heard it scuttle away.

The man walked up to her. "Well, that was a little bit of a change to the routine. There usually isn't anyone to protect from the beast." He smiled, his strange mustache quivering. "Welcome to my bunker."

Lyra's eyes widened. "You.. You... YOU'RE THE AUTHOR OF THE JOURNALS???"

"Why yes my girl. Been stuck down here for a while though. The creature is most savage."

Lyra stared at him. "I have a couple billion questions to ask you, can you answer them all in sequence and as detailed as possible?"

"Not right now. The creature is on the prowl. I don't really have a way to stop it, I lost most of my research along with my Journals..."

Lyra frowned. "I don't have Journals 2 or 3 with me right now, and we have no idea where 1 is but..." Her eyes lit up, showing her journal. "I keep my personal notes in here! It's got spells and all sorts of stuff."

The Author's eyes widened. "Most intriguing!" He grabbed the journal, beginning to flip through it. He smiled. "Ah yes, I can use this. Come, I can get us out of here now. All we have to do is lay down this ice spell. The creature hates the cold."

Lyra nodded, following him. This was so exciting! Finally the man with all the answers! At long last!

...all they had to do was get out of here without being eaten.

Great...

"So, question... why did you make this place?"

"An enemy of mine was plotting to end the world. Obviously that didn't happen since you're here, but it was nothing more than a precaution anyway... Hey look! I found a tongue!"

Lyra found herself rather fascinated with how the Author licked the tongue to test it. "It seems... salty. Cook it to medium rare and there'll be a good meal." He tossed it to Lyra, who grabbed it, grinning. She was holding the next meal! So awesome!

It did not occur to Lyra that something was off. Fresh meat just randomly around a completely sealed off cave with no signs of life aside from her, the Author, and the creature? Completely normal. And who cared anyway she was with the _Author!_ So cool!

Then there was the sound of a door opening.

"Huh... I wonder who that could be..."

"Possibly one of my friends. They do know I'm down here." Lyra offered.

"We must get to them before the creature!" And the Author took off into the caves, bounding forward almost like a dog.

Lyra blinked, then shrugged. Then she realized something.

"HEY CAN I HAVE MY JOURNAL BACK?"

Evidently, the Author didn't hear her. Lyra sighed, running after him.

They soon came to the door, which was sealed once more. The Author was looking around, evidentially sniffing at everything. "Open the door while I attempt to figure out where your friend went... or where the creature is..." He sniffed some more. "Hrm... red hair. Interesting."

Lyra reached towards the sealed door, ready to open it. Then something caught her eye. "Why is it glowing blue?"

"It's a substance that keeps the creature from getting out." The Author said dismissively.

"..Then why haven't you gotten out?"

"The creature is usually guarding it. The thing isn't a fan of me after all..."

Lyra thought for a second. She decided the story wasn't that unusual, given what she'd seen in Gravity Falls lately-

Then she heard a sound. She looked down to see a tin can at her feet, displaying a mascot for some kind of bean product.

A mascot which looked exactly like the Author.

Lyra froze, heart racing. This was not the Author was it... She turned around slowly, to see the Author inches away from her face. "I'd really like to know where you got that can..."

Lyra began to chant, but the Author's arm changed shape into a strange gelatinous substance that covered her mouth. "Shh.... no loud magic here little girl. None at all. Just you, me..." He grinned, turning his other hand into a chainsaw. "And a chainsaw."

He - no it - began to chuckle as it raised the saw. "I can use your friend to open the door if I must, or I can just wait for the others to show up." He slowly began to change form, into a strange white creature that looked very, very alien. The red eyes blinked. "And all of them will die coming to save _you._ "

Lyra heard a "SHINK." The shapeshifter's eyes widened. He howled in pain, releasing Lyra. An axe had been embedded in his back.

"So..." The shapeshifter said, turning around. "The other one has an _axe?_ How pitiful." He gagged, indicating that he was really injured.

Wendy rolled her eyes. "You need to practice your pretending not to be injured."

"I am a shapeshifter! I will destroy you-"

Lyra cast the ice spell on him, surrounding him in a block of ice.

Wendy clapped. "Good job."

Lyra frowned. "I... I was completely fooled by him until you tossed me that can..."

"Don't mention it." Wendy said, smiling. "It was just teamwork. Now let's loot this place for cool stuff and get out." Wendy grinned. "I'm going to so deck out my room."

Lyra smiled, reaching for her journal. Then she groaned.

"Hey Wendy... think that axe can work as an icepick?"

* * *

As Wendy and Lyra took a while to tear Lyra's journal out of the Shapeshifter's very frozen hands, Twilight still held the two journals. In front of her was a very obviously incomplete device. It looked like two corners of a triangle.

"What the hay _is_ this?" She asked, cocking her head. "There's nothing on the other pages in the journals that suggest anything about it! It's completely different.." She frowned. "Wait... maybe Journal 1 is different than the others... Perhaps it's more technical..."

Rainbow Dash dropped in. "Hey Twi, what's up?"

"This highly advanced machine is buried within these journals. I have been able to deduce that it channels a large portion of magical and nuclear energy over time to do.. something to the fabric of reality. I don't know what." She frowned. "It's bugging me."

Rainbow Dash nodded. "I wonder what it could be..."

Pinkie popped up from nowhere. "Maybe it's a tool that unites long lost family!"

"Yeah Pinkie I don't think that's it." Twilight said, chuckling. "It has a more... scientific purpose, I'm sure."

Pinkie simply shrugged, bouncing off.

* * *

dfrp mk twwx gffuerxwk bt mlv lyut emaptk xysu swi cuwbl.

* * *

22.18 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 18: Sock War**

"Well yesterday surely was interesting." Rainbow Dash said.

"Eeyup." Applejack responded, sipping her drink.

"Do you think that Sunset's okay?"

"She can take care of some pathetic golf ball people."

"You sure?"

"Pretty sure." Applejack said, downing her drink.

Rainbow Dash shrugged. "If you say so..."

Meanwhile, in the mini golf course-

"Can I go now? Pacifica probably needs me-"

"NEVER!!!" Franz said, holding up a tiny pencil. "YOU WILL WATCH OUR CHOREOGRAPHED DANCES FOR ETERNITY!"

Sunset sighed.

Back at the Shack, Rainbow rolled her eyes. "At least Pacifica isn't a complete jerk."

Applejack shrugged. "Still not a fan of her."

"She's not a fan of you either. But at least she's not the epitome of evil." Rainbow Dash frowned. "Though she doesn't seem to care about her family being founded on a fraud..."

Applejack shrugged.

Twilight ran into the room. "Rainbow Dash! Now is the time!"

"For what?"

"Lyra brought back a password-protected laptop from the Bunker. We're going to hack into it."

Rainbow Dash's eyes lit up. "Answers... A laptop possibly created by the Author... Gimme that." Rainbow said, grabbing the laptop and typing things in. "Password... Journal3... Journals..." Each password was promptly rejected by the computer. Rainbow Dash frowned. "Have a password spell Twilight?"

"Already tried it. It's enchanted."

Rainbow Dash cracked her knuckles. "I'm so going to get in here and find out all the answers... HEY LYRA WANT TO HELP?"

Twilight shook her head. "Lyra and Wendy are off adventuring, doing who knows what. Just you and me right now."

Rainbow shrugged. "Their loss... can't wait to crack the mysteries of this thing. It could have the information on Journal 1! Maybe it tells us what the device is! SO MANY ANSWERS!!!!"

* * *

Pinkie grabbed a random book off the shelf. "Here's one on codes and secrets."

Rainbow groaned. "We're getting nowhere! Nothing! Nothing is helping! How are we going to hack into this thing?" She facedesked.

Twilight frowned. "I don't know..." She frowned. "Perhaps we should sleep on it, come back to it tomorrow."

Rainbow shook her head. "I am going to solve this if it kills me! Then I'll try again next loop! I'm going to get this done!"

Twilight blinked. "Rainbow? You okay? You've gotten... oddly attached to this."

"Twilight, you know I don't let anything beat me. And this laptop isn't going to be an exception!"

Twilight facehooved. "Good luck then. I'm going to go get some sleep-"

Their conversation was interrupted by the shrill sound of Pinkie getting angry. "You _dare_ suggest that _YOU_ could throw a better puppet party than the ' _uncivilized hovel_ ' I obviously would come up with?"

Pinkie was steaming mad, glaring at some kid with blonde hair in a ponytail. On his hands were two puppets. "Of course, my puppet shows are supreme. Just look at what I threw together in five minutes, a two puppet show with a curtain and a sound system. You just pulled out a marshmallow."

"But marshmallows can be eaten afterwards!"

"Eating isn't the point of a _puppet_ show. Puppet shows are an _art..._ "

"That's it. This Friday in the Auditorium I am going to have a puppet show the likes of which the world has never seen. And you. Will. Be. Impressed. I am Pinkie Pie, founder of the Pinkie Emporium! You have no idea who you've just challenged!"

"I've been to the Pinkie Emporium. Was lame. Lack of puppet shows."

Pinkie's pupils shrunk to a tiny size. She twitched. She walked away slowly before she did anything... hasty. "Friday..." She said. She turned to Twilight. "I'm sorry guys I've got to show this blonde-haired puppeteer that Pinkie is the master of _all kinds of parties, INCLUDING PUPPETS._ " She ran off.

Twilight blinked.

Rainbow tried another password. A BEEP indicated she was incorrect yet again. Another facedesk occurred.

* * *

It was well past midnight. Rainbow was getting really tired, but she had become completely focused on the laptop. This was rather unlike her, quite frankly, to be typing password after password into a laptop. She had become fixated. She would not let it defeat her.

She was using both her hands and her wings, typing up a storm.

Only eight characters. She would eventually just find it.

But, deep down, she expected there was some kind of narrative causality in effect that prevented her from simply finding it by randomly typing things.

She groaned. She was going to need some help. But who would know...

She blinked. Standing in front of her was a familiar triangular shape.

" _YOU CALLED?_ "

Rainbow Dash squinted. "You. I didn't call you."

" _AH AH AH BUT I KNOW THE ANSWER LOYALTY! I CAN HELP YOU WITH YOUR LITTLE LAPTOP PREDICAMENT._ "

"It can't be that easy."

" _FINE HAVE IT YOUR WAY, I'LL JUST GIVE YOU A HINT. BUT YOU NEED TO GIVE ME SOMETHING IN EXCHANGE._ "

"Yeah no deal." Rainbow Dash said, folding her hands. "Not a fan of you at the moment."

Bill shrugged. " _YOUR LOSS. I HAVE ALL THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE UNIVERSE, AND A BIT FROM BEYOND, AND YOU'RE TURNING ME DOWN._ "

"Yeah. Obviously. You think I'm stupid?"

" _YES. BUT THIS CHOICE IS FAR FROM A STUPID ONE. YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT, I GET WHAT I WANT-_ "

"Get lost Dorito."

Bill looked angry for a few seconds, then shrugged. " _OH WELL. BY THE WAY, HERE'S MY IMPRESSION OF YOU IN A FEW SECONDS: ZZZZZZZZZZ WHA- OW!_ "

" _ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ_ " Suddenly, Rainbow Dash woke up with a "Wha?" She bonked her head on the overhang. "OW!"

She frowned. "He thinks he's very hilarious doesn't he..."

And she got back to work on the laptop.

* * *

"PEOPLE!" Pinkie announced. "WE NEED THE BIGGEST, BESTEST, MOST MIND BLOWING PUPPET PARTY OF ALL TIME." She grinned one of her creepy grins. "I've already rented out the Auditorium. We have it for Friday. There will be lasers, giant stuffed animals, dragons, wars, and an epic story of an ancient race that preceded the puppets! A RACE WITH FINGERS!"

Lyra raised an eyebrow. "Why does that seem familiar?"

Rarity rolled her eyes. "It's the tale of "Ancient Humans" in Equestria. Some Loops it's true, some Loops it's not."

"Oh, I have a similar theory. I call it Ancient Horses."

Rarity facehooved. "Of course you do."

Pinkie raised her hand. "I will be performing as a human rather than the normal pony performer I've been using. And I will have Twilight running the mechanics and the ropes and the pulleys and the special effects."

Twilight gave a thumbs up as she tinkered with an overly complicated pulley system.

"Lyra will be writing the script because Rainbow Dash is sleep deprived, Rarity will be making costumes, and the rest of everyone available will be spreading the word! THIS WILL BE A LEGENDARY SHOW! And Gabe will be forced to concede that I know how to run a puppet show!"

Twilight rolled her eyes. Sure, Pinkie was going a bit overboard. But this would be fun. It would no doubt be a puppet show to be remembered...

* * *

"Rainbow..." Twilight said, cocking her head.

"I WASN'T NAPPING! I was... resting my face on the screen. That's what. Trying to have the knowledge of the password float through my skull by process of diffusion. Yeah."

Twilight sighed. "Rainbow you know better than this! You _know_ you need sleep!"

"Nah." Rainbow said, pulling a caffeine pill out of her pocket and shoving it into her mouth. "I've got supplies. I just forgot to take them."

Twilight blinked, rolling her eyes. "That's it, you've been like this for days. Goodnight Rainbow Dash."

"Wha-" Rainbow didn't even have time to register the sleep spell.

She woke up in dream land. "Oh horsefeathers..." She looked around, realizing the dreamscape looked almost exactly like her room-

" _HELLO THERE LOYALTY, HOW'S IT GOING? HACKED ANY LAPTOPS LATELY? READY TO BECOME THE BEST SECURITY TESTER KNOWN TO MAN? HOW'S ABOUT I CALL MY AGENT, SEE IF HE CAN HOOK YOU UP TO REALITY SO YOU CAN BEND IT TO YOUR WILL!_ " Bill descended into crazy laughter.

"Look can you just get lost?" Rainbow Dash grunted.

" _YEAH NOT HAPPENING. UNFORTUNATELY FOR YOU I'M ALWAYS IN YOUR DREAMS. AND OOOH BOY DID I GET SOME NICE SNAPSHOTS! OVER THE COURSE OF THIS SUMMER!_ "

Rainbow Dash paled. "How much did you see?"

" _ALL OF IT. INCLUDING THE LEPRECHAUNS AND THE CHERRIES. AND DISCORD'S ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL SENSE OF FASHION. NOT TO MENTION-_ "

"Shut up. Please."

" _HRM... NAH. IT'S MORE FUN THIS WAY._ " Bill floated over to the laptop, looking at it. " _YOU KNOW I'D STOP BUGGING YOUR DREAMS IF YOU JUST ACCEPTED MY DEAL. I'LL GIVE YOU A HINT TO HELP SOLVE THE MYSTERIES OF THIS TOWN AND I'LL GET OUT OF YOUR DREAMS FOR SOMETHING SMALL IN RETURN._ "

"Not happening, I still have time-"

Bill extended his finger and typed in a seemingly random string of numbers into the laptop. " _OH LOOK, I'VE ARMED THE SELF DESTRUCT. THE ONLY WAY TO STOP IT IS TO TYPE IN THE CORRECT PASSWORD! I WONDER WHO WOULD KNOW THAT..._ "

Rainbow Dash's pupils shrunk. "Oh no..."

Bill extended his hand, lighting it up with blue fire. " _I SAY YOU HAVE ABOUT TWO MINUTES. SO WHAT ABOUT IT LOYALTY? ALL I NEED IS ONE OF YOUR SIBLING'S PUPPETS._ "

Rainbow Dash's face contorted into a rather confused expression. "You just want to sabotage the puppet show? How..." She shook her head. "Nevermind, you can have one." She extended her hand.

Bill shook it, the fire engulfing the two. " _NOW WE HAVE A DEAL! SO NOW WHICH PUPPET DO I WANT..._ "

"How about that one?" Rainbow Dash said, pointing to a random one on the ground. "Hurry that laptop is going to explode."

" _THIS IS A DREAM, LOYALTY, THAT LAPTOP ISN'T EVEN REAL._ "

Rainbow Dash sputtered before face palming. "That... should have been obvious."

" _NOW WHICH PUPPET DO I WANT... I WANT ONE THAT'S IMPORTANT... ONE THAT'S VERY USEFUL... ONE THAT WOULD DO ALMOST ANYTHING FOR THEIR SISTERS, NO QUESTIONS ASKED..._ "

Rainbow Dash turned to stare right at Bill. "Wait _what?_ "

Bill cackled, grabbing Rainbow Dash's head. " _GUESS WHAT? I CHOOSE YOU!_ "

In a split second, Rainbow Dash felt a tremendous psychic assault on her mind. She attempted to resist, forcing herself awake and entering alicorn form almost instantly. She put up as many mind-protection spells as she could think of within an instant. And she made sure she wasn't just going to let him in without a fight. She gritted her teeth.

She heard him laugh, and then her determination wavered as all those spells were shattered in an instant. She felt herself torn from her body, launched into the spiritual plane. She watched with horror as her now-alicorn body stood up, eyes glowing yellow. The pupils were unnatural. Bill began to laugh. " _THIS IS AWESOME! NEVER HAD THIS KIND OF BODY BEFORE! AND WINGS TOO! WITH MAGIC! THIS IS STATE OF THE ART!_ "

"Hey!" Rainbow Dash said, steaming. "You give that back! It's mine!"

" _WE MADE A DEAL, LOYALTY!_ "

"Oh yeah? Where's my hint?"

Bill grabbed the laptop and broke it under his hooves. " _THERE'S YOUR HINT._ "

"Hey! That's not a hint!"

" _YOU SHOULD LEARN LOYALTY THAT I ALWAYS KEEP MY DEALS. YOU HAVE YOUR HINT. AHAHAHAHHAHAH!_ " With that laugh, Bill clapped his front hooves together, turning into a harpie form. " _THIS WILL BE MUCH MORE PREFERABLE. NOW... WHAT AM I GOING TO DO_ THIS _TIME?_ "

"What do you mean this time?"

Bill turned to look Rainbow Dash right in the eye. " _DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I COULD KICK YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND WITHOUT BEING LOOP AWARE? COME ON LOYALTY, EVEN I DIDN'T THINK YOU WERE THAT DUMB._ "

Rainbow Dash paled. "Crap. Not one of you."

" _YES ONE OF ME! ISN'T IT GREAT WHEN THERE'S NO WAY TO PREDICT SOMETHING? IT MUST MAKE YOUR LIVES MUCH MORE INTERESTING!_ "

Rainbow growled. "I'll stop you!" She rushed towards him, punching.

Bill laughed. " _YOU'RE JUST A SPIRIT NOW. AND IN THIS UNIVERSE, THAT DOESN'T LET YOU HAVE A FANCY SWORD THE SIZE OF YOUR ENTIRE BODY. YOU CAN DO NOTHING. AND I CAN DO STUFF LIKE THIS!_ " Bill waved a hand, causing a strange bear-trap-like mechanical device to appear.

" _HOW'S ABOUT... I DESTROY THE JOURNALS WITH THIS DEVICE SEEMINGLY DESIGNED TO DESTROY NOTHING BUT BOOKS?_ "

Rainbow Dash blinked. ...Why? Why a _bear trap?_

" _NOW I'M OFF TO TURN SOME BOOKS INTO SCOOTERS! SEE YOU!_ " And with that, Bill flew out the window.

Rainbow Dash groaned. She was a spirit. That couldn't do anything. She floated down to the bottom floor of the Shack, waving her hooves. "TWILIGHT?"

Twilight just walked through her. Rainbow face palmed. Great. She couldn't sense her....

Maybe Pinkie could. It was worth a shot. She should be right over-

"TIME TO GO TO THE AUDITORIUM EVERYONE!" Pinkie yelled from a... train. A train that didn't exist two hours ago.

Rainbow attempted to get on the train, but it barreled away at Pinkie Pie speed. From the back of the train, she could see Bill. Bill in _her_ body, waving at her with a rather amused look on his face.

Rainbow Dash went red with rage, and flew after them.

* * *

"Rainbow what are you doing with all that stuff?"

"Sifting through my Pocket." Bill said in a completely normal voice, lying through his teeth. He couldn't access the Pocket, he was just using spells to make things appear. "Seeing what there is. It's a real mess in there."

Twilight walked into the back of the train car, spitting out a drink. "RAINBOW? What are you doing here? I put you to sleep!"

"And I woke up." Bill said, twirling a golden cane. "What's your point?"

Twilight sputtered. Then she sighed. "You had an anti sleep charm active didn't you?"

Bill grinned, quickly causing an anti-sleep charm to come into existence. "I have a few of these."

Lyra looked at her. "Hey could I get one of those?"

"Sorry hands, all under my control right now. Perhaps you could come talk to me later."

Lyra groaned. "Why does everyone seem to think that I have to be fascinated with hands? _Why?_ "

Bon Bon rolled her eyes. "Because you're fascinated with just about everything."

Bill looked out the back window at Rainbow Dash's very invisible spirit. He giggled. She wasn't going to be able to do _anything._

He always enjoyed toying with them.

* * *

Pinkie pressed a button, and it all set up instantly. Show time was in less than a minute.

She grinned. This was going to be the best ever! Amazing! Phenomenal! Outstanding! And she was going to show that Gabe who was boss... Oooooooh yes...

She revved up the engine for the special effects. "LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED PEOPLE!"

At the edge of the stage, Bill set down the book eating device that looked oddly like a bear trap. He wound it up, and let it loose. He grinned. It would find all the Journals and eat them. And-

"ACK! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!" Rarity pointed at the machine and cast a magic missile at it, causing the sharp robot to explode.

Bill's eye twitched. There was more - "yawn" - where that came from. He caught himself yawning. Can't be shoved out of a body simply by getting exhausted now, that would be foolhardy. Needed to come up with another idea... A way to get Journal 1, 2, and Lyra's all at once without looking suspicious...

He grinned. He'd make it look like part of the _play_ had gone wrong. And from a recent excursion into Lyra's mind he knew exactly when the real industrial strength lasers were going to come in... This would be great!

He just had to be up there during act 2...

Sure enough, as act 2 came, he found himself on top of the balcony, ready to activate the Journal-incinerating lasers. All three of them were in this building-

"It was really clever, making sure you didn't trigger my Pinkie Sense."

Bill froze. Then he let out a laugh. " _WHY PINKIE, YOU KNOW I'M PLAYING A GAME HERE, AND I HAD TO TAKE SPECIAL MEASURES FOR YOU._ "

Beside Pinkie the spirit of Rainbow Dash floated up. "You're not going to get any of those Journals, Dorito."

Bill turned to Pinkie. " _I KNOW YOU CAN'T SEE HER. HOW'D YOU KNOW?_ "

"Well, Rainbill Bash, she had to possess my tail and make it twitch. Then I'd realized I hadn't felt my Pinkie Senses in a long time, almost all week. So I knew something was wrong. It wasn't that hard to find you after that."

Bill shrugged. " _YOU ARE MOST INTERESTING, PINKIE PIE. BUT ALL I HAVE TO DO IS PRESS THIS BUTTON-_ "

Pinkie was suddenly standing in top of the laser machine, somehow having already driven a stake through it. "You were saying?"

Bill groaned. " _THIS. THIS IS WHY I HATE BEING STUCK IN THE MINDSCAPE._ " He shrugged. " _OH WELL I CAN JUST SHOOT THEM MYSELF I SUPPOSE. I CAN PROBABLY LASER ONE OR TWO WITH MY OWN POWER BEFORE ANYONE REALIZES WHAT'S UP. I SHALL RAIN DOWN FIERY NACHO CHEESE!_ " As "Rainbill Bash" raised his (her? its?) hands, it seemed as if lightning crackled.

Then Pinkie tackled the body to the ground, and began talking at several thousand words a second. "And so then I thought "Arrows? Why arrows? It's like oatmeal! We need a big load of the things before we can even consider providing Lyra her pants which reminds me we need to make jeggings and socks a thing for the masses to enjoy along with balloons and parties and cake and caffeine and happy fun-"

Bill blinked. " _WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING? HOW DOES THIS-_ "

He saw the spirit of Rainbow Dash holding her ears in pain. "Make it stop..."

Bill sighed. " _WELL CRAP. THIS BODY CAN'T HANDLE THE NOISE. HEY LOYALTY, YOUR CAPACITY TO HANDLE YOUR OWN FRIEND'S BANTER SUCKS._ "

"Too... much... talking..."

Bill felt himself tossed from the body. He sighed. He was just _talked_ out of it. It didn't even make logical sense.

Then again, he supposed that was why he liked Pinkie Pie. He shrugged.

" _I'M COMING BACK, AND WHEN I DO, I WON'T BE INCONVENIENCED SO EASILY!_ "

Then he vanished from the material realm.

Rainbow Dash managed to crawl back into her body, groaning. "I... I need sleep..."

"Yes. Yes you do." Twilight cast the sleep spell again. Rainbow Dash began to sleep (and snore) soundly.

Pinkie grinned. "Yay another problem solved!"

"THAT PUPPET SHOW SUCKED!" Gabe yelled from the crowd.

"TALK TO THE PARTY CANNON YOU UNAPPRECIATIVE HOOFBAG!"

BLAM.

* * *

"Agent Sweetie Drops calling in. Evidently there is a being capable of possession at large working against the sextuplets. I can almost definitely assure everyone that this being, whoever or whatever he is, is not a potential ally of any sort. We must guard carefully against him. A full transcript of what I overheard follows.

He seems to be planning something large scale. Lyra had mentioned him before, but I had dismissed him as simply a creature of dreams.

He is planning something, something big, and we are all wrapped up in it."

* * *

sity nij ypt tl cowcjvr, mvt zl yaa zpzp esiurj ux uja dwfenl khia bvjzoe wegekgt.

* * *

22.19 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 19: The one that is regular snip sized.**

"We stopped the unholy combination of dating simulators and Five Night's at Freddy's!" Pinkie Pie said, a grin plastered across her face.

Rainbow Dash was staring at a wall, pondering life. "I... I feel so proud right now. We did it."

"Why is Rainbow Dash so... blank faced?" Twilight asked.

Pinkie shrugged. "I think the blow to the head had something to do with it."

"I feel like there is a metaphor to life..."

"Or maybe she sampled Tree Hugger's pizza..."

* * *

Stan threw open the door at the very nondescript human who had arrived at his door.

"GO AWAY BEFORE I MAKE YOU ONE OF MY EXHIBITS!"

The human, whose gender was completely indeterminate, ran off in fear. _Heh. I love doing that._

* * *

" _BUT I COULD HELP YOU COMPLETE IT!_ "

"No." Twilight said, ignoring the Dorito.

" _OR I COULD JUST TELL YOU WHAT IT DOES..._ "

" _No._ " Twilight responded. "I will not fall for your tricks."

Bill shrugged, before giving Twilight a nightmare about a quesadilla.

* * *

**Compiler's note:** Okay then.


	33. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Six of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-16. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Six of Eight**

22.20 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 20: Unusual Investigations**

Twilight examined the wreckage of the laptop. "All of this is completely useless! Are you SURE he said he gave you a hint?"

"Positive!" Rainbow Dash responded, arms folded. "He said he gave me the hint right then and there!"

"Maybe it was more metaphorical?"

Lyra flipped through all the Journals. "I just can't find anything... there are hardly any mentions of him at all, and those there are say that he _does_ keep his deals, though he skews them as much as he can. He must've given us a hint of some kind..."

"Maybe it was just a hint to mind our own business." Rainbow Dash huffed.

In a nearby bed, Pinkie let out a loud snore.

Twilight looked back at the smashed laptop. "We have to tread carefully, he's a Loop Aware entity. It probably won't be possible to just overpower him with our abilities if it comes to that. We'll need a backup plan."

"And we know like nothing about him!" Rainbow said, holding up Journals 2 and 3 to their respective Bill Cipher pages. "And the information even contradicts itself!"

"And then there's that WHEEL..." Lyra said, shuddering. "Symbols... Symbols everywhere... All enigmatic and mysterious... WHAT DO THEY MEAN?"

Twilight began to pace. "What can we do... What can we do... We need a place to find more information..."

Pinkie snored once more.

Lyra lit up. "We could go talk to the Shapeshifter."

Rainbow Dash grinned. "Oh that'll be fun..."

Twilight shrugged. "I don't see why not. Come on, the Bunker is a ways off. We'd better get going..."

And with that, the three girls left the Shack, leaving Pinkie to snore.

A few minutes later Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy entered the room. "Huh. Guess they left." Applejack observed.

Fluttershy shrugged. "Maybe they discovered something-"

"And they left this _horrid_ mess of machine bits everywhere!" Rarity exclaimed. She pointed her finger, using her magic to get the laptop bits off the floor. "Honestly, it's been several quadrillion years at this point. You think they'd know to clean up after themselves..."

Fluttershy looked at one of the pieces floating in midair. "McGucket labs..." She read aloud.

Applejack raised an eyebrow. "McGucket? Like, Ol' Man McGucket? _His_ labs? That sounds a might far fetched..."

"Look at it. It's right there." Fluttershy said, handing Applejack the mechanical bit. Sure enough, in really small print that was probably obscured by a lot of mechanical pieces, the logo of a McGucket labs was right there. Applejack cocked her head.

"Well this is mighty interestin.' We should probably go ask the ol' feller about it, see if he wants his laptop pieces back. Or if he can fix it. Dunno why the others haven't thought of that yet, he is pretty good with machines."

Rarity nodded. "Of course! Maybe it has some long lost pictures of his family! Or his past! Something to help him live in that horrid hovel in the junkyard the townspeople have forced him into..."

Fluttershy nodded. "It's the least we could do."

And with that, the three ponies picked up the laptop's pieces and headed to the junkyard.

* * *

Twilight was very carefully melting the Shapeshifter. Rainbow Dash had re-sealed the door and was actively barricading it with rocks. Lyra was setting up magical traps all around the Shapeshifter.

"This is going to take a few hours to me to melt properly..." Twilight said.

Rainbow Dash groaned. "Really? A few _hours?_ Ugh..."

Lyra looked up from her work. "Come on Rainbow, I'm sure it's going to be very interesting. And I seriously doubt he's going to talk to us without you kicking his flank first. Or whatever body part makes up his rear when you end up kicking it."

"What if he turns into something that doesn't have a rear?" Twilight asked.

Lyra pondered this. "I have no idea... perhaps we can experiment?"

* * *

"Oh Fiddleford..." Fluttershy said softly, barely tapping on Old Man McGucket's door. "We'd like to see you, if that isn't too much of a-"

"COME ON COME IN! I just caught a junkyard rat and was looking for some people to share it with!" McGucket cackled. "My kids never developed a taste for this."

Rarity twitched. "That's... quite all right darling, but we're here to talk about something else."

Applejack dropped the sack with the laptop pieces into a random table in the barely-standing home. "We found your name on this..."

McGucket scratched his head. "Well Ah gotta say I'm thankful, and this does look mighty familiar, but I don't remember anythin' about this... McGucket Labs. Don't remember much of anything really. I have two kids, I know that. Tate likes to play ball now! And if I recall you were the ones who helped me with him!" He hugged all three of them. Fluttershy smiled, while Applejack and Rarity squirmed. "Now if only I could find my little girl..."

"Perhaps we could help you remember?" Fluttershy offered. "If you do, you'd know about this laptop and about your past!"

McGucket smiled. "You've already helped me so much... so generous the lot of you!" McGucket cracked his knuckles. "Let's go on a memory scavenger hunt! Right after we eat this rat." He dug in hungrily. Rarity squirmed again. Over dinner, he told them what he remembered. He, for some reason, was extremely good with machines and remembered making hundreds over his life, although the memories were jumbled. He remembered almost nothing at all from before thirty years ago. He did know he had two kids, but he had no idea who the mother was or when they were even born. His earliest definite memory was waking up in the Gravity Falls Museum of History, in the eye exhibit.

In under ten minutes the four of them were at the eye exhibit.

Rarity shuddered. "I feel like they're watching us."

Fluttershy nodded. "I know the feeling..."

Applejack squinted. "They're not watching us... all these eyeballs are looking at that fireplace right there..." She pressed a button, revealing a secret passage behind the glowing furnace.

McGucket blinked. "Ya know, this is a mighty ominous tunnel that I am somewhat disturbed I remember nothin' about. Let's go in and party!"

They descended into the secret passage, looking left and right, wondering what they would find. They heard footsteps coming towards them. Rarity quickly cast an invisibility spell to hide them.

"Well that's mighty fancy!" McGucket praised.

"Shush! It's an invisibility spell not a silencing spell!" Rarity retorted.

The four went silent as a group of two people in long, red dark robes passed by them. On the foreheads of the hoods was an eye with an X across it.

"Is it just me, or does that look like Bill's eye?" Applejack commented.

Fluttershy shivered. "It _does._ "

Rarity raised an eyebrow. "That means they're his enemies right? Maybe they can help us."

"Ah dunno..." Applejack said. "They seem rather spooky to me..."

"Ah get a bad feelin' about them." McGucket said.

Rarity walked on ahead. "What are we waiting for? Let's follow them!"

The four followed the red robed men into a central chamber of some kind, where two people were tied up: Lazy Susan and Derpy. Derpy was telling Susan that "I just don't know what went wrong!"

Around them the people in robes were chanting " _Novus ordo seclorum._ "

Then one robed man, taller than all the others, walked into the circle. "Who is the subject of our meeting?"

One of the other men gestured to Lazy Susan and Derpy. "These women."

The taller man walked up to the two of them. "What is it you have seen?"

"Speak!" Chanted all the others.

"Uh, well, uh, I was leaving the diner, and I saw these little bearded doodads, and I was, like, Bwaaa?"

Derpy continued with her own story. "My muffin came to life right after that."

The lead man took out some kind of gun with a lightbulb at the tip. He typed something into it. "There there, you won't be like "Bwaaa" for much longer... And you will not feel the horror of your food coming for revenge..." He methodically blasted the two women with the gun. "Now, what do you recall?"

Both of them, at the same time responded in a monotone voice. "My mind is cleared thanks to the Society of the Blind Eye!"

The Society changed. "It is unseen!"

Rarity, Applejack, and Fluttershy's jaws dropped. They had just cleared a person's memory!

Slowly, the three turned to look at McGucket. "They took yer memories, didn't they?" Applejack said.

McGucket slowly nodded. "Ah believe so..."

As some members escorted Lazy Susan and Derpy away, the evident leader took a strange tube out of the memory gun and walked down a hallway.

Rarity squinted. "Time to find where they store those memories..."

Slowly, the four invisible people crept up behind the leader as he walked into a hall covered in memory tubes from top to bottom. The vast majority were just stored on shelves, but a few were placed at the end of the hallway in a special design. The leader took out a marker, wrote "Lazy Susan and Derpy" on the tube, and gently set it on the shelf.

He turned around. "I know you're there. Nothing escapes my eye." He took his hood down, revealing a bald, stern looking man with a false eye.

Rarity dropped the spell. "Then why did you let us see that?"

"So we could corner you, of course." The other members stepped out from behind them. They were trapped in the hallway.

Applejack glared. Rarity gasped. "Who _are_ you people?"

"I am Blind Ivan," The leader said. The other members lowered their hoods as well, revealing a cast of characters many people remembered from around town. Toby Determined. Bud Gleeful. The guy who married a woodpecker. Berry Punch. Maud.

"Maud?" Fluttershy said, cocking her head. "I don't remember seeing you around..."

"Oh. She knows my name. Interesting." Maud said, completely deadpan.

Blind Ivan shrugged. "She won't for much longer."

Fluttershy looked up at the tall man. "Why? Why do you do this? Can't you see it's harming people?"

Blind Ivan simply held the memory gun up to his head and fired. "Not anymore. But to answer your question in a more simple matter, we do it because the burden of knowledge is a strong one. We make sure none know of the mysteries of Gravity Falls, so that they will not suffer from what they have seen. We are dedicated to erasing all of the weird, ever since a traumatizing event our founder experienced long ago. It apparently inspired our logo. But nobody but the Receiver remembers anything about that, and she's not here right now."

He smiled. "We take it upon ourselves to help the troubled townsfolk of Gravity Falls. Thanks to us they are able to go around having a happy, normal, ignorant life just like everyone else in the world. As a bonus we can make ourselves forget about bad memories. Everyone has things they'd rather forget. Though at this point none of us know what exactly we treated for this." He shrugged.

Applejack sighed. "Look, I know you think yer doin' good here, but there are dangerous things out in these woods that probably kill people. And you probably make sure that nobody even remembers those who have been killed! It's very dangerous what you're doing!"

Blind Ivan shook his head. "There are some things here that are not meant to be remembered. Have you ever encountered a Gremloblin? I can see from the looks on your faces at least some of you have. It drove someone to madness didn't it? We cure that. We stop that. We prevent that. We can't discriminate, since we don't know what exactly will drive each person to madness. The only reason we'd been leaving you lot alone was because the Receiver has told us never to go near that Shack. But trust me, we've had to erase a lot from the people you've encountered..."

Rarity's eyes widened. "So that's why Rainbow can fly around and nobody seems to care..."

"Now..." Blind Ivan said, holding up the memory gun. "Time to make you forget this entire day." He pulled the trigger.

Rarity put up a reflect spell, sending the beam back. Blind Ivan dodged it. "Impressive spell. But we have a few mages of our own here you know." He waved his hand, fire appearing in his hand. "We will never let our secrets out!"

McGucket grabbed onto his hat. "Oh no... This is going to go down!"

The Society of the Blind Eye cast several spells at the four intruders, all of which were quickly deflected. Rarity lit up her hand, encasing all the members in crystal. She shook her head. "You know nothing about finer magic, ruffians." She levitated the memory gun into her hand. "We really need to stop these hooligans from ruining any more lives... But how can we do that..."

"Just make 'em forget about the Society." Applejack answered. "Simple enough. All of them aside from Ivan here seem to have lives they can get back to."

They quickly erased the society from everyone's mind, sending them on their way. But they didn't erase Blind Ivan's memory.

Fluttershy looked down at the man before her. "You should feel ashamed of yourself."

"Do you have any idea what you've done? The Weirdness will spread! You will no longer be safe!"

Fluttershy sighed. "What are we going to do with him?"

"...Let's take him back to Stan. Maybe he has a suggestion." Rarity offered. "But first..." She walked up to the altar where special memories were stored, and found the tube labelled Fiddleford Hadron McGucket. She plugged the tube into a memory screen.

The memories were horribly garbled, but the three Loopers, McGucket, and Ivan were witness to a rather harrowing story. It told the story of a young man, a Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, who had come to Gravity Falls to work on a big project with the Author, though the Author was never seen in the memories. Nor was he ever actually named. Shortly after the memories were all a panic, about a young man wishing to unsee what he had seen. Something terrible, something unspeakable, something that drove him to madness. Something that drove him to invent the memory gun. Something that drove him to found the Society of the Blind Eye, to keep everyone from having to suffer what he had suffered.

The memories became more jumbled and crazy. There were scattered images of people around town, mostly of Tate and some girl who looked very familiar. Images of McGucket slowly going crazy, losing his mind, and defacing every triangle with an eye he could find.

The feed went dead.

Blind Ivan's jaw was hanging open. "So _that's_ how our society was founded..." He shook his head. "I am terribly sorry, Founder, but memory tubes that old are highly unstable. It is unlikely you can restore all the memories you wish to."

McGucket sighed. "You know what? Part of that old me was right, I probably don't want to remember all of what happened back then. But that was no excuse to go around creating a society to wipe things from the minds of _everyone_. What I saw was probably a special case." He turned to the girls. "I'm sorry... Things are starting to come back to me, my memory was jogged a little bit, but everything's still very fuzzy."

Fluttershy hugged him. "It's okay, we'll be here for you regardless of what happens." Rarity and Applejack responded with an affirmative.

"I'd still like that laptop. Maybe I can find out more from it."

"Be our guest."

And then the four of them carried Blind Ivan out of the secret society.

* * *

"Want to talk YET?"

"YES YES I'LL TALK STOP BEATING ME UP ALREADY!"

"Good!" Rainbow Dash said, relenting. The Shapeshifter stood up, groaning. "Now, first question, who is the Author?"

"I don't know his name for sure. He was almost always alone with me. The only other person I saw during my imprisonment called him Ford, though it was an obvious nickname. He had six fingers on each hand, if that helps."

Twilight frowned. Ford. Well there was a nickname at least, though it wasn't much to go on. But she didn't remember anyone at all with six fingers in town... So it was probably someone they hadn't met yet. They'd just have to find them. "Can you tell us anything about Bill Cipher?"

"Oh that guy." The Shapeshifter said, chuckling. "He was fun. He came down every so often, was good for a laugh. Called the Author Sixer all the time. I think they had a falling out shortly before they both just stopped coming down here."

Twilight nodded. She knew that the Author had trusted Bill for at least a little while already, and that he had come to regret it. The details were still elusive.

"Do you know anything else about him? His plans? His desires? His weaknesses?"

The Shapeshifter grunted. "Nope. Nothing. He always talked through the Author anyway, I don't know what he's really like."

Twilight nodded. Possession. She had expected that.

The Shapeshifter looked closely at Lyra. "You know, I keep thinking that I remember you from somewhere..."

"I'm not even thirty years old. There's no way."

"Which makes it very interesting... why do I think I remember you?"

Twilight marked down "possibility of time travel" in her notes. "Thank you for your time. Now, we unfortunately can't let you loose on the world above, but leaving you down here to rot for more decades would just be cruel. I'll have Rarity come down here to furnish this cavern up for you, bring food, and everything. If we feel like we can trust you, maybe we'll let you out one day." She looked right into the shapeshifter's eyes. "And I'll know if you're trustworthy. I _can_ read your mind if I have to."

The Shapeshifter sighed. At least it was a better life than what he was used to. Maybe he'd actually get a good meal rather than just surviving on magical aura.

"Deal." He said.

"Good." Twilight said, smiling. "I know we'll become great friends! I'll bring everyone down here from time to time."

* * *

"I am not dealing with him." Stan said firmly.

"But we can't just erase his memory, that'd be cruel!" Fluttershy complained. "He'd be a shell of person without the life he put into that!"

"So? It's what happens to him in baseline." Stan responded, managing to sell a shirt to a customer. "Just get it over with."

"No." Rarity said. "We aren't barbarians."

Stan chuckled. "Could have fooled me." He walked around, getting back to business.

The three sighed. "What now?"

Twilight walked into the room. "Hey girls... who's this guy?"

"Blind Ivan." Rarity responded. "We need to find a place to keep him where he won't cause trouble."

Twilight's eyes sparkled. "Oooh I have just the place. I was just coming here to ask you if you'd furnish up the Bunker for our friend the Shapeshifter, we made a deal with him. You could put Ivan in there as well!"

"Furnish up a cavern?" Rarity said, eyes sparkling. "That'd surely be a nice challenge..."

Rainbow Dash, currently with wings, ran into the door. "WHY IS THERE AN ANGRY MOB AFTER ME? I'VE BEEN FLYING AROUND FOR OVER A MONTH AND NO ONE HAS HAD A PROBLEM!"

Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity all became rather sheepish. "Well, ya see... that may be our fault..."

* * *

Blind Ivan and the Shapeshifter were in the cavern playing a game of chess while Rarity furnished around.

"So what's your story?" Ivan asked.

"Was hatched from an extraterrestrial egg by some six fingered mad scientist. Kept down here for almost all of my life since then."

"Ah. I don't remember much of my story. I suspect it was really tragic though, seeing as how I have tattoos all over my forehead corresponding to various sections of my brain. Also considering the fact that this is a magical fake eye."

"Must be rather interesting, not knowing one's own past."

Ivan shrugged. "I live with it just fine."

"Checkmate."

"Darnit."

* * *

_July 2012,_

_The Founder, Fiddleford Hadron McGucket, returned to us, wishing to remember his past. In the process, him and his group erased all knowledge of the Society from all the members, and took current leader Blind Ivan to an unknown location. His fate remains unknown._

_The Society has fallen, so this will likely be the last entry in our Chronicle. I am also using this last entry as a notice of my resignation from the Society: it has become evident that we were going about protecting Gravity Falls the wrong way. I will continue to carry the burden on my own._

_May this Chronicle never be uncovered, and if it is, never let it drive others to the insanity that comes from the Beast with One Eye. May I be able to protect this town. Our town._

_The Receiver of the Blind Eye Society,_

_Starlight G McGucket_

* * *

ztdizvnhw tvbze wf pr ahh fbr iuuusald zzhu yefvwipnj kvr tepffl, ahh fbr dhr tchsd qvjry friura. skv quvsh kc ipez zh nz a ecsfziqx wazthrr, alvhi ifpnj kvr nuq fb ulrvvzs. zhh yoq iehe vnciqx rbbbwj tby yhrff hbrlh goe hkvvjs rw hul srtwray.

* * *

22.21 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic: 21: More Time Troubles**

"I CHALLENGE YOU TO GLOBNAR!" Blendin Blandin said, standing before Twilight, Pinkie, and Rainbow Dash.

The three Loopers cocked their heads. "Which one of us?" Twilight asked.

"ALL THREE OF YOU!" The time agent's voice squeaked.

"Wouldn't that be unfair?" Twilight said. "I mean, it'd be three on one, and you probably know we aren't pushovers-"

"GLOBNAR IS THE MOST DANGEROUS COMPETITION OF ALL TIME! YOU MUST ALL FACE ME!"

Pinkie glared at Blendin. "Take the two of them, I'm busy right now."

"BUT-"

"No buts. You can come back for me later. I've got a large man-gopher to cheer up." She walked off.

Rainbow Dash grinned. "So. Globnar. Competition. You challenge us. This should be fun."

"YOU WRONGED ME AND I WILL PUT YOU BACK IN YOUR PLACE!"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Do you _have_ to shout everything?"

"UH... no. Sorry. WAIT NO I'M NOT SORRY!"

Twilight shrugged, as she and Rainbow were taken into the future to experience Globnar... The most dangerous and challenging competition of all time and space!

Meanwhile, back in Gravity Falls, Pinkie had a mission. Fluttershy had tagged along.

"So... what's wrong with Soos again?"

Pinkie's face was stern. "His birthday makes him _sad_. This cannot be allowed to stay. I need to figure out what is causing the problem and make his birthday the best. Birthday. Ever."

Fluttershy nodded, understanding. Enjoying birthdays was serious business after all. "So how are we going to figure out what's bothering him?"

"Why ask him of course!"

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow. "Um... you aren't going to try your usual method of asking things are you?"

"What do you mean?"

Fluttershy sighed, thinking of more than a few moments where Pinkie had completely ruined anything because of her near lack of restraint. Some things required calmness. "I'll go talk to him." She said, walking ahead. "Do not use any party cannons while I'm doing it."

It took her less than a minute to find the large man, who looked rather depressed in stark contrast to his normal happy and blissful self. She frowned, walking up to him. "Soos? What's wrong?"

"Oh.. it's nothing Flutters." Soos said, sighing dramatically.

Fluttershy shook her head. "Something's obviously bothering you, and I'm not the only one who's noticed. Everyone sees your sadness. We just want to help."

"There's probably not much you can do to help." He responded.

"Soos, even if we didn't have amazing powers and magic all around us, we can still be your friends." She smiled. "And I think right now you need someone to lean on."

Soos smiled sadly. "Thank you Flutters. You're really nice, you know that?"

Fluttershy nodded, smiling. "We want to know how we can help you Soos. We are your friends, and we can't stand to see you so down today. How can we help?"

Soos sighed. "I don't think you can. You aren't him."

"Who?"

Soos paused for a moment, deciding if he would tell Fluttershy or not. "My dad. He never came to any of my birthday parties as a kid. I rarely ever saw him at all. All I got every year was a postcard." Soos pulled something out of his shirt. "I got another one today. I haven't seen his face since I was really little, but I keep getting these."

Fluttershy's eyes widened.

"I just... I wanted to see him, you know? I want to at least be with him for one moment. And every time my birthday comes around I get one of these and I'm reminded that I never have, and likely never will. I just... want to see him."

Fluttershy stood up. "Then we can go find him."

Soos blinked. "How?"

"We can pool our resources. Use our abilities." She smiled. "We can find him." She paused for a moment, frowning slightly. "Though I should warn you he may not be what you want..."

Soos stood up. "I don't care. I want to see him." He turned to Fluttershy, eyes pleading. "Do you think you could find him?"

She smiled. "I'll get Rarity and Pinkie right on it."

Soos smiled. "Thank you Flutters." He grinned. "Maybe I can see him after all."

* * *

" **I, THE GREAT TIME BABY, DECLARE GLOBNAR TO BEGIN!** "

Twilight blinked. The ruler of the highly advanced future was a giant baby. What. The. Buck.

Rainbow Dash flew up. "Wait! What are the rules?"

Time Baby sighed, taking a baby bottle out of his mouth that he had just begun to enjoy. " **GLOBNAR IS A SERIES OF OVER A HUNDRED EVENTS THAT EACH OF THE SIDES MUST COMPETE IN EACH OTHER AGAINST. GET THE MOST WINS, YOU GET A TIME WISH AND GET TO DECIDE THE FATE OF THE LOSER OR LOSERS. FIRST EVENT IS TEMPORAL TENNIS, GO.** "

Twilight and Rainbow suddenly discovered that they had tennis rackets in their hands with clocks on their handles. Blendin had one as well. "The fun part about this game is that it's played in reverse!" He said.

Rainbow Dash groaned. She hated things where time made no sense. So she had to play in reverse-

"Wait." She said. "Wouldn't that mean we already know the score?"

"This isn't scored like regular Tennis!" Blendin said, grinning. "The score is ten to ten right now. You just have to guide the balls to keep from losing points due to paradox!"

"Crap."

As the two Loopers played against Blendin, a certain blue phone box appeared in the bleachers. The Doctor stepped out, with a very ticked off expression on his face. "Great. I really shouldn't be here. Time authorities can be really annoying..."

"Doctor, you are under arrest for interrupting an official Globnar competition. Please, surrender your TARDIS and come with us."

The Doctor sighed. "Fine, fine, don't let me explain that I ended up here completely by accident." He paused, turning to glare at the Tardis. "Or, more likely, it was her fault..."

"You will come with us. Now."

"Fine fine hold your horses..." The Doctor said, following them. He stole a glance at who was in Globnar. HIs eyes widened. Twilight and Rainbow Dash.

Well then, he supposed he was going to run into them again eventually... Though he honestly didn't expect the future.

"MOVE IT!"

"Alright! Alright! Yeesh!"

Back in the stadium, Rainbow Dash and Twilight won Temporal Tennis 10 - 0. Blendin's jaw hit the ground.

Twilight whispered to Rainbow Dash. "I saw the Doctor get taken away. Since this doesn't look like it's going to be that difficult, I'm leaving you with a magic shell of myself. You can win on your own can't you?"

"Easy peasy." Rainbow said, grinning.

"Good." Twilight quickly created a magical shell of herself to play the games with Rainbow. She teleported into the audience the instant she was away. Strangely, the audience (which composed of aliens, robots, and strange beings she had no real words for) paid her no mind. They were completely fixated on Globnar.

Now to find the Doctor.

* * *

Fluttershy knocked on the door. Soos's Abuelita welcomed her in. "Ah, Soos's friend. Welcome to my house."

"Miss Ramirez." Fluttershy said, walking in. "Soos recently asked us to look for his father. I wanted to know if you knew anything he did- oh no." Fluttershy noticed the old woman's face darken.

"I... I am terribly sorry little one. I know nothing about his whereabouts."

Fluttershy knew that was a lie, but she also knew something else.

"...How bad was he?"

Abuelita turned to look at the diminutive pink girl before her. Her expression softened. "Children like you do not need to be burdened with tales of the past. That is far behind us now."

"Soos just got another postcard though."

Abuelita tensed. "He... He still sends them?"

"Yes. I saw today's just under an hour ago."

Abuelita tightened her fists. "Who does he think he is..."

Fluttershy frowned. "...he really was that bad wasn't he?"

"The man dropped Soos off with me when he was barely a baby, and I saw him less than ten times after that. He never calls me, never writes, and I had thought he'd stopped sending those postcards." She sighed. "I guess Soos just stopped showing them to me."

Fluttershy's head drooped. "He... he wasn't a good person was he?"

"No. He was not. It was more than just being caught up in work, he was..." She paused. "Uncaring."

Fluttershy looked around, as if trying to find something. "There must be some way we can cheer him up though... and It's already going to be bad enough telling him we aren't going to find his dad for him anymore..."

Abuelita frowned. "Maybe he does need to find his father, to see who the man really is..." She sighed. "I don't know where my son is. He was in Japan last I knew, and that was years ago."

Fluttershy sighed. "Thanks anyway. I'll go break the news to him."

* * *

While Globnar was 21 to 3 (Rainbow Dash's lead) Twilight explored the future. That was all she could call this place, seeing as she had no other idea of where she was. She was just following the Doctor's rather unique temporal signature with a spell, attempting to navigate the time-anomaly filled corridors.

She had seen a lot of pictures of Time Baby, like he was worshipped as some kind of god or supreme ruler. The time agents were everywhere, disappearing and reappearing left and right. Twilight noticed, to her pride, that they were using several dozen sets of pronouns to differentiate from different forms of time travel tenses. Good for them.

But she had to find the Doctor and get him out. She began to speed up, trying to navigate the confusing halls of time. She considered using time spells, but she had no idea how a place like this would respond to them.

After crossing three feet in five hours (TIME ANOMALIES!!!) she arrived to see two time agents escorting the Doctor through the building.

She walked towards them. They reacted instantly, drawing time weapons yelling. "THERE'S THAT GIRL WHO TRIED TO FREE THE PRISONER!"

Crap. Time anomalies made things really annoying. She felt the weapon's shot impact her, knocking her through time. She landed on top of the Doctor.

"Who's this?" One of the agents said.

"SHE'S TRYING TO FREE THE PRISONER!" The other yelled, shooting at Twilight again.

Twilight facepalmed as the time annoyances continued.

* * *

Rarity frowned.

The computer had come up with Soos' dad alright. It had only taken a few searches to find him.

The man was in jail in some far off foreign country for unspeakable crimes.

She shuddered.

Stan stood in the doorway, sighing. "Don't take it too hard."

"Why? Soos's father.. this man.. he's a horrible person! A crime against everything!"

"It's different every time."

"What?"

"The Loops can't decide on what Soos's dad is really like. Sometimes he's a nice guy who had a good reason for being away. Sometimes he's a master criminal. Sometimes he's just a jerk. It's always different. I should know, I've found the man dozens of times." He sighed. "Just... know that sometimes he does have a good reunion. That sometimes everything does work out. But mostly... not."

Rarity sighed. "We... we're going to have to tell him no aren't we?"

Pinkie appeared in the room, face contorted in anger.

"I found him." She said. "He's the most jerky grumpy pants ever. Just... GRAGH! That man has ruined birthday parties for Soos _forever!_ What are we going to do to help him? How?"

Stan sighed. "You know what? I can't stand to see this. Soos generally will begin to move past it if you give him a good birthday by spending all day with him doing things. He just needs a little push."

Rarity blinked. "But... that's what Pinkie was going to do in the first place before Fluttershy suggested going soft..."

Stan snorted. "Sometimes a guy needs a little push."

Pinkie lit up. "Oh! I know! Laser tag! He loves that! LET'S SPEND ALL DAY DOING THAT!"

Rarity smiled. "I'll go get Fluttershy..."

* * *

"Where are you going Twilight?"

Twilight turned to see the Doctor. "Oh. You freed yourself." She groaned. "This place is confusing."

"Actually if my theories are correct I get captured again in about fifteen minutes." He shrugged. "And then I think I get freed over there and you get me back to the Tardis."

Twilight blinked. "Time is confusing."

"Yes. Yes it is. Want to go watch Globnar while I wait to get recaptured?"

"Why not."

The two of them made their way back to the stadium. Twilight realized she hadn't learned that much about the Future. It all seemed very... unfeigned. Like Yggdrasil hadn't defined it that well.

Just as they arrived back at the stadium, they heard the verdict. "THE CHALLENGED WIN BY A LANDSLIDE."

Rainbow blasted into the air, raising her arms. "OH YEAH! YOU GOT THE BEAT DOWN BLENDIN!"

Blendin roared. "Why? Why? How could I lose! This was my one chance at getting my life back...."

"And we'll give it to you." Twilight said, smiling warmly. "We are allowed to decide your fate... We give you your old job back."

"And some hair." Rainbow added.

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Yeah that too."

" **AND NOW YOU GET YOUR TIME WISH, THE REWARD FOR WINNING GLOBNAR. ANYTHING WITHIN THE RULES OF SPACETIME YOU WISH FOR, IT WILL BE BESTOWED TO YOU.** "

Twilight's eyes sparkled. That... that would be amazing. She grabbed the time wish and stuck it into her Pocket. "Thank you, Time Baby."

" **YOU EARNED IT YOURSELF.** " The Time Baby said. " **BUT IT IS MY CREATION.** "

Twilight nodded. "What could I use it for..."

" **WELL I'D SUGGEST USING IT TO FREE YOUR FRIEND RATHER THAN BREAKING HIM OUT. WE'D JUST HUNT YOU DOWN IF YOU BROKE HIM OUT ILLEGALLY.** "

"Ah..." Twilight said, a tad confused at how the time wish could bend the legal system. She turned to the Doctor, who was getting recaptured. He shrugged.

The time wish was probably way to overpowered to keep anyway. Had to keep things interesting, and just getting your answers by a wish wasn't any fun. She wished to set the Doctor free.

He and the Tardis just vanished instantly.

The Time Baby nodded. " **NOW, WE WILL LEAVE HIM BE. AT LEAST UNTIL HE APPEARS IN GLOBNAR AGAIN. HE IS NOT WELCOME HERE. NOW RETURN TO YOUR TIME!** "

Twilight and Rainbow were sent back to the past...

* * *

Fluttershy and Pinkie fist bumped.

Soos was having an amazing time. The postcard had been thrown into the trash hours ago, and he was running around laughing and shooting at people with the laser tag guns.

Fluttershy drooped. "I'm sorry I got in your way... you probably would have gotten through to him-"

"Are you CRAZY?" Pinkie said, bouncing up. "He wouldn't have been able to move on if he didn't talk about it with anyone! He may have had fun, sure, but every birthday after this would have ended up being the same! Now he's moved on, and every birthday can be amazing!" She giggled. "Though nowhere near as amazing as this one... Now come on Fluttershy we need to get back into the action! FOR THE PINK LASER NATION!!!" Pinkie charged. She was crushed as Twilight and Rainbow appeared above her, landing with a crash.

Rainbow Dash took one look at where they were before bursting into a grin.

"I. Am. Going. To. Rock. This. Game."

"Just because you played future laser tag-"

Suddenly everyone found that a rainbow laser had tagged them all simultaneously. Rainbow grinned.

The game soon devolved into Everyone vs The Harpie.

* * *

ezi'e oe jacdsvsvj scx bfkky gpbs'j jlr sracrj wt n piu hffftckc kib lvtog ivs zsluf go r nzh tnutk ncncaee.

* * *

22.22 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 22: Ghost Hunters**

Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Lyra walked through the great doors of Northwest Mansion, the largest and most fancy estate anywhere near Gravity Falls. The three of them were dressed in fancy suits, designed to look fashionable to appease the Northwests, as well as useful. Various equipment of all kinds were designed all around their clothing, making them look posh and professional. Each of them had a journal under their arms.

Rainbow Dash hated it. "Can't we just, like, waltz in and embarrass them?" She asked.

"Be glad Rarity managed to make something fashionable that _wasn't_ a dress." Twilight responded.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "So, what are we here for again?"

Lyra looked towards her two friends. "Pacifica came to my house asking for assistance with a haunting. With the society gone, we have become celebrities of a kind." She handed the two of them a newspaper clipping of them facing a gigantic vampire bat. "They don't fear us anymore, thanks to our openness. But..." She frowned. "Well now they want us to deal with anything supernatural. Hence us being here."

"We better be getting paid a lot for this." Rainbow Dash muttered.

"We're getting a vast sum of money. I refused being allowed into their little high-society party. I've been before. It's more boring and dull than concrete."

Twilight nodded. "I know. Pinkie's talking about having a party to end all parties outside the front gates to make the Northwest's jealous."

Lyra grinned. "Totally going to that party after this is dealt with."

Pacifica walked up to the three of them. "There you are!" Her parents appeared behind her.

The father, Preston, put on one of those rich-people smiles. "Ah yes, the Pines and miss Heartstrings. Pacifica be a dear and show them the problem room."

Pacifica nodded. "Of course." She turned to the three of them. "So... how's it been since the golf game?"

"Been good. Stopped a secret society from wiping the town's memories." Twilight responded, smirking as she saw Preston do a spit-take in the background. "Same old."

She nodded. "Have you seen Sunset?"

Twilight shrugged. "Nope. You think she's still there?"

Pacifica bit her lip. "I uh... I can get a new second. Easy. Don't worry about it."

Twilight frowned. "I was under the impression she was one of your friends. Don't you care about her?"

Pacifica blinked. "Well... She's rather helpful if that's what you mean."

Twilight sighed. "You've got a lot to learn. Here let me-"

Preston took out a bell and rung it repeatedly. "I said get going!" Pacifica stood to attention, quickly walking away. The three girls followed her.

_Psychological training_ Twilight thought _this is worse than I thought... How am I going to get through to her?_

She heard the bell ring again, Pacifica freezing in her tracks. "Oh and by the way Pacifica, remember not to keep them around too long hm? The party starts in just under six hours."

"Yes dad."

"Good girl." He smiled before turning his back.

Rainbow whispered to Twilight. "This is messed up..."

"I know. I'm working on it." She was going to help Pacifica. She sure needed it.

"And this is the problem room." Pacifica said, waving her hand at a very normal looking room.

"Okay..." Rainbow Dash said, flipping through Journal 3. "This one has the best information on ghosts... Usually wronged in death, these restless spirits often spend their entire existence torturing the living. Good ghosts are possible, but decidedly rare. They are classified by a simple system, from category one to ten. One being Casper the friendly ghost to ten being a spirit of power capable of warping the countryside."

Twilight shrugged. "On that scale, we've encountered a seven hundred fifty-six. Remember that Loop where Universes had their own spirits?"

Lyra blinked. "That sounds so awesome and yet so terrible at the same time."

Pacifica looked around. "So you could easily take care of whatever's in here?"

"Keep in mind I didn't say we defeated the seven-hundred fifty-six. But yes, even a ten should be no problem whatsoever."

Lyra pressed a bunch of buttons on her ghost device. "The fireplace seems like it has it-"

Then, all at once, every crack in the room started bleeding out, blood dripping to the floor in rivers. Pacifica began to tremble.

The Loopers just blinked in surprise. There had been a surprising lack of blood in this Loop so far. It was interesting, to say the least.

The fireplace erupted, belching fire towards them. "NORTHWESTS!!!!!"

"Oh look. A ghost that has desires for revenge against your family." Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "That's totally surprising." She cracked her knuckles. "How are we going to take care of this thing?"

"Simple-" Twilight began, quickly interrupted by a black skeletal hand reaching out of the fireplace. It formed a fist, smashing into the ground. The floor gave way, tossing them into some kind of basement. The skeletal being roared, slowly becoming enveloped in blue wisps of ethereal energy. "NORTHWESTS!!!!!!"

Twilight leapt to her feet, her hand becoming encased in a violet light. She squinted, magic surrounding the lumberjack ghost.

"NORTHWE- WHAT MAGIC IS THIS?" The ghost said, trying to break free. Twilight simply snapped her fingers, encasing the being in a small and spherical magical prison. She held her hands out as the sphere dropped into her hands. She could see the ghost struggling from inside. "LET ME OUT!!!!"

Twilight rolled her eyes. "As much as we don't like the Northwests, you do look like a crazed axe murderer." She stuffed it into her pocket. (NOT her Pocket.) She dusted her hands off. "That's it. We're done." She looked around. "Where are we?"

Lyra gasped. "DO YOU SEE THAT? THAT'S A LLAMA. A LLAMA IS ON BILL'S WHEEL. OHMYGOSH WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???" Lyra quickly descended into panic mode.

Twilight turned to see what Pacifica was looking at. Paintings. Paintings. Paintings after painting. Paintings of her rich and powerful Northwest family.

Paintings of them scamming, cheating, and lying to everyone. Pacifica's eye twitched. "I... I..."

Twilight walked up to her. "Look, you don't have to be like them. You can-"

"Yes I do!" She yelled back. "Have you seen my dad? He expects me to do all these things when I grow up! He expects me to-"

"Who said you had to do what he said?"

As if on cue, they could hear the bell ringing in the distance. "Pacifica? Where are you? Is everything dealt with?"

Pacifica instantly stood up, walking away. "Sorry." She said, obviously fighting back tears. "I have to go." She ran out of the room.

* * *

"LLAMA!!!" Lyra yelled, pointing at the llama. Rainbow rolled her eyes.

Pinkie and Preston were glaring at each other through the gate.

"It is ON Preston. This party will be so great you're going to WISH you were invited!"

"I highly doubt that, pink pony magician. The kinds of class I have here will not wish to mix with you and your hovel. You insist on walking around in that childish performing outfit!"

Pinkie, who was currently in her pony performer form (which was just a pony with a top hat, eyepatch, and cane.) bristled. "IT. IS. ON. I will attract _all_ your guests away!"

"You do not understand the ins and outs of high society, you're just a street performer. Your special powers mean nothing: you are not worth our time."

Rarity walked up. "Darling, surely you can understa-"

"And you are a traitor to our way, just like miss Heartstrings." He said, turning away. "We do not need you for anything."

Rarity bristled. "Pinkie, we're taking all his guests from him as the night goes on. Got it?"

"Got it!"

* * *

Twilight took the ghost out of her pocket and examined him.

"I suppose I should seal you away now..."

"I suppose you must. But first, listen to my tale of woe."

"The Northwests ended up killing you long ago and now you're enacting your curse."

The ghost, to his credit, didn't miss a beat. "We were all promised a party after we completed the mansion! But after so many of us perished in construction, they denied us entrance! We were too low for them! They are horrid people who must be punished! Their party must be ruined unless the common people can enjoy it as well!"

"Trust me, Pinkie's going to throw a much better party outside their gates."

"That doesn't redeem the Northwests. It won't change them. They will still stomp on all of us for eternity! I must show them that their way will only result in pain!"

Twilight blinked for a moment. "Redeemed..." She looked closely at the ghost. "Listen, I have a proposition for you."

* * *

The parties were in full swing. In the manor, a fine quiet and sophisticated party was taking place. Right outside the gate a wild Pinkie Pie party was going on, the loud music blaring.

Preston snorted. If she thought she could attract guests by loud music, she was wrong. He had soundproofed the manor long ago. None of the outside noises would get in. He smirked. "Welcome one, welcome all."

Pacifica stood at his side, looking nervous.

"Now Pacifica, we must look our absolute best for the party. Keep whatever it is you're going through locked up inside for tonight. You can go let it out in your room when you go to bed later."

Pacifica obeyed, but Preston rang the bell anyway. It always made it more effective.

Preston frowned as the sports stars left the party to go to Pinkie's... loudness. He shrugged. He didn't like sports stars much anyway.

Then he frowned as he saw more and more guests leave. No matter how many times he tried to suggest a toast, more people kept leaving. The party was half as large as it usually was.

His phone rang.

"Hello darling," Rarity's cultured voice sounded over the line, smooth like poisoned silk, causing Preston to twitch. "The partygoers out here want to let the party into the manor, and we'd love to use up the now empty space-"

"You little insignificant peasant! I will never let your pathetic poor kind in here! You will bring in uncleanliness, stupidity, and complete disorder to my house! I will not permit any such thing, and you are a fool for asking!"

"Oh my, how scandalous! Chandra did you get that?"

Preston heard another voice say. "It will be on the news shortly."

Preston twitched, hanging up.

Little did he know that he had just given Twilight the signal.

A little round ball crashed through the window, cracking upon hitting the floor. The lumberjack ghost was let out, and he let out a roar. "NORTHWEST!!!"

Preston got out of there in under ten seconds.

The ghost began to laugh, turning the entire manor into wood. The guests began to be petrified. He laughed. "This curse will stay, unless a Northwest shows the way!" He laughed. "Let us in, or lose your life!" He seemed mildly annoyed that he couldn't come up with a rhyme on the fly. People screamed as they were turned into wood, eyes glazed over, and chaos reigned.

Pacifica turned to the gate controls. She had to fix this-

RING-A-DING!

"Pacifica, dear, you honestly aren't going to open the gate? We have a bunker down here, we can wait it out."

Pacifica looked to her dad, and back to the gate controls. She reached for the "open" lever.

RING-A DING! "Pacifica Elise Northwest, you will get down here this instant! Our reputation must be upheld!"

She twitched, frozen in spot.

"Hell-o? GET BACK INTO THE BUNKER RIGHT THIS INSTANT!" Pacifica didn't move. "Is the bell broken?"

"Our family name is broken!" She yelled back, pulling the lever.

Preston gasped. "You just didn't..."

The ghost grinned. "Ah yes... I can be at peace now... at peace..."

"TURN EVERYONE BACK TO NORMAL FIRST!" Twilight yelled from outside.

"Oh fine." He clapped his hands, returning everything to normal. "Now... I rest... Peacefully..."

He was gone with a poof.

Preston crawled out of the bunker. "Pacifica, come here. We are going to have quite the talk before those filthy outsiders get in here-"

Suddenly Rainbow Dash tackled him to the ground. "Look at yourself, Preston Northwest, one of the richest people in the world. You have the power to influence world leaders and change the way things are done simply by being present. You could do so much in this world. And what do you do? You don't do anything! Even villains are better than you, at least they have some purpose to their life and power. You? You just sit here pretty in a town in the middle of nowhere, caring about nothing but your stupid reputation and class!

"And what's worse? You can't stand to think of your family name being anything other than dishonest, stuck up, rich, snobby, arrogant, and superior! It's so bad that you _brainwashed_ your own daughter! That's so messed up I can't even- you know what? I'm done here."

She punched him, launching him across the room.

And then Pinkie leapt into the room, grinning. She unleashed seventeen party cannons on the room. "TIME FOR PARTY! WOOHOOOOOOO!"

And then party happened.

Pacifica took one look at her out-cold dad, shrugged, and decided to party with everyone else.

It was one of the best days of her life.

As the party wound down, Old Man McGucket approached the mane 6 and Lyra. "Hey uh..."

"What is it McGucket?" Twilight asked.

McGucket showed them the fully repaired laptop. On it was one thing: a timer.

23:42:12. 23:32:11. 23:32:10.

"Somethin' bad's happening..." He fretted.

"Something bad... tomorrow evening." Twilight observed. "Well then... Things just got interesting..."

"It has something to do with the Llama. I'm telling you." Lyra commented.

* * *

Sweetie Drops lowered her binoculars, taking out the camera.

Twenty-three hours. They had to act now.

She walked up to Powers and Trigger, who were in some absolutely abhorrent disguises. She bumped into them, sticking a secret message into each of their pockets.

The message was simple:

_Tomorrow._

* * *

Keb Gnixkeqamj iek rjbak bb nrxcke.

* * *

**Compiler's note:** Well if that wasn't ominous...


	34. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Seven of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-16. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Seven of Eight**

22.23 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 23: Not What He Seems**

The mane 6 and Lyra were staring at the timer.

Whatever it was counting down to, it would happen this evening.

And they had no idea _what_ it was! Twilight had sent out dozens of search spells, unable to come up with anything. They were just sitting in the Shack, trying to figure out what to do.

"Ah suggest we bunker up the Shack, prepare for an apocalyptic scenario." Applejack offered.

Rarity nodded. "When you don't know what's coming, prepare for the worst case scenario."

The seven of them quickly spread out across the Shack. It was early morning, the sun having only been up for about an hour. They began to plan out their defenses.

They barely had a few minutes to do so. Before they even set out their first defensive spell, the entire shack was surrounded by dozens of government cars and helicopters. Agents ran past all of them, lining the house in police tape and tackling Stan to the ground. "HEY! Why I outta-"

"It would be best if you remained silent, Mister Pines." A familiar female voice said, walking into the open, flanked by Powers and Trigger.

"BON BON!?!?!!?!" Lyra and Stan yelled, jaws dropping.

Bon Bon kept her completely impassive look, turning to Twilight. "We are here to arrest Mister Pines for theft of government property." She handed them a pad with a videotape on it. "Last night several metric tons of toxic waste were stolen from our department. We traced the toxic chemicals back here."

Twilight frowned. "How can you possibly know this was Stan? The man is completely dressed up in radiation gear-"

"We don't, not for sure, but we do know that roughly a month ago we detected a large energy surge coming from the Shack. I have been undercover here for quite some time, gathering information. Lyra told me everything. He isn't telling you everything, almost as if this is some kind of game to him. It is highly possible that there is a doomsday device somewhere here."

" _Doomsday,_ " Trigger emphasized. Bon Bon shot him with the grappling hook.

Twilight shook her head. "That's crazy, he's just trying to go baseline. And you know what that is-"

"Who's to say that doomsday device isn't baseline?" Bon Bon asked, raising an eyebrow. "How do you know he isn't a villain? You've told Lyra directly that you'd never met him until you arrived this summer. How do you know him?"

Pinkie butted in. "He's a nice guy! I know it! I've spent time with him! He's not an evil mastermind!"

Bon Bon shook her head. "Again, even if he is a nice guy, he _is_ trying to go baseline. And from what I've gathered during my time here, that could _easily_ mean he is playing the villain again."

Twilight shook her head. This was really unusual. Rarely was a non loop-aware entity told of the Loops in this way. It was... unnerving to say the least. And Twilight had to admit, she did have a point. And it was Bon Bon's job to protect this world at all costs. Twilight honestly couldn't blame her.

Stan was taken into one of the cars and taken away, presumably to the sheriff's office. Bon Bon adjusted her sunglasses. "We do have a lot of ways we could charge you six as well, but we'd much rather not have to deal with all of this. Now if you excuse me, we've got to debrief Stan. You are welcome to come along since I doubt I can stop you anyway."

Lyra put her nose in Bon Bon's face, interrupting the mood. Lyra's face was streaked with tears. "How. Long."

For the first time since she'd arrived, Bon Bon showed an emotion. Remorse. "...Since I moved here. My name isn't even Bon Bon, it's Sweetie Drops-"

Lyra shoved B- Sweetie Drops to the ground. "It. All of it. Was based. On. A. LIE???"

"Lyra, we had something-"

"Because I trusted you with everything you've arrested Stan! Because I told you everything I ever thought about you brought in the government to tie up my friend's home! Bon - no you don't get that name anymore - _Miss Drops_ , you have betrayed everything! And to think we... we..."

Sweetie Drops' face became crestfallen. "I... I have an interrogation to perform."

" _Perform!_ " Trigger emphasized.

"When I shoot you with the grappling hook it's an indication you should STAY KNOCKED OUT."

" _Out!_ "

This resulted in another grappling hook shot.

Agent Powers blinked. "I understand nothing of what has just transpired."

Some of the government cars left to carry out the interrogation, while the others stayed to investigate the Shack.

Twilight frowned, looking at the timer. This evening. The timer had started now.

This couldn't be a coincidence. Stan was involved. Somehow.

"Come on girls." Twilight said. "We've got an interrogation to get to."

The seven of them walked towards the police station. Lyra was uncharacteristically silent. Even Pinkie wasn't talking anywhere near as much as usual.

Lyra shot Twilight a glance. "You knew about this didn't you?"

Twilight sighed. "I suspected. In our world she's an undercover secret agent somewhat often."

"Couldn't you have _done_ anything?"

"Perhaps. But I didn't know her intention. She might have just been observing. She might have been helpful eventually. She might have-"

"MIGHT have. Why did you take the chance? Surely you could have-"

Twilight grabbed Lyra by the shoulders. "Lyra, you should remember something. She really does care about you, despite what you may think right now. Virtually all the time, day in and day out, you two are together. It doesn't matter where you two are across the great multiverse that is Yggdrasil, you are together. Remember that."

Lyra brushed her off. "I bet I never find out about her that much-"

"Actually you find out virtually every time." Twilight responded.

Lyra frowned, becoming silent once more.

They arrived at the station in a few hours. The interrogation was scheduled to take place in a few hours...

Some agents were talking about how some forest fires had started, and that the sky was turning red as a result. They admitted it was pretty cool.

It just spoke "climax" to Twilight. She shivered. Things were about to go down.

They sat there, waiting in silence.

"What if Stan really is playing the villain?" Fluttershy asked. "What are we going to do?"

"Stop his plan, of course." Twilight responded. "It should be easy."

"And what if he's not actually a nice person?"

Pinkie glared at Fluttershy. "He's a nice person! Seriously! Even if he _is_ playing the villain, Anakin does that too! _I_ do that! Being Chaos aligned is fun from time to time!"

Twilight frowned. "But he may not be an... ethical looper. I doubt he'd make full MLE status, but it is possible he is hiding a slight case of Sakura Syndrome... It is possible he thinks that none of this matters..."

Pinkie shook her head. "No! He's a nice guy! Sure he may be a bit greedy, but he has a big heart! Do you see him look at that picture of Dipper and Mabel?"

"Fellow Loopers." Applejack reminded her. "Not insignificant non-loopers."

Pinkie glared at all of them. "Seriously..." She turned to Lyra. "What about you? What do you think?"

"I... I don't know." She said. She was obviously rather numb.

Pinkie glared. "He's a good guy! Get that all in your heads!" She huffed.

Everyone sat in silence, waiting.

* * *

"Mister Pines... you stole toxic waste from a government facility last night." Sweetie Drops glared right at him. "What do you plead?" The seven girls watched from the other side of the one-way glass.

"Guiltonnicentiguiltyinnocentashutup."

Sweetie Drops sat down, smiling. "This is all a game to you. You've done this all before. I have no doubt that you've sat before me or a version of me thousands of times."

Stan laughed. "You're a clever one, Bon Bon. Definitely a good secretary. I hope after this is over I can still keep you around."

"I doubt you will be able to hire me from a cell, Mister Pines." She turned around. "You are a most interesting case... You know all our tricks. You've probably chosen to become one of us at one time or another. You have knowledge beyond what anyone should... so your word is worth nothing."

Stan grunted. "I was working at the _gift shop_ last night. Trust me, I wasn't out stealing any government waste. What would I even use that for?"

"The device that Twilight Sparkle keeps trying to construct form an incomplete blueprint." She frowned. "I know you have Journal 1 in that Pocket of yours somewhere. You have the complete design."

Twilight gasped. That was true. He almost assuredly DID have the complete blueprint. And even though she didn't really know what it did, she knew it was powerful...

"So what if I did? You have no idea what it does. What makes you so sure it's a doomsday device?"

Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. "Gravitational anomalies have been popping up everywhere since we detected the energy surge. It's as if gravity itself is tearing at the seams. Our scientists have determined that when that timer reaches zero, the gravitational anomalies will reach critical mass and have a chance of destroying reality itself."

As if on cue, the coffee mug floated up into the air and fell back to the table.

Stan shrugged. "What if I told you I know the world won't end?"

"You could easily be lying."

"True... But you can't keep me here if I didn't steal that waste and was working the _gift shop!_ "

"You've admitted to having the device somewhere. We're keeping you in custody."

Rainbow Dash nudged Twilight. "You think he wants us to check the gift shop security tapes?"

"Oh. Right. That's probably true."

Bon Bon stood up. "We'll be shipping you off to Washington before the day is over. We have determined that it is no longer safe to remain in Gravity Falls. If your machine doesn't destroy everything, we can interrogate you further." She walked out of the room, telling Powers to watch him carefully.

Twilight decided they had been there long enough, and they needed to get back to the Shack. They needed to check the gift shop tapes.

Though she had no idea what they'd find...

* * *

Twilight frowned. "They're all over the Shack. We can't get in without them noticing, and we can't do any investigations then..."

She looked at the timer. They only had thirty minutes now. "We have to do something now, we can't wait any longer."

Pinkie stood up. "I'll throw them a distracting party!"

"Alternatively..." Rarity said, gesturing at the agents. "We can just wait for them to finish leaving. They've just been called away."

"Stan's escaped!" Pinkie said, grinning. "And they're chasing him!"

Applejack frowned. "He escaped... Ah'm not sure if that's good or not."

"We just need to see what's going on. He gave us a hint." Twilight gestured at the Shack. "I'll teleport us inside. There are still some agents, so we have to be stealthy." Her hand lit up, and they ended up in the gift shop. Twilight looked at the security camera. "The tape's been taken out.. We have to find where he stores the extra tapes..."

It took them ten minutes to find the secret compartment where the tapes, and several other things, were hidden. Twilight plugged the tape into the VCR, watching the gift shop feed. He was stocking the gift shop, sure enough.

...for a few hours....

At about 4 AM a man in a radioactive suit arrived back at the Shack with several barrels of toxic waste. Twilight sighed.

On the screen, Stan dropped a barrel on his foot. "HOT BELGIAN WAFFLES! Wait, I'm alone! I CAN SWEAR FOR REAL!" He took a deep breath.

After five minutes of continual swearing in at least seventeen different languages from across the Loops, Fluttershy shut off the tape.

"He really did steal it then..." Applejack said.

"That doesn't mean he's a bad person!" Pinkie was quick to defend. "He may need it for something!"

"Yeah. The machine."

Pinkie twitched. "It may be a _good_ machine."

Twilight levitated another box out of the compartment. "This... this is filled with fake IDs of all kinds. Only a master criminal would have this many..."

" _Or_ a man who was a master criminal in baseline!"

"If he was like this in baseline, how do we know he isn't different now?"

"Twilight!" Pinkie said, annoyed.

Fluttershy nodded. "Pinkie does have a point, people generally get better over the course of the loops. Not worse."

"He still seems to steal a lot even when it doesn't matter..."

"Shame Twilight, shame! Being a thief is exhilarating and fun! Plus, it's not like he's really hurting anyone-"

"Unless the machine does." Twilight took out a newspaper article from the box. "Stan Pines dead." Her eyes widened. "What the heck?"

"Car crash? Brakes cut? Foul play expected?" Rarity gasped. "No-"

"Is Stan... a murderer?" Fluttershy asked.

Lyra frowned. "He surely has the resources here to suggest it... He killed the real Stan and took his place?"

"Meaning... he may not really be Stan at all?" Twilight responded. "This... This is a little crazy."

Pinkie growled. "We're jumping to conclusions here! Stan has spent time with us! Sure he may not be perfect, but he's fun! We've been living with him for months and all of us have had a great time!"

"That means nothing if we consider his baseline, or that he may be suffering from Sakura Syndrome. The other people may not matter to him..."

Lyra pulled a piece of paper out of the box. "Secret Hideout Code: A1BC2... What kind of code is this?"

"The vending machine!" Rarity said. "I bet if you type these things into the vending machine..."

In a few minutes, the seven of them were standing in front of the vending machine.

Which Soos was guarding. "Sorry dudes, but Mister Pines told me to guard this with his life."

Twilight sighed. "Sorry Soos." She teleported him behind her, then walked up to the vending machine and pressed the buttons. The vending machine flew open, revealing a staircase going deep down.

Twilight realized, with some fear, that her magic was being severely hindered. Everyone else felt it too.

A magic inhibition place. So that's why she hadn't been able to detect anything.

The seven of them (plus Soos) descended into the basement, finding an elevator. They entered, quickly descending to basement 3. No one thought it was appropriate to joke about how crowded the elevator was. The doors opened, revealing some kind of extremely high tech lab. The magic inhibition was extremely strong here, and Twilight's senses were extremely dulled.

There were consoles, glyphs, and designs everywhere. On the roof was a timer, the same timer they had. Less than five minutes remained.

Through a viewing window, Twilight could see it. A completed device. A downward facing triangle with a hole in the center. A hole that was surrounded by rainbows and was shining an intense light.

Twilight gaped. Even with her dulled senses, she still knew what this was now that she felt it active.

"This... this is a Dimensional Tunneler! A Multiversal Portal!" She grabbed her hair. "Does Stan have any idea how dangerous these things are for Yggdrasil?"

Pinkie, for the first time, frowned. "...maybe not?"

Lyra blinked. "Why is this dangerous?"

"The Loops are secluded." Rainbow Dash explained. "Unless two or more loops are running tandem, trying to travel between them results in reality crashing. The entire loop will perform a forced reset."

"It's sometimes worse than that!" Twilight said, frantically looking around. "Sometimes it will damage other areas of Yggdrasil as well." She looked in a cabinet, finding Journal 1. "Well here it is..." She said, placing all three Journals on the desk. She opened them all to the blueprints for the device.

Lyra took out a black light and revealed the hidden messages.

" _The machine was meant to create knowledge but it is too powerful! The device, if fully operational could tear our universe apart! I was wrong the whole time! It must not fall into the wrong hands. If the clock ever reaches zero our universe is doomed! Total global destruction!_ "

Pinkie's eyes widened. "No... No this isn't right. Right?"

"I trust the Author more than Stan right now." Rainbow Dash said. "Is there anything on how to shut it off?"

"Using magic would be a bad idea..." Twilight muttered. "But here, this page mentions something about emergency shutdown. Three keys..." They looked through the glass, and saw to the side of the portal were three keys. They ran for it, tripping over pipes and flailing in the odd gravity of the environment. Two minutes remained. They grabbed the keys, turning them rapidly. Right in front of the portal, a big red shutdown button became active.

All they had to do was press that button.

They all walked up to it, ready to shut down the porta-

"DON'T TOUCH THAT BUTTON!"

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Tell us why not?"

"Uh, because this is how it goes baseline? The portal activates-"

"Stan! This is a Dimensional Tunneler! This is something that is dangerous to Yggdrasil itself! It needs to be shut off before it damages the-"

Suddenly, gravity went sideways, tossing everyone but Pinkie away from the red button. Twilight groaned. 3 Gs. Ow. That was painful. She tried to move, but found that her magic had fused her to the wall somehow. She growled. "PINKIE PRESS THE BUTTON!"

10...

Stan yelled form another all. "NO! DON'T! TRUST ME, IT WON'T DESTROY EVERYTHING! THIS HAPPENS EVERY TIME!"

9...

Twilight yelled back, realizing she couldn't even use telekinesis to push the button anymore. "HE MIGHT BE LYING! DON'T TAKE THE CHANCE!"

8...

"PINKIE! DO YOU REALLY THINK I'M THE BAD GUY?"

7...

Pinkie's mind reeled. "Stan's the good guy! He can't be trying to crash everything!"

6...

Pinkie spoke again. "Oh yeah? How do I know you aren't lying?"

5...

Twilight wondered who Pinkie was talking to as she kept yelling at nothing.

4...

"But... I don't know. This is a very dangerous device..." Pinkie muttered.

3...

"PINKIE!" Stan yelled. "LOOK INTO MY EYES. You can judge people. Judge me. Judge my personality."

2...

Pinkie was silent.

1...

"You're the good guy here." Pinkie said, taking her hands off the button.

"PINKIE!" Everyone yelled.

Then everything went white as Gravity Fell.

* * *

The white vanished, gravity returning to normal. Everyone landed on the ground with an "OOF!" The portal fell to the ground, obviously broken in many areas. But the center was still active, looking a lot like a brighter Stargate now. They all watched as a man walked out of the portal, stepping over the rubble and walking up to Journal 1. He laid his six-fingered hand, matching the symbol on the cover perfectly. He picked it up, sticking it into his pocket.

"Who.. is that?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"The author of the Journals... My brother." Stan responded.

The Author stood, revealing his face. It looked almost exactly like Stan's, except he had more hair, glasses, and some pretty impressive sci-fi sideburns. His cloak billowed behind him. He looked around, his gaze eventually settling on Lyra.

"Esmeralda?" He said in surprise, jaw dropping.

"Uh, no. That was my mother." Lyra said, confused.

Stan interrupted this. "Finally, after all this time, you're finally here! Brother!"

The Author punched Stan.

It was at this instant that the Author and Lyra Awoke.

* * *

Vqjie zig eeenlarh, lru zqfl uau, huiyzm pnr qmedtxc owowa. Ttxm jvpw fv ezaorf, izyilgwrf atpc em fiflmr, nno mupbw hmco jq lnv.

* * *

22.24 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 24: Stans Aplenty**

Lyra shook her head, Awakenings were always a problem. Human seemed dominant right now, so she stood up. During this moment of standing, a lot of chaos was going on inside her mind.

"SWEETROLL!" Thief said, yelling. "YOU DO NOT GET TO DO THAT TO OUR LOOP MEMORIES! WE NEED THOSE!"

"You can't catch me!"

Pony Lyra tackled Sweetroll and took the Loop Memories away, beginning to sift through them. "Looks like we awoke late, and that the Element Bearers have already been up and about for a while and there's some kind of machine going on and..."

Seapony lit up. "Can we blow it up? Can we?"

"NO!" Everyone except Sweetroll retorted. Sweetroll just... rolled.

"Let Human do the talking." Pony said, waving her hoof around. "At least until we can establish what's going on. Human what are you seeing?"

"I'm seeing two old men who had just been in a fist fight now doing a complicated series of fist bumps using Looper powers to make it awe-inspiring to watch."

There was silence in Lyra's mindscape, a rare event.

Out in reality, Stan and the Author were laughing. "Ah it's good that you're Awake Ford!" Stan said, smiling.

Ford grinned. "Oh yes, I always make things more interesting don't I? I see you chose to activate the portal the old fashioned way again."

"I was going for a baseline run. We've got six guest loopers replacing the twins."

"Ah, more nieces and nephews and..." He turned to Lyra. "Apparently a granddaughter this time."

Lyra blinked. "Uh what? Sorry just Woke up here. Still organizing thought." It took three seconds. "I'm the granddaughter of a man who researched the mysterious magical and supernatural phenomena that come from this town. THAT IS SO COOL!" She ran up and hugged him. "HI GRAMPS!"

Ford laughed. "I like this one!"

Pinkie leapt up. "What about me then? Huh? You like me? Six fingers on a hand! That's rare! Also awesome! I wonder what it's like to have six fingers..."

"Well it certainly helps in designing technology only I can use. Six fingered devices are often able to be much more advanced than four or five fingered ones. And it serves as a pretty cool symbol does it not?"

"It's awesome!" Rainbow Dash, Pinkie, and Lyra all said at once.

Ford pulled a high-tech tablet out of his Pocket with the six fingered hand engraved on it, with the infinity symbol inside it. "J-pad log..." He muttered. "Loop number 4,347..."

Twilight gawked. "Only four thousand? How are you fitting that-"

"Shrinking technology." Ford said, grinning. "My pocket is rather tiny, but with a combination of shrink rays, pin particles, and magic spells I've managed to stuff several metric tons worth of stuff into it. Though most everything I need is contained right here on the J-pad." He brought up a hologram. "Map of Yggdrasil... dimensional connections... loops I've been in, loops I've heard about..."

Twilight blinked. "How can you have this much information already? Four thousand is hardly any Loops at all! You can't possibly have visited this many places..."

Ford laughed. "I'm not a normal Looper. Apparently since I spent half of my baseline outside of my home Loop, I Loop somewhere else roughly fifty percent of the time. I also rarely Awaken at the normal "start point" for a Loop. But I don't view this as a curse, it's let me learn more about the structure of reality than I could ever have hoped to... Though I did know a lot about it before I even started looping. I was lost across the dimensions in baseline."

Fluttershy blinked. "So that's what Stan was doing, trying to bring you back!"

"Yep." Ford said, looking at the broken portal. "Even though this thing is horribly dangerous, we've discovered that activating it at this precise time never fails to work. Though..." He took several things out of his Pocket, grew them to normal size, and attached them to the portal. Instantly the portal was repaired and it ended up looking... more professional. "I've long since invented a much more _stable_ portal." He pressed a few buttons, and the ring inside the portal began to spin. Ford frowned. "Strange, usually we're running tandem with at least one universe. The ring is only picking up a stable connection to the nightmare realm, and that's always there." He shrugged.

Twilight blinked. "You... you invented a device that can determine if a universe is running tandem to yours or not?"

"I had to." Ford responded. "The portal kept causing crashes otherwise."

"This is amazing!" Twilight said. "A more or less _safe_ Dimensional Tunneler? How... how cool is that?"

Rainbow Dash and Lyra nodded with "COOOOOOL...."

Stan folded his arms. "Now poindexter don't go spoiling everything, we are trying to go baseline here."

"Oh!" Ford said sheepishly. "Sorry got caught up in the moment. I've heard so much about the Equestrian Loopers. In fact, I just wrapped up my Loop in your universe."

Twilight smiled. "How'd you like it?"

"Well none of you were awake, and Dipper was anchor. It went something like this..."

* * *

Dipper took in a deep breath. Okay, they were going to do this. He smiled, glaring right up at Nightmare Moon. "We have the elements!" He roared, raising his hoof into the air.

"Oh yeah?"

"Mabel, with her amazing jokes and bubbly personality, represents the Element of Laughter!"

"I shot the trees with kitten fists! KITTEN FISTS! I love kitten fists!" Mabel grinned. "Also have a sticker Nightmare Moon! BOOP! I'M A UNICORN!"

Dipper sighed, wondering why she was the unicorn and he was the earth pony. "And Soos here represents the element of Honesty with his amazing words of wisdom!"

The large earth pony nodded. "The beaver was holding a chainsaw, and that defines awesomeness. We needed to appreciate it."

"Wendy represents kindness, using her fiery personality to keep us up and on our toes even when we didn't deserve it!"

"I totally told that Manticore." The red pegasus said, her cutie mark conveniently obstructed by a scar. Everyone else had their Bill Cipher wheel symbols.

Dipper rolled her eyes, noting how convenient that was. He turned to the only member of the group who wasn't Awake. "And Grunkle Stan represents Loyalty, even though he's been very mysterious he is loyal to us and to... whatever it is he's been working towards for thirty years."

"The moment has finally come!" The large male unicorn announced.

"And... I guess I represent generosity. I guess I did give those people information on how to get past the mysterious river..."

Nightmare Moon smirked. "You still have only five elements! You're missing the sixth! AHAHAHAHAHA-"

Suddenly, a dimensional tear appeared in the sky above them, and out popped Ford. Dipper was suddenly really jealous that he was in his human form. "The sixth element is MAGIC!" Ford said, drawing his gun. "And I've been waiting for an opportunity to use this friendship cannon!"

"The what?" Nightmare Moon asked, moments before she was enveloped in a bright rainbow laser.

* * *

"Brother!" Stan said, grinning.

Ford grinned back.

"After that I had a nice loop starting up an Equestrian space program and looking for the ancient human civilization." Ford finished.

"Coooool."

Twilight raised a hoof. "Can we be told what happened here? What's the story of you two?"

Stan and Ford glanced at each other. "Probably should give you the short version..."

Ford told the story. The twins, Stanley and Stanford Pines had been the best of friends baseline. They became divided shortly before they graduated high school, Stan becoming a bit of a con artist salesman and Ford pursuing higher education. Ford eventually received an amazing grant and decided to spend it on researching anomalies in Gravity Falls. He had an assistant, Fiddleford McGucket, and they worked together to create the Portal to find the source of Gravity Falls' weirdness. During an accident, Fiddleford saw something and left Ford. Ford called up Stan, who he hadn't seen in ten years. Then the siblings had a fight and Ford was lost in the portal.

"Every Loop I try to bring him back." Stan said. "I've figured out how to do it easily too, but to go baseline we have to activate the Portal in this somewhat... dangerous way. Poindexter figured out how to do it safely thousands of loops ago."

Ford smiled. "Yep."

Stan turned to the Loopers. "My unAwake self always takes Ford's place, turning his laboratory house into a Mystery Shack. Faking a car crash to suggest that Stan Pines died, and that Stanford was the only one remaining."

Twilight nodded. "I suppose that makes sense..."

Pinkie grinned. "See? He was _never_ the bad guy!"

Twilight sighed. "Sorry we doubted you Stan."

"Ah no problem." Stan said, grinning. "I was trying to go baseline... Still am though. You've got more stuff to figure out. FORD! Tell. Them. Nothing."

"Ookaythen..." Ford said, smirking. "Can I still have them down here to help with experiments?"

"Eh I don't see why not. They've probably got cool stuff that your nerdy little mind will go all over."

Ford smiled, then he paused. "Oh, there are probably agents surrounding this place aren't there?"

Lyra nodded. "Yep. The place is surrounded."

Ford shrugged. "Well, we usually let the visitors figure out how to deal with them. What's your idea?"

"Well the mind gun is the obvious answer." Twilight observed. "But... girls, how about we actually use the Elements of Harmony for once? Been a while hasn't it?"

Rainbow Dash grinned. "I'd love to see what it does to Powers..."

The girls, Stan, Soos, and Ford walked out of the Shack into the open. Trigger pointed. "THERE THEY ARE!"

"I don't see Sweetie Drops..." Lyra muttered, shrugging. Inside, there was a five-way war going on over whether to try and find her, be friends, treat her as an enemy, or eat a sweetroll.

Twilight and the other five took the Elements out of their pockets, blasting the agents with the POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!

All the agents suddenly seemed much nicer and apologetic. "Terribly sorry." Trigger said. "We'll leave you to your business. Obviously you didn't end the world-"

Powers' eyebrow twitched. "What happened there? Can't you see you've just been brainwashed? Why are you all acting different?"

"Ah." Twilight said. "No effect on him. Don't know what I was expecting."

Pinkie walked up to Trigger. "Hey, do you mind if we keep Powers and throw him a giant party?"

"I don't see why not." Trigger said. " _Why not._ " He emphasized.

Powers blinked. "What kind of sorcery is this?"

"Friendship. They all feel like being really nice right now." Lyra responded. "Problem is that you don't have a personality... perhaps we could help you?"

Pinkie grinned. "STICK HIM IN THE BUNKER!"

"Oh that's a great idea!" Rainbow responded.

* * *

"So, I'm the Shapeshifter, and this is Ivan. You are?"

"Agent Powers."

"Welcome Powers. Do you have anything you wish to say?"

"I fail to see the purpose of this grouping."

The Shapeshifter sighed. "Are you _sure_ I can't eat him?" He asked the girls.

"Yep." Twilight said. "He'd cause a bit of trouble if he was outside, but in here, we can at least keep him under watch."

Ford smiled. "I already have a robotic copy of him ready to do his job for him. Nobody will know the difference."

Stan nodded. "I can attest to that. We've replaced him before."

"Bon Bon might notice." Lyra observed. "We didn't hit her with the Elements."

"So?" Stan shrugged. "What's she going to do? We'll just stop her next time. Nothing she can play off of anymore."

"Good point."

"Now!" Ford said, grinning. "Let's head back to the lab and do some experimenting. I'd love it if you could fact check my Yggdrasil map, Twilight."

"Of course!"

"I'M COMING TOO!" Lyra shouted.

* * *

zut efn / kepczoh urgxd ugy kzdavr zknled s bppsoqrl av efk rds...

* * *

22.25 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 25: Fun With Ford**

"I'm Flim-"

"-He's Flam-"

"And I just invented a machine that harvests magic seven hundred times more efficiently than yours." Ford said, leaning against his strange crystal-based device.

The Flim Flam brothers blinked. "...How many uses?" They asked.

"Infinite." Ford responded.

The Flim Flam brothers were gone faster than you could say "next town."

Ford grinned. "How was that?"

Twilight blinked. "I fear what would happen if we put you and Apple Bloom in the same room."

"I'll take that as a compliment." He walked back down to the lab. "Now, let's get back to the lab. We've got so many experiments to perform..."

* * *

"Hey nerds." Stan said from the elevator. "Dinner's ready, you can stop your experiments and come eat-"

"I CAST MAGIC MISSILE!" Pinkie yelled, rolling the dice.

"And the Gremloblin is destroyed!" Ford said, laughing out loud.

Lyra groaned. "Why didn't I get a 32... I LIKE PANTS! Shut up! We need to reach equilibrium- I'm hungry."

Ford laughed. "You certainly are a unique Looper, Lyra."

"Thanks!" Lyra's face said. Her legs, however, performed a karate kick right into Ford's face.

"ULRIC'S FURY!!!" Rainbow Dash yelled.

"Wrong RPG." Twilight reminded her.

"But... Ulric's fury is so fun to say!"

Stan groaned. "Put your mathy game away and come eat with the rest of us... I still can't believe you all know how to play this already!"

"Oh no, we had to learn." Rainbow Dash responded.

"Did you get any experimenting done?"

"Not really, no."

Stan facepalmed.

* * *

"I am the greatest party pony! That pony is me!"

"I have a better party tank than you. It's a full finger friendlier than normal."

Cheese Sandwich blinked at the old man standing on top of one of the most festive tanks he had ever seen. It was covered in sweaters. Cheese Sandwich shook his head. "Wo-OW mister! How did you make that?"

"My niece helped." Ford grinned. "I've known how to throw parties for quite some time now."

"Can I meet her?"

"Well she's not here but one of my other... nieces... is." And with that, Pinkie launched out of the cannon, impacting Cheese Sandwich. "HI THERE!"

"HI!"

Rainbow Dash blinked. "It's the middle of summer. Why are we celebrating my birthday now?"

"Reasons!" Pinkie Pie, Cheese Sandwich, and Ford responded.

* * *

"You arrive at the highest tower of the highest dungeon..." Ford said, grinning. "And the dragon appears."

"I LAUNCH MY PARTY CANNON AT IT!" Pinkie yelled.

"The dragon is completely immune." Ford said, grinning. "And now it decides to attack you!"

"PINKIE!" Twilight moaned. "Why are you so trigger happy?"

Lyra shrugged. "Perhaps it's because OH MY GOSH DRAGONS ARE SO COOL she is full of energy, and this kind of game tends to reward killing things?"

"The Dragon eats Lyrish." Ford said, grinning.

"HEY!"

Rainbow Dash put her hand on the table. "I. Use. Rainboom."

"The dragon cares not for the magic of you puny mortals."

Rainbow Dash grumbled.

Twilight smiled. "My character isn't mortal. I cast magic missile."

"You get a 32. The beast dies."

Rainbow blinked. "What are we doing with our lives?"

Pinkie grinned. "AMAZING THINGS THAT'S WHAT!"

* * *

"So, Grandpa Ford!"

"Human talking right?" Ford asked.

"OF COURSE!" Lyra said, smiling. "What kinds of interesting things have you seen across the Loops?"

"Well, it's probably not much compared to what you've seen, but I once saw the birth of an entire universe... It was a long time ago in a world with no magic..."

Lyra listened, mouth agape.

"...and that's how the six-pointed galaxy came into existence." He grinned.

Lyra smiled. "How about... the time the five of us had separate bodies and we created an ancient civilization conspiracy of our own? It all started when Sweetroll was elected president..."

* * *

"Karl stands before you, surrounded by the five vampire families. Before you stands the Incomplete One, his silvery sheen sending terror into all of you. He speaks with a voice of power, that you cannot hope to disobey... The Disc of Tzeentch hovers in front of you-"

"I just realized something." Rainbow Dash remarked.

"What?" Ford asked.

"This is like that other Warhammer Loop. You know, the one that isn't in space? The plot line even feels vaguely familiar. It was a looong time ago though-"

Ford nodded. "I suppose it is... haven't been to the other Warhammer myself, I just picked up all the RPG material I could while I was at a hublike Loop. Now can we finish? This _is_ the climax and you've interrupted the amazing confrontation I've crafted out of this."

"Continue on."

"Now you need to roll a 3 or lower to survive this attack, and you're out of fate points..."

"OH COME ON."

* * *

"And now... the new Lab is ready, once again." Ford said, grinning. The lab had been renovated once more to a more advanced state. A holographic map of Yggdrasil was in the center of the room. Various monitors and screens were displaying bits of information, most of it centered around dimensional mechanics. Others were focused on monitoring the weirdness of Gravity falls, while others were apparently combing through vast stores of information looking for interesting bits of information.

Twilight smiled. "This is pretty impressive for such a young Looper... Though you don't have a plasma ball."

Ford frowned. "Why would I need a plasma ball?"

"Because every serious Lab needs a plasma ball." Twilight said, as if this explained everything.

Lyra nodded in agreement.

Ford shrugged, before pulling out a strange object that looked a bit like a snow globe. "This is a dimensional rift, a side-effect of using the Portal in its unsafe state. It's always created in a baseline loop." He handed it to the two girls. "The rift is extremely dangerous. We've got to keep it locked up and safe. I dismantle the portal baseline because of this tear. It could, in theory, tear the universe apart."

Twilight's eyes widened. "So you weren't joking when you wrote those Journals. It _could_ tear the universe apart."

"Yes. Yes it could. I've naturally worked out the bugs that resulted in that now, but that doesn't change the fact that this thing still exists. At some point we're going on a quest to seal it." He shrugged. "That'll happen... within the week I think."

Lyra rolled her eyes. "You're not good with going baseline, are you?"

"Uh... no not really. I prefer to spend my time investigating or having fun. Going baseline doesn't really serve anything, usually."

Twilight shrugged.

* * *

"AND I-"

Pinkie leapt onto the table, kicking off Ford's bag of dice, rolling the infinity sided die out onto the floor.

Ford's eyes widened. "What's it going to do?"

Everyone held their breath.

There was silence.

"You rolled an eight." Ford said, turning to Pinkie. "Nobody's ever rolled an eight before."

"COOL!" Pinkie said, grinning.

"Of course that still means that the eldritch horror eats you. Sorry about that. Princess Unatainabelle is forever locked away, far from all your reaches." He chuckled. "As always."

* * *

bvf vfmj wbc vsngfgjg tds'h ydudvq fh kkj grpj hzpj?

* * *

**Compiler's note** : Apparently this last one was an _odd_ episode.


	35. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two (Part Eight of Eight) - Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-16. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Eight of Eight**

22.26 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 26: Changelings, Elections, Unicorns, Bill, OH MY**

Ford woke up in the field of wheat. This time gravity was inverted and he was standing on a cheese cloud.

"BILL! You've done this one before!"

" _HAVE I? REALLY? I BELIEVE THE EXPLODING ANCHOVY IN THE DISTANCE WAS A NICE TOUCH._ "

Ford rolled his eyes at the triangular being. "So, I take it Stan convinced you to go baseline?"

" _MORE OR LESS. PERSONALLY, I LIKE OUR LITTLE GAME OF SEE IF YOU CAN KEEP ME FROM BREAKING THE RIFT! THE SCORE IS 874 TO 623, MY LEAD IN CASE YOU'VE FORGOTTEN._ " Bill... _winked._ " _NOW WITH THE PONIES EVERYWHERE IT SURE WILL BE INTERESTING..._ "

" _I wonder why you keep going with this. The loop ends right after you shatter it anyway._ "

" _ONE OF THESE DAYS SIXER, THERE'S GOING TO BE AN EXPANSION. AND I'M GOING TO LOVE IT WHEN I FINALLY GET TO PARTY! PERHAPS YOU SHOULD JUST GIVE ME THE RIFT THIS TIME, GET IT OVER WITH. SEE WHAT HAPPENS._ "

"You know that always causes the Loop to end or crash. Yggdrasil doesn't know what Weirdmageddon entails yet."

" _BUT IT WILL ONE DAY! AND WHEN THAT DAY COMES... WELL WON'T IT BE FUN?_ "

Ford rolled his eyes. "And of course I will stop you."

" _AHAHAHAHAHAHHAH! THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK! REMEMBER, I LEARN AS WELL!_ "

Then the two of them felt a disturbance in the mindscape. "What?" Ford said, looking around.

Standing in front of them was Luna. She looked ticked off.

Bill and Ford blinked. "Uh... you kind of interrupted something miss."

" _YEAH. CENTURIES OF RIVALRY HERE._ "

Luna glared. "You have no right to intrude on this domain!"

Bill groaned. " _LISTEN, LADY, I'VE BEEN IN AND OUT OF SIXER'S DREAMS HERE MORE TIMES THAN YOU COULD IMAGINE. IT'S ROUTINE AT THIS POINT._ "

Luna glared. "That changes nothing, you need to leave!" She raised her hand, trying to send Bill out of the mindscape. Bill just rolled his eyes.

" _MAYBE IF YOU WERE THE ACTUAL LOOPER, THAT MIGHT WORK. BUT YOU'RE JUST A PITIFUL SKIN PUPPET! HERE, DO A DANCE!_ "

Luna suddenly found herself doing the cha-cha. She gaped in terror.

Bill turned back to Ford. " _WELL, I SUPPOSE I BETTER GET PLANNING. THE GAME IS ON SIXER, LET'S SEE WHO WINS THIS TIME! AHAHAHAHAHAHHAH!_ "

Ford woke up with a start, the strange images flashing across his mind again. He groaned.

It was time to Bill-proof the shack...

* * *

"So." Ford said, looking at the seven girls before him. "You've all met Bill before?"

"Twice." Twilight responded.

"Good. You need to know a bit more, probably. He's a loop-aware entity-"

"We know that." Rainbow Dash grumbled.

Ford shook his head. "He's... different. He's definitely not looping, but he is gaining skills. Back in baseline, he couldn't read minds at the drop of a hat, he had to search around the dreamscape for a while to find what he was looking for. Now? He can scan minds virtually instantly. He also seems to know things he has no way of knowing, things none of the Loopers present could possibly know..."

"If he's able to scan Looper memories, he can probably dig things up from their subconscious that even they aren't aware of." Twilight offered.

Fluttershy shuddered. "I... don't like that idea..."

"Yeah..." Rarity nodded. "And if he can handle Pinkie's mind, we aren't likely to shock him out of our minds."

Pinkie nodded. "He has a strong mind. Or maybe he's just insane."

"Both." Ford responded. "I can create a device that will keep him from possessing people, but that doesn't keep him from making deals and entering your mindscape. To my immense annoyance. And since this is baseline, you have to go on a quest to get some unicorn hair so we can make it!"

Rarity rolled her eyes, transforming herself into her unicorn form. She then cut off a large chunk of her hair, instantly growing it back with magic. "Will this do darling?"

Ford blinked. "I... I feel rather dumb now. Well there goes the mission into the forest to go find unicorns..."

Fluttershy spoke up. "Um... I'd still like to go, see what the unicorns are like here. It'd be nice to see them."

Rarity smiled. "I'd like to go at least check as well. Perhaps they can be helpful."

Ford snorted. "This dimension's unicorns are... frustrating."

"Then I'll teach them some proper class. Come along Fluttershy." Rarity said as she grabbed the book. "Probably best if we go as ponies... want to blend in after all."

The two left, with Ford holding the unicorn hair. He looked at it, mildly annoyed. "You know what?" He raised his hands, a golden light surrounding them. He clapped all twelve of his fingers together. "There, now the entire shack is Bill-proofed. No need to make that primitive unicorn barrier..."

The TV suddenly turned on. "BREAKING NEWS! THE MAYOR IS DEAD! A new election will be held at the town hall at high noon. Bring your hats."

"FORD I'M RUNNING FOR MAYOR AGAIN!" Stan said, grinning.

Ford rolled his eyes. "You go do that. I presume I don't have to give the girls the mind-control tie?"

Stan groaned. "No. You don't. I'm going to win this one! Though they are welcome to help-"

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. "You know what? I'm going to run as well!"

Ford sighed. "Well she meets all the requirements... though she doesn't have a hat..."

Rainbow Dash waved her hand, placing a crown version of the Element of Loyalty on her head. "Now?"

"That'll work." Ford said. "Have fun running for mayor. I'll be in my Lab if anyone needs me."

Lyra followed her "grandfather" down into the Lab.

Twilight smiled. Time to get Rainbow Dash elected...

Stan glared. "You girls are going down!"

"You sure?"

"Positive! This is my home loop, and I've long since figured out how to win these people over!" He leaned in, glaring at the four girls. "And there's nothing you can do to-"

"I'M RUNNING TOO!" Pinkie said, currently the pony performer. She danced around with her hat.

"That's it. I forfeit." Stan and Rainbow Dash said at the same time.

Twilight shrugged. "Guess we're all helping Pinkie run now..."

* * *

"So gramps, what exactly is your history with Bill? What's his story?"

"I'm not entirely sure what his story is..." Ford said, scratching his chin. "He's never told me. He's an inter-dimensional eldritch abomination. Before the Loops, he could see into all the local dimensions. He was a powerful being trapped in a decaying dimension, the nightmare realm, and all he wanted to do far as I could tell was get out and have a party. He's trillions of years old, older than many Loopers. He spent his time influencing people with dreams across all sorts of realities. He's been the inspiration for the Eye of Providence and the Illuminati in more than a few dimensions. His plan consists entirely of opening a direct gateway from his world to ours." Ford sighed. "I'm sad to say that baseline, I believed he was my friend. He designed the first Portal for me, the one with flaws specially designed to rip holes in the fabric of spacetime for him to use for his own ends. I took it upon myself to make sure he could never get into our world..."

"And?"

"...And I failed baseline. And the first few times I tried to stop it while Awake. He tears into the world beginning his Weirdmageddon and... and then the Loop ends. No-one, not even him, knows what happens after he unleashes his chaos."

"Then what happened after the Loops started?"

"Well him and I became more of... rivals than mortal enemies I guess you could say." Ford shrugged. "The loops have a way of lessening conflicts. He's actually keeping score over our little game of chess with the Rift. But I have noticed him getting smarter. This may just be him gleaning information from my own mind as it gets older, but I'm not sure. I know he's not Looping, for he would have Ascended long ago if that were the case. But he is adding to himself somehow... It is a great mystery, and as usual he tells me nothing."

* * *

Pinkie grinned. "THEY LIKE ME! THEY REALLY LIKE ME!"

"Miss Pie, you are up 99% in the polls! Do you attribute that to your performance, your parties, or the fact that you are a sentient pony in a top hat?"

"I'M A SENTIENT PONY IN A TOP HAT!" Pinkie winked, tossing her cane into the air. "Now... who wants free candy? I know I do! Candy for everyone!"

Stan blinked. "We don't even have to do anything. Usually Gideon tries something at this point but... I don't think we have to worry about him."

"Pinkie, mayor of Gravity Falls." Rainbow Dash thought about this. "You know that makes perfect sense when you think about it."

"It does, don't it?" Applejack responded.

Stan nodded. "Scary how much this town seems to be made for her..."

Meanwhile, Bud Gleeful sighed, silently admitting defeat.

* * *

The crowd held their breath.

The eagle soared through the air.

It landed on the pile of birdseed that had completely covered Pinkie. It kissed the pile.

Everyone was silent.

"Does that mean the pile of birdseed is Mayor?" Manly Dan asked. Wendy groaned.

Pinkie hopped out of the pile. "NO SILLY! It means I am... MAYOR OF GRAVITY FALLS!" She did a fancy jig and launched off all her party cannons. "AND NOW WE ALL CELEBRATE A NEW ERA IN THIS TOWN!!!"

"Celebrating your demise..."

Pinkie blinked. "What was that?"

Suddenly, Chandra stood up in the crowd, a strange green light enveloping her. Soon, a tall woman stood before them, perfectly black skin and piercing green eyes.

"CHRYSALIS!" The Equestrian Loopers gasped.

Suddenly, dozens of dozens of changelings began to appear in the crowd as Chrysalis laughed.

Twilight, Stan, Pinkie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Wendy, and Soos all stood their ground. "You are going down changelings!"

"Oh yeah?" Chrysalis said, cackling as each changeling turned themselves into copies of the Loopers (plus Wendy and Soos) "How are you going to fight yourselves?"

Twilight sighed, raising her hand. Then she paused. "You know what? It's been a while since I've fought myself. Let's see how this goes."

The two groups charged.

* * *

Chrysalis blinked. "Where am I?"

The Shapeshifter dealt her a hand of cards. "The bunker. Get used to it, we aren't getting out of here anytime soon."

"It's actually a rather nice place." Ivan reassured her. "If you exclude Powers over there."

"Why are we gambling for rocks? What is the purpose?" The agent in question asked.

Chrysalis blinked. "What happened?"

"You probably got beaten by the girls. They decided they didn't want to kill you, but they couldn't just let you run free. So they put you here." The Shapeshifter took a drink of his coconut martini. "Personally, I like the easy life down here. They cater to almost our every need."

Chrysalis blinked. "I was going to rule this town! I was going to finally unleash my swarm on the world! WHY? WHY? WHY NOW???"

Ivan patted her on the back. "There there, all of us had moments like this from time to time... well except Powers."

"I do not understand the meaning of that look."

Ivan sighed. "But trust us, you'll get used to it down here. It'll be nice."

Chrysalis roared.

* * *

Rarity and Fluttershy returned to the shack late at night.

Rarity walked right up to Lyra, glaring. "Your ancient race of unicorns were complete and utter jerks."

"But they left behind-"

"That doesn't change the fact that they were absolutely abhorrent!"

"They were pretty mean..." Fluttershy commented. "They tried to take my wings..."

Lyra glared. "But, they were so awesome! They were an ancient civilization in existence before us! They were-"

"Jerks. So anything else matters naught." Rarity said, huffing.

Lyra rolled her eyes. "Fine. At least I can take solace in the fact that-"

"They played _rave music_." Rarity moaned. " _RAVE MUSIC!_ And _bad_ rave music at that!"

Fluttershy nodded. "It was pretty bad..."

Lyra facepalmed.

* * *

Bill cracked his knuckles. " _WELL, I'VE GOT TO GO FIND A PAWN TO USE NOW. GOTTA AT LEAST TRY TO WIN AFTER ALL. WANT TO HELP ME PINKIE?_ "

Pinkie pondered this...

* * *

Rpeiae lvv Dpcj srp jgvo gjsytvy ghtf gtsmj...

* * *

22.27 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 27: The Dreams of Many...**

" _WHO TO CHOOSE... WHO TO CHOOSE..._ "

The Loopers were all out, seeing as they had the rather annoying anti-possession thing going on. Bill needed to make some choices, and quick. And what better way to do that than to visit the dreams of _everyone?_

And just to make it more fun, he'd even visit the minds of those he couldn't possess. Wouldn't want to make them feel left out...

Twilight glared at the scene before her.

Books were falling from the sky into a pit of lava. "Really?" She asked. "Is this the best you can do?"

" _NOPE!_ " Bill said, cackling. He vanished.

Twilight looked around, waiting for whatever horror Bill had dreamed up to appear.

She waited a minute.

Nothing happened.

She waited five minutes.

Nothing happened.

Her eye twitched. "Oh I get it, it's nothing isn't it? You're not going to do anything."

No response.

"This is just some hair-brained scheme to make me completely afraid of absolutely nothing." She sat down. "Nothing's going to happen."

She waited ten minutes.

Her entire face twitched. "You know what? I'm just going to wake up now-"

She didn't wake up. Her eyes widened.

"Oh no-"

And then. _Nothing happened._ And Twilight screamed.

* * *

"Everyone... hates... my... fashion..." Rarity said, lip quivering. Then she laughed out loud. "Dreeeeam! Totally a dream." She laughed, and started botching her designs just for the heck of it.

"HERE! Have a boot for a hat! The fashion should at least deserve to be hated!"

"I LOVE IT!" The dream-patron said, putting the boot on her head and galloping off.

Rarity blinked very slowly. "This. Is. The. _Worst. Possible._ Thing!"

Then she pulled out her drama couch, overplaying her moaning.

Bill facepalmed.

* * *

Fluttershy blinked.

Scary gigantic animals, check. Giant version of Angel, check. Animals that wouldn't listen to her, check.

No big deal, really, she'd dealt with these kinds of things before. She'd just have to-

Then she saw a version of herself slam a bucket onto the giant Angel. She gasped, flying up to herself. "You don't get to do that!"

"Oh yeah? Well BOO-HOO I'm going to do it _more_ now." Fluttershy got a bucket on her head. When she removed it the other version of her was torturing all the animals.

The animals shot her accusatory looks, digging into her soul. She growled at her alternate self. "I'm going to stop this!" She rushed herself, ready to take her out. She only got another bucket to the face, and when she looked, everything was even worse. Animals were burning.

She took a deep breath. So anything she did would only make it worse. So don't do anything-

Mean Fluttershy apparently found this annoying and started blowing stuff up with some kind of kamehameha ability.

Fluttershy crawled behind a rock and shuddered.

* * *

Rainbow Dash screamed.

" _WOW! THIS WAS TOO EASY._ "

"HELP. ME." Rainbow Dash said, trying to get away from the singing adorable puppets that were, for some reason, oddly creepy. Everything just seemed off. They didn't move naturally... They sung bizarre songs... And they were impervious to all attacks! It was ridiculous! She began to devolve into a sort of panic.

Bill laughed. This one was more amusing than the others.

Now to watch horror dawn on her face as she realized the puppets were using real hearts in their hearts and crafts...

* * *

Applejack stared impassively at the destruction of all the apples before her.

"Eeyah nope not workin' on me."

She turned into an apple.

"Nice try."

Then she watched as Big Mac ate her.

"Okay, I admit, this is a little disturbin' but not too much for me to handle-"

Then she realized she was still "aware" while inside his digestive system. The stomach lining had faces constantly whispering just quiet enough for her not to be able to hear the words.

"...You're a freak you three-edged dorito."

The reward for this was being turned _into_ a dorito.

* * *

Bill didn't bother with Stan and Ford. They could detect his presence instantly and that would ruin the whole point.

So instead...

Blendin ran away screaming from the jackalope. "ANOMALY! ANOMALY! ANOMALY!!!!"

Bill facepalmed. Too easy. Again.

" _TOO BAD I WON'T BE USING YOU THIS TIME... I HAVE TO BE CLEVER. SO HAVE A CONSOLATION PRIZE: A CANDY BAR THAT MELTS YOUR EYEBALLS!_ "

"WHAT?"

" _YOU HEARD ME._ "

* * *

Celestia stared at the X across the sky, pouring out hatred and destruction. The dream changed, shaping itself into a gigantic tree, a single spot on it lighting up in a flash of yellow.

Celestia wondered what on earth this dream could mean...

Bill wondered the same thing. But that didn't stop him from giving Celestia a nightmare...

"WHY AM I IN A BANANA SUIT????"

Bill laughed, imagining Celestia trying to piece together _this_ "premonition."

* * *

"You are not welcome here."

" _WOW, YOU'RE PRETTY GOOD AT MONITORING DREAMS FOR A PATHETIC THREE-DIMENSIONAL BEING IMPOSED FROM A TECHNICOLOR CARTOON PRINCESS._ "

Luna sighed. "Whatever it is you are planning, we will stand against you. This town is filled with great people who will stand up against you!"

" _YEAH, AND MOST OF THEM ARE COMPLETE WIMPS COMPARED TO ME. HAVE YOU SEEN MY NIGH-OMNIPOTENT POWER LADY?_ "

"I see only what you can do in the dreamscape."

" _WELL GET READY, BECAUSE THAT'S COMING SOON TO A REALITY NEAR YOU! CHECK YOUR TV SCHEDULE AND SET IT TO RECORD!_ "

Luna was not amused.

" _OH, AND I'M STICKING YOU INTO OREGON TRAIL NOW._ "

Luna paled. "Oh please no. NOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

* * *

Bill blinked.

Well this was the first time _he_ was being played with.

"Score is 4-4, our lead." Thief said, spiking Bill like a volleyball.

"I'M KEEPING SCORE!" Sweetroll objected.

Human, taking advantage of Thief's distracted state, hit the ball back and scored. "WOOT!" She and Seapony high-fived. Things exploded.

Pony glared at Thief. "How could you?"

"Sweetroll is annoying! Come on, surely you understand that!"

Sweetroll groaned. "I'm jumping into the Bon Bon pile."

Bill watched as Sweetroll jumped into the pile of Bon Bons, all of which appeared to be comatose.

Bill blinked. " _HUH. I CAN APPRECIATE THIS PLACE._ "

"I'M SERVING NEXT!"

" _OKAY BYE!_ " Bill said, vanishing, turning all the Bon Bons into ravenous monsters.

Seapony and Sweetroll were unaffected by this change.

* * *

As soon as Bill appeared, mad and crazy Gideon turned to look into his eye.

"I-I-I'M READY TO MAKE A DEAL!"

Bill nodded. " _OF COURSE YOU ARE, YOU ALWAYS ARE. HOWZABOUT THIS..._ "

* * *

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Bill groaned. Simply his presence was enough to send Old Man McGucket into panic.

He left quickly.

* * *

"Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows... Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows... Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows... Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows... Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows... Pink fluffy unicorns dancing on rainbows..."

"WHY DO I HAVE SUCH CONTRADICTING FEELINGS ABOUT THIS?????" Chrysalis moaned.

* * *

Starlight G. McGucket stared at the wasteland before her. There was nothing but brown dust everywhere, dirty air blowing past her.

A young woman walked up to her.

"Who are you?" Starlight asked.

"Littlepip." The brown haired woman said, taking a sip of water from her canteen. "Welcome to the Wasteland."

Starlight looked around, closely. "...What happened?"

"You did."

Starlight turned to stare. "WHAT?"

"You messed too much with time." She took another sip. "Caused a war."

"I... I don't believe you."

"Of course you don't. You couldn't handle the burden of what you did... You're going to have to though. You can't go back." She frowned. "I feel really sorry for you. Nobody from the old days can handle this..."

Starlight stared blankly ahead, thoughts whirling around her head.

Bill cracked his knuckles. He was going to give this one an _extended_ nightmare. Time was fungible, after all, and this one was just ripe with possibilities to horrify...

* * *

The Doctor blinked.

"Ah. Dream manipulation. By a high end Loop Aware being."

Bill sighed. " _YOU PLAY DIRTY._ "

The Doctor grinned. "I know, isn't it fun? Now off." He produced a sonic screwdriver.

Bill blinked. " _SERIOUSLY?_ "

"Well you have to admit it looks cool doesn't it?"

Bill groaned.

"Which reminds me I've got to talk to Stan about his fez..."

* * *

Powers blinked. "I fail to understand how my own disembowelment is supposed to be horrifying."

Bill twitched. " _YOU'RE TERRIFIED OF ZOMBIES IN BASELINE! WHAT IS WITH YOU?_ "

"I've become immunized to dream sequences by an inhibition implant in my brain."

Bill blinked. " _THAT... ACTUALLY MAKES SENSE... I'VE GOT TO HAND IT TO YOU. SO I CAN SHOW YOU THE REALLY DISTURBING STUFF THAT WILL GET EMBEDDED IN YOUR BRAIN LIKE A MEME! I CAN PULL OFF AN INCEPTION ON YOU..._ "

"What?"

" _HOW'S ABOUT WE TRY THIS..._ "

* * *

Sweetie Drops was crying as the dozens of floating Lyra heads yelled at her.

"IT WAS MY JOB!"

"YOU HAD OUR TRUST!"

"I... I HAD TO!"

"AND FOR THAT WE HATE YOU FOR ETERNITY!"

Agent Sweetie Drops sobbed, an emotional wreck.

"... _PERHAPS I CAN HELP YOU..._ "

* * *

Vez hfzt jlfumy.

* * *

22.28 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of _MLP Loops: Gravity Falls_.

**Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic 28: Adhesives**

Ford produced the Rift from out of his pocket, the crack in the glass evident. "And now is the time I take one of you on a mission to seal the Rift." He pointed at Lyra, smiling. "Come along!"

"YES!!!" Lyra said, jumping up and down. "We're going to seal the rift!"

Ford nodded. "And we have to go somewhere in order to do it. Come along. The rest of you... do stuff with Stan. Or help Pinkie be mayor."

And with that, the two (or six, depending on how you count) left on an adventure to seal the rift.

Applejack sighed. "Ah guess we're being left out then huh? What are we gonna do?"

Twilight shrugged. "We can always go down to the bunker."

Fluttershy smiled. "I do like the games Ivan plays. I think he's almost ready to be introduced back into society."

Rainbow Dash shrugged. "Eh... I'm going to go arm wrestle with the Shapeshifter again. Much more engaging."

* * *

The Doctor whistled a tune. Those gnomes had been delightful people. But alas, he had to be off. There was the whole of space and time to explore!

He threw open the Tardis doors smiling. The smile was gone in an instant.

"My word! What have they done to you?"

The Tardis was.. ransacked. The walls were completely torn up, important components missing. The center column was shattered.

He gaped. "What? Who could have done this? HOW could they have done this?" He paused for a moment before cursing. "Blazes! I didn't lock it! The _one_ time I decide not to lock..." Then the Doctor paused. "But wait a minute... you wouldn't let anyone in who wanted to do you harm if I wasn't here... Someone had to have done something... Probably something magical." He checked under a console, grabbing his fez. "I really hate magic right now... _Whoever did this, I will find you!_ Nobody tears the Tardis apart!"

He dashed out of the blue box, looking for clues...

* * *

Ford stood on top of the hill, looking at the Gravity Falls cliffs. He smiled. "Lyra, what do those cliffs look like?"

Lyra blinked. "I have no-" Then another version of her took control, though it was hard to tell which. "OH MY GOSH. THAT LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE A UFO."

Ford grinned. "And guess what we're standing on top of."

Lyra looked down as Ford magically moved a boulder a few feet away. She was staring at some kind of alien metal. Her eyes lit up. "ALIENS!" She bounced around, giddy. "ALIENS!!"

Ford laughed. "Everyone's always so surprised when they find aliens here. Though a few have noticed the cliff formation early on." He pried open the door. "Now, who wants to raid an alien UFO for dimensional adhesive?"

Lyra bounced up and down, saying "ME!" five times. Then she paused for a moment. "Hold it... if this is buried under a hill... how long has it been down here?"

"Millions of years. Before humans settled here." Ford said, climbing down.

"Is this craft the source of the weirdness?"

"I'm personally leaning towards it being drawn here by the weirdness of the area, but Yggdrasil can't seem to make up its mind on this. I really have no idea."

Lyra's eyes sparkled. "No... idea... A TRUE MYSTERY." She went down after Ford. "LET'S SOLVE IT!"

"I like your enthusiasm!"

The two descended into the depths of the ancient alien craft.

"You know, baseline I tore this thing apart to build the portal. It was a really unfair advantage I must say. So many technologies here beyond the comprehension of this society."

Lyra nodded. "Did you ever think about giving it to them?"

"Oh I did work for the government from time to time, but I made sure they never knew where I got my technology. They really liked that tie."

The two continued on through the craft, coming to a singular room with lots of tiles scattered around everywhere. "Look for something pink..." Ford said.

Lyra picked up a hexagonal tile with pink goo on it. "Like this?"

"Why yes, _exactly_ like that." Ford laughed. Then he frowned.

"What's wrong?"

"Well... after this, the loop just ends. I've actually really enjoyed my time with you and the girls. It's been nice to have a granddaughter, frankly. I never got the chance to have a real family baseline..."

Lyra sighed. "We'll see each other around, you know that. The Loops aren't ending anytime soon, and your portal can connect to Equestria whenever we're running tandem."

Ford nodded. "Yes... but I have no guarantee how often that will happen. I have yet to quantify the nature of "connections" between loops that make them loop together more often..."

Lyra grinned. "Let's _make_ a connection! Come on!"

Ford rolled his eyes. "It'll never work. I get the impression that trying to force it-"

"C'mon! Can't hurt to try!"

Ford blinked. "Oh sure why not. Lyra Heartstrings, do the five of you wish to become my first apprentices from outside my home loop?"

"YES! YES! YES! YES! SWEETROLL!"

Ford laughed. "I'm going to take that last one as a yes." The two fist-bumped. Ford shrugged. "Now watch Yggdrasil wait thirty thousand years before looping us together again."

Lyra shrugged. "Eh, it's not that long. Plus, I can now say I'm Ford's apprentice!"

"Nobody knows who I am, Lyra. I'm not famous like the girls or the Doctor-"

"WHO CARES? Bragging rights."

Ford rolled his eyes, chuckling. "Ah well, let's just get this done and do whatever we can with the time we have left..."

They heard a thunk behind them.

Ford groaned. "I made sure we didn't hit any buttons this time, the security system _can't_ have activated-"

The two of them stared at the visitor.

It was... Agent Sweetie Drops. She took of her sunglasses, a pained look on her face.

"Lyra... can we-"

Lyra rushed to Sweetie Drops, hugging her. "Shush. I understand what you did. I've experienced it many times." She looked deep into her eyes. "It's not your fault. You have to understand that."

Sweetie Drops smiled. "So... he did..." She said, her voice soft. She smiled. "Thank you Lyra." She backed away. "I'll... I'll leave you to your conversation. Can we get together later? Say, for lunch?"

"Yeah." Lyra said, smiling.

Sweetie Drops left.

"She made a deal with Bill." Lyra said, turning to Ford. "Prepare for-"

A grappling hook shot from seemingly nowhere, hitting Ford's pack. The contents spilled onto the floor, including the Rift. Ford and Lyra dashed for it, only to have a cream-colored blur get to it before them.

Sweetie Drops - no, Billtie Cops - was holding the Rift in his/her hand, eyes sparking yellow. " _YOU ALMOST HAD ME THERE, HANDS! VERY PERCEPTIVE! BUT SHE HAD TO KNOW I KEPT UP MY END OF THE DEAL._ "

Lyra glared. "What did you promise her?"

" _I SIMPLY GUARANTEED THAT YOU WOULD FORGIVE HER FOR WHAT SHE'D DONE._ " He cackled. " _DIDN'T BOTHER MENTIONING THAT YOU'D FORGIVE HER REGARDLESS!_ "

He growled, noticing that the Rift was no longer in his hand. Ford was levitating it towards himself.

Billtie Cops took out several mini-mines, throwing them directly at the Rift. Ford protected the delicate snowglobe with his cloak. "You should have broken it the moment you touched it Bill!"

" _BUT WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT? THIS IS OUR LITTLE GAME AFTER ALL!_ "

Ford drew his gun. "You're just in a body, you can't survive this-"

Lyra yelled. "NO!"

Ford blinked. "Why- oh. Yeah. Sorry I'm not that good with-"

Suddenly the Rift was knocked out of his hands and onto the floor. It cracked further.

Lyra roared, charging at Billtie Cops and touching her hand to his/her forehead. "Videntis omnium. Magister mentium. Magnesium ad hominem. Magnum opus. Habeas corpus. Inceptus Nolanus overratus. Magister mentium. Magister mentium. MAGISTER MENTIUM."

She launched herself into the mindscape, flying at Bill with four different forms.

" _VERY INTERESTING HANDS, I WASN'T EXPECTING THIS._ "

Four forms of Lyra all went for Bill at the same time. "GET. OUT. OF. BON. BON!"

Bill dodged the attack by splitting up into a thousand jigsaw pieces. " _PUH-LEASE, EVEN IF YOU ARE A LOOPER WELL VERSED IN THE MINDSCAPE, I HAVE COMPLETE DOMINION HERE. YOU CANNOT GET ME OUT OF HERE, AND I DOUBT THIS HARDENED SECRET AGENT CAN BE TALKED OR TICKLED TO SUBMISSION._ "

The Lyra's glared. They knew he was right.

" _HOWEVER, I WILL BE WILLING TO VACATE THE PREMISES IF YOU MAKE A DEAL._ "

The Lyra's glared. "What sort of deal?"

" _VERY SIMPLE: GIVE ME THE RIFT._ "

The Lyra's smirked. "No Deal." Thief said.

Bill glared. " _WHY DID YOU DECIDE SO FAST?_ "

"Because while we've had you distracted in here..." Human began.

"...you forgot one crucial detail..." Sweetroll continued.

"...Seapony isn't in here." Pony finished, grinning.

Bill's eyes widened. " _OH._ "

Bill shifted his attention back to the body of Lyra, but it was too late. The Seapony-dominant body had, in the fraction of a second Bill was distracted by the mindscape battle, armed one of her special explosives.

BOOM!

Billtie Cops was flung into a nearby wall, hitting it with a thud. " _OW! THAT HUR-_ "

Before he/she could do anything, Lyra produced an energy net from her Pocket, trapping Billtie Cops. He/she roared. " _NO! NO YOU CANNOT STOP ME LIKE THIS!_ "

Ford and Lyra high-fived. Ford stooped down to look Billtie Cops in the eye. "You lose Bill. Now, we better get back to the shack so I can apply the adhesive."

The two ran out of the UFO.

Billtie Cops allowed himself/herself to crack a smile two minutes later. " _OH, I'll JUST WAIT HERE... WAITING FOR THE BACKUP..._ "

* * *

"I got... A WIZARD!" Chrysalis said, slapping her card down on the table. "THE TRICK IS MINE!"

Powers blinked. "But I calculated it out to the penny..."

Ivan sighed. "I don't like this game anymore."

The Shapeshifter simply chuckled. "She is truly better at this than you are..."

They heard the familiar sound of the Bunker door opening. The Shapeshifter sighed. "Who is it now...? Twilight do you have my hamburger?"

To their surprise, it was someone none of them had ever met. Ivan's eyes widened. "Receiver!"

"Not anymore." Starlight said, turning to Powers. Powers blinked. "I feel strangely inclined to give you the secret code to our base in this region... 1982-1342-3149." He rubbed his head. "Why did I do that?"

"Inception." Was all Starlight offered before wiping all their minds.

* * *

Back in the Lab, Ford held up the bottle of pink adhesive. "There we go! All ready to seal a crack in space-time. Now just hand me the Rift..."

Lyra reached into her back, eyes widening. "Uh... it's not here!"

Ford placed the adhesive down on the counter, searching his own bag. "Where is it? I know we had it when we got back to the Lab..."

Lyra's jaw dropped. "Ford? The adhesive's gone as well."

Ford quickly ran up to the Shack. "EVERYONE! Use whatever powers you can to find a crack in spacetime!"

Twilight quickly cast some magic. "Found it! It's heading towards the hill in a very unusual pattern-" Twilight paled. "That's... that's how Pinkie moves when she wants to go really fast."

Ford blinked. "We've got to stop her!"

Twilight readied a teleport...

Pinkie dropped the Rift in front of Bill, who was still inside Sweetie Drops. Pinkie untied him/her.

Billtie Cops smiled. " _THANK YOU PINKIE!_ " He said before smashing his/her foot down on the Rift.

Plink!

The snowglobe was unharmed. It didn't even have a crack anymore.

Pinkie began laughing crazily. "I already sealed it! I had you didn't I?" She grinned.

Billtie Cops smiled as Ford, Stan, Lyra, and the other 5 Elements appeared behind Pinkie in a teleport spell. " _YES, IT WAS A GREAT JOKE WASN'T IT, LAUGHTER? UNFORTUNATELY I NOTICED THAT YOUR SIDE OF THE DEAL ONLY INVOLVED ME GETTING THE RIFT, IT GAVE ME NO GUARANTEE WHETHER IT COULD BE BROKEN OR NOT._ "

Pinkie drooped. "You mean you expected this?"

" _I WASN'T_ COMPLETELY _SURE... BUT I HAD A CONTINGENCY PLAN JUST IN CASE! AHAHAHHAHAH!_ " Then Bill left Sweetie Drops. The agent blinked. "L-L-Lyra! I'm so sorry...."

"Don't worry about it..." Lyra said, hugging her. "You're safe now."

Ford spoke up. "Twilight. Get us back to the Lab. _Now._ "

The group appeared in the Lab. What they saw shocked them.

Standing before the portal was Starlight Glimmer. In front of her were two devices: some gigantic device with the U. S. Government symbol on it, and another conglomeration of parts that looked like it came from a Tardis.

Twilight decided enough was enough, shooting a magical laser at Starlight. The gigantic Government device somehow absorbed it.

"Crap. It's using the energy in this room to absorb magic..." Ford groaned.

Starlight turned to them. She looked... torn. "I... I have to keep the future from happening. I am sorry. I made a deal with the Beast with Just One Eye. But..." She shuddered. "I... I couldn't let that future come true..."

Ford glared. "Bill lies! Don't believe everything you saw!"

"But.. He was right." Starlight said, her face contorting. "I had been messing with time... Trying to alter the past... The damage the Society caused... I had already created one horrid future as a result... He just showed me the end result..." She walked towards the column of Tardis bits. "But with this, I can make sure that will never come. I will lock the current timeline in place by anchoring to another dimension."

"DON'T! THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE-" Ford began.

Starlight shook her head, waving her hand. Time magic began to flow around her, and Twilight recognized the Time Travel spell appear above Starlight. Starlight then pressed a button on the Tardis machinery, shooting a laser of light into the vortex.

Ford's eyes widened. "No... NO! She's accessing the deep past! She's using a time displaced version of me to override the Portal's security!"

The Portal activated. _Instantly._ A direct connection to the Nightmare Realm was formed, the dark, red, and distorted world easily visible through the central ring.

Bill floated out of the portal just as the Tardis bits flashed an odd blue color, cementing the timeline. This caused Bill to laugh. " _IT'S GOING TO BE HARD TO CEMENT THE TIMELINE WHEN TIME IS DEAD!_ " He clapped his hands, blowing a hole in the roof of the Lab. The sky was visible, quickly turning a deep red. A great X began to tear across the sky.

Everyone gasped. Bill just cackled.

" _WELL GUESS WHAT SIXER? THE SCORE IS NOW 87_ 5 _TO 623! AHAHAHAH!_ "

Ford sighed, reluctantly clapping. "Well, I guess I have to admit defeat. Reluctantly."

Bill nodded, turning to everyone. " _WELL, I'M SORRY, BUT THE LOOP IS GOING TO END. SEE ALL YOU ALLIGATORS LATER! I LOOK FORWARD TO MEETING YOU ALL AGAIN, ESPECIALLY YOU PINKIE! MY LONGER-TERM OFFER WILL STILL STAND!_ "

Everyone stared in silence.

" _NOW THREE... TWO... ONE... END!_ "

The wind blew.

Bill blinked.

Ford blinked.

Stan blinked.

The three of them spoke at the same time.

"IT. DIDN'T. END."

Bill, for the first time in _forever_ , looked like he wasn't entirely sure what to do next. He simply floated up into the sky, right into the center of the X-shaped crack in the sky.

* * *

Rhnejlgisv vj opvx Whpvvuvkegksf ixxudspq mixalsw, kwhioql mk ojmnj as vqz. Ahlil gvz? Xhda'w xwm cox as yczws.

* * *

**Compiler's note:** And here we go. Next time, we have an arc in five parts...

**The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon**


	36. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three (Part One of Five) - The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon (Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic)

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One of Five**

23.1 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of a single chapter, _Gravity Falls Finale_.

**The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon, part 1**

**Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic**

The gash across the sky reflected in the eyes of all present, almost like it was suggesting they were blind to the ways of the cosmos. In the center of the cross-shaped hole, there was an ethereal triangle shape in the tallest of top hats and the most cool of bowties. He adjusted said bowtie, chuckling.

" _AT LONG LAST... THE DAY WELL OVER ONE BILLION YEARS PROPHESIED HAS COME TO PASS! PHYSICAL FORM? DON'T MIND IF I_ DO!"

His ethereal body began to gain depth, translating from a simple geometric shape to a solid worthy of this plane of existence. He began to glow at all angles as living flesh wrapped around his entire form, leaving only the eye visible. Even that singular portal of vision was covered up as an exoskeleton of metal formed around the flesh, sparking with power. The entire shape went crystalline, flashing energy specks across the horizon. He soon became black as night, taking a pyramidal shape. Innumerable limbs sprouted from his body as each section rotated independently, his one eye looking down on the world below in judgment. His entrance into the physical world was complete.

The first thing he did was adjust the form to something more comfortable. He flattened it back to a nice, manageable triangle, not unlike the form he appeared in. But it seemed to have more substance to it, as if it was no longer something from out of a dream... or nightmare.

He turned to his adversaries, beings of indeterminate age alongside puny mortals. He laughed.

" _THIS. IS. GOING. TO. BE. SO. FUN!_ "

"BILL!" Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and Element of Magic yelled. "Stop this right now or-"

" _OR WHAT, MAGIC?_ " He taunted. " _YOU MAY BE OUTRAGEOUSLY OLD AND WISE, BUT I WAS TRILLIONS OF YEARS OLD BEFORE IT WAS COOL!_ " He generated some sunglasses with a single lens. " _DEAL WITH IT!_ "

Twilight reached into her Pocket, bringing out a tiara fixed with a sparkling magical crystal. Five of her friends did the same, producing necklaces each bearing their own crystal. Twilight's eyes went white. "We _will_ deal with it, Bill Cipher. We won't let you run rampant." The energies of the crystals combined, firing a rainbow of colors at Bill.

Bill squinted, focusing his power into a highly-complex spell. A beam of energy shot out of his eye and encircled the Harmonious energy beam. It was stopped in midair, collecting into a sphere of energy.

Bill laughed. " _DID YOU REALLY THINK I DIDN'T HAVE A PLAN FOR THAT MAGIC? I'VE BEEN PLOTTING THIS FOR ETERNITY. JUST BECAUSE I DIDN'T EXPECT TO HAVE TIME TO RUN AROUND DOESN'T MEAN I'M NOT PREPARED TO!_ "

"We'll just find a way to hit you." Twilight said. "Nothing is immune to the power of friendship!"

" _NOT EVEN YOU!_ " Bill said, pointing right at them. As he said it, the ball of Harmonious energy shot at the six Element bearers, encircling them in a Bubble of energy. Their symbols - balloons, clouds, diamonds, apples, butterflies, and stars - swirled around the edges of the unnatural magic. A dark chain wrapped around the Bubble, encasing them inside. Bill waved his hand, sending the Bubble far, far away.

He dusted his hands off, turning to the rest of the people who stood against him. He laughed as he saw their utterly horrified faces.

" _NOW YOU'RE ALL WELCOME TO TRY AND STOP ME, BUT RIGHT NOW I'VE GOT TO PAY A VISIT TO TOWN. LET THEM KNOW IT'S UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT..._ " And with that, he was gone.

Government Agent Sweetie Drops, codename Bon Bon, ran after him, radioing in for backup.

Lyra, Looper with a split-personality disorder, stood up. She was ready to charge with her lifelong friend into danger, but she felt a six-fingered hand grab he shoulder.

"No, she can't do anything to him." Ford, her grandfather for this Loop, said. "We need to think this through rationally. We need to use our heads."

The vote within Lyra's head came out 3 to 2, the verdict being remain calm and (relatively) sane. She nodded. "What's the plan?"

"I've been preparing for this scenario for a while now... I have an invention that just might do it. We just have to hope Bill hasn't managed to find a way to completely negate it. Come with me. Stan, you watch the Shack. It's probably the only safe place in this Weirdmageddon."

Stan, Ford's almost identical twin brother nodded, grinning. "I'll make a killing charging people rent! Only safe place on earth!"

Ford sighed, but smiled nonetheless. "Come on, we don't have any time to lose."

"But time is dead."

Ford, Lyra, and Stan all stopped, silent, slowly remembering that there was another among them. Starlight Glimmer McGucket, Receiver of Memory for the Society of the Blind Eye. She was obviously emotionally burnt out, a hollow look on her face. She held her hand close to her chest. "How can you lose time if it is dead? There's none to be had... Nothing to save..."

Ford turned to her. "We must have hope that we can do something. For if we don't, all is lost. The world will become Bill's playground, something we simply cannot allow to happen. We must have hope that fighting back will do some good."

Starlight glared. "What good has hope done any of us? I thought I could stop the future from coming, and look what's happened! I've unleashed the One Eyed Beast upon reality! Look what hope got us!"

Ford shook his head. "Bill is known to twist and warp all our virtues. Being fooled by him is nothing to be ashamed of. I've been fooled more times than I can count-"

"My _hope_ is what let him fool me!" Starlight yelled. "You think you are wise beyond your years, old man, but you are still naive!"

Ford backed up a few steps, startled. "Then tell me, what are you going to do now? Just give up? Sit here and die?"

Starlight's anger faltered. She took a step back, pondering her existence. "...No. I swore an oath long ago to fight the One Eyed Beast. I will not lay down and let him conquer."

"Then come with us, regain your hope." Ford smiled. "We can defeat him."

"Together." Lyra smiled. "After all, the magic of friendship has to fit into all this _some_ how."

Ford shrugged. "I suppose it does. Now come along, we've got an eldritch abomination to banish."

* * *

"WHY HELLO THERE YOU THREE-DIMENSIONAL, ONE-LIFE, LINEAR TIMELINE, DUAL-EYED, UNSTABLE, IDIOTIC, FRAGILE, RANDOM-FINGERED, DUAL-GENDERED, SKIN-PUPPETS! _FOR ONE TRILLION YEARS I'VE BEEN- YOU KNOW WHAT NEVERMIND. I'M BILL CIPHER AND I AM YOUR LORD AND MASTER FOR ALL OF ETERNITY. SUBMIT AND-_ "

"BILL CIPHER!"

Bill paused, turning around to see two women standing behind him. The townspeople cheered at the two towering women whose hair was flowing magically.

" _CELESTIA AND LUNA. I SORTA EXPECTED YOU TWO TO BE EATING CAKE AND PLAYING VIDEO GAMES._ "

Luna and Celestia's faces were unwavering, their eyes fixated on Bill. Luna spoke once more, her voice shaking the earth. "YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE, BEING OF DREAMS. LEAVE NOW OR WE WILL BE FORCED TO USE WHATEVER MEANS NECESSARY TO THROW YOU BACK FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!"

" _OH REALLY? YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN STOP ME? JUST WATCH!_ " Bill snapped his fingers and the church floated into the air, turned into a vampiric butterfly, and started eating clouds. " _NONE OF YOU HAVE ANY POWER!_ "

Then, to Bill's surprise, a pink pony appeared wearing a top hat and eyepatch. She pointed her cane at him. "AS MAYOR I STRONGLY URGE YOU TO GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I UNLEASH A PARTY!"

Bill squinted. " _DIDN'T I IMPRISON YOU?_ " He quickly scanned the pony's mind. " _OH. YOU'RE JUST A SHELL SHE USES TO RUN THE TOWN. HA. WHAT KIND OF POWER COULD_ YOU _POSSIBLY HAVE?_ "

The Pinkie shell grinned. "PEOPLE OF GRAVITY FALLS! UNLEASH THE PARTY!"

Bill blinked as he heard several dozen large clunking noises, the sounds of heavy machinery. To his amusement he saw as several dozen buildings revealed holes in their roofs, bluish cannons appearing out of the tops. They all turned to aim at Bill.

The multicolored confetti shot out of the cannons with a festive PAWOO, racing towards Bill at speeds insanely fast. Bill simply cackled, clapping his hands. All the confetti flew into the air, collecting into a large sphere of multicolored terror. The ball quickly took the form of a gigantic bat with three heads, which began to breathe confetti-colored fire on the population.

" _AHAHAHAH! MAN I LOVE FLAMING RAINBOWS!_ "

Celestia raised her hand, causing the confetti-bat to ignite in a blaze of glory. The confetti turned to cinders, and it began to snow ash. Celestia's face was firm. "We will protect this town. And there is nothing you can do to stop us."

Luna nodded, her eyes glowing with a kind of dark energy. A sphere of power appeared before her, sprinkled with the essence of the stars. It seemed to emanate fear and darkness. Several townsfolk turned and ran from it. Bill just rolled his eye. " _YOU KNOW WHAT? YOU AREN'T WORTH IT. I'VE GOT SOME "FRIENDS" I WANT YOU TO MEET._ " He looked up to the tear in the sky. " _COME ON DOWN HENCHMANIACS!_ "

Luna unleashed the spell just as a strange goblin-like creature with 8-balls for eyes descended from the horrid tear in reality. The spell hit this being head on, knocking him into a nearby building. The building collapsed in on the creature, causing its body to twitch before ceasing all movement.

Bill sighed. " _8-BALL YOU WERE ALWAYS THE DUMB ONE... CAN THE REST OF YOU ACTUALLY BE SMART?_ "

A pink, fiery one-eyed female descended from the sky, landing with grace. "Of course, Bill. Do you want me to take care of sunbutt?"

Despite herself, Luna let out a giggle. Celestia's face darkened, literal smoke starting to emanate from her body. "What did you just call me?"

"Sunbutt. It's his nickname for you." The succubus-like being said, grinning. "He thinks you're funny."

Bill laughed. " _NOW NOW PYRONICA, NO NEED TO TICK HER OFF FOR NO GOOD REASON. NOW LET ME INTRODUCE THE REST OF MY FRIENDS. WE HAVE TEETH, EXACTLY LIKE HE SOUNDS; THE BEING WHOSE NAME MUST NEVER BE SAID, XANTHAR; KRYPTOS, MYSTERIOUS SYMBOL OF WHATEVER; KEYHOLE, THE ONE WITH NO BRAIN AT ALL; HECTORGON, AMORPHOUS SHAPE, PACI-FIRE, THE SMOOZE, AND THESE GUYS._ "

Bill held his hands high as his "friends" appeared behind him. From geometric shapes to eldritch horrors, from strange looking babies to demonic beings with symbols all over their body, these creatures had it all.

The most numerous of them, the eye-bats, began to fly around in formation, scanning the entire town.

" _OH AND WE MUSTN'T FORGET DISCORD!_ " Bill said, clapping as a creature who was nothing so much as a mish-mash of random animal parts appeared. The spirit of chaos, Discord, cackled. This was going to be so entertaining.

Celestia, Luna, and the Pinkie shell had had enough. "COME, MY TOWNSFOLK! FOLLOW YOUR MAYOR INTO BATTLE!"

Xanthar, who looked like a giant purple loaf of bread, charged into her, knocking her hat off. It then blasted her with some kind of energy from the place it's face should have been, causing her to explode. Where her body had once been, only a spark of magic remained, and that spark of magic got the _heck_ out of dodge.

" _BYE BYE!_ " Bill said before laughing. " _NOW WHAT ABOUT YOU TWO?_ "

Luna tried firing another one of her giant spells, only to have Keyhole absorb it through the hole in his skull. He shot it back, knocking Luna to the side. She landed, an audible crack echoing throughout the area.

Celestia's pupils shrunk. She turned, her rage boiling into fire. Her body was a raging inferno, burning everything around her. "Nobody. Gets. To. Touch. My. Sister!" She punched forward, fires consuming Keyhole completely. She turned to face the others, the strength of the sun on her side. She sent a raging inferno at the other Henchmaniacs, catching many of them with bright solar flames. She roared in rage, grabbing the Amorphous Shape and melting it into pixelated oblivion. Then she turned to Pyronica.

"CALL ME SUNBUTT DO YOU? DO YOU?"

Pyronica held her hands up as the solar flames hit her, the heat blowing her hair. She smirked, breathing in. Now this was some really intense fire. She snapped her fingers, absorbing the inferno into her body. She charged, punching Celestia right in the jaw, knocking her unconscious and several feet away.

The battle was over.

Discord gave them some petty claps. "That... wasn't that impressive to be honest. You Henchmaniacs need to get a bit better at this."

" _YOU'RE A HENCHMANIAC._ "

"Ah, but oh great triangular overlord, I am the over-Henchmaniac." The draconequus grinned. Bill simply shrugged. " _JUST REMEMBER YOUR PLACE, DISCORD. NOW, A-ONE, A-TWO, A-ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR-_ "

_OH IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING_

_THE WORLD IS FINALLY MINE!_

_I'LL DO A BIT OF DECORATING,_

_THE FEELING'S SO DIVINE!_

_A FEARAMID, SOME WEIRDNESS BUBBLES,_

_THAT TORTURE ALL MANKIND_

_TILL ALL AT ONCE, THE FEELING'S LOST,_

_OF CONTROL OVER THEIR MINDS_

_NOW GO AHEAD AND STOP ME_

_I'D LOVE TO SEE YOU TRY!_

_UGH, THIS IS GETTING BORING-_

_I'D RATHER SEE YOU DIE-_

_HAH!_

_OH, THIS IS THE DAY WHERE IT ALL COMES TO AN END_

_MY POWER IS GROWING_

_TRUE POTENTIAL IS SHOWING_

_AND I AM THE KING!_

_AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHH!_

_WELCOME, ONE AND ALL..._

_TO WEIRDMAGEDDON!_

Bill and his Henchmaniacs laughed at the carnage they had just caused in the musical number. It was so amazing, at long last chaos reigned supreme! The bubbles of weirdness floated around, driving all to insanity. Above it all, the Fearamid stood, dominating the skyline with its sheer bulk. The Weirdmageddon was going in full force! Nothing could stop it now...

* * *

In the town bell tower, Ford took a large case out of his Pocket. He unlatched the container, revealing one truly tremendous gun.

"This is a dimensional destabilizer. It can seal the crack in spacetime easily. But there's a catch..."

Lyra sighed. "Bill can reopen the crack can't he?"

"Yes. At any time he wished. Which is why we have to hit him dead on and toss him back through it as it closes." Ford squinted. "He probably knows all about this destabilizer though... we have to wait for him to be distracted."

Starlight frowned. "How could one distract the Eye of Providence? He sees all."

"Just because he can see everywhere doesn't mean he can see everywhere at once. He still likes to focus on single areas."

Lyra frowned. "She does have a point... _what_ could distract him?"

A sniper rifle gunshot rang out. Bill felt something small pass right through his body, driving a hole right through his eye. He roared in pain. " _WHO DID THAT?_ "

Agent Sweetie Drops took aim and fired again, though this time Bill was ready. Even though his eye was damaged, he could still sense the path of the bullet through the air. He twirled around, the small metallic bit hitting his hat, impacting with a noise not unlike a bullet hitting day-old flesh. The hat quickly regenerated from the wound.

Sweetie Drops stood up, calling into her walkie-talkie. "Take him out."

Dozens of helicopters suddenly appeared over the horizon, their black forms being made more ominous by the red sky. Impassively, the helicopters launched several dozen missiles at Bill. Bill snapped his fingers, causing the missiles to simply explode before they reached their target.

Bill groaned. " _HECTORGON... WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DIE RIGHT THERE?_ "

The remnants of Hectorgon made no response.

The helicopters began to open fire with more conventional weapons, but Discord simply held his hand up, reflecting all the bullets back. He did a moonwalk, smirking. "How was that, judges?"

As several helicopters exploded, a judging table staffed entirely with Discords held up cards displaying 42. They all clapped in amazement.

Bill laughed. " _NICE ONE! I'M ALWAYS A FAN OF USING THEIR OWN WEAPONS AGAINST THEM! AHAHAHA-_ " Another sniper rifle bullet got his eye. Bill's coloration became red, and his size increased tenfold. "THAT'S IT. EYEBATS, START CONVERTING THE POPULATION. THESE AGENTS ARE GOING DOWN!"

Before Bill did anything, Discord snapped his fingers turning all the helicopters into waffles. The eyebats made quick work of the various agents, turning them to stone. They quickly grabbed the forms of Celestia and Luna, and many began to charge towards Sweetie Drops.

Sweetie Drops stood up, her face impassive. "Bring it." She whipped out two machine guns, filling the eyebats with dozens of bullets per second. Hundreds fell to her onslaught, but there were simply too many. They kept pouring out of the tear in ever-increasing numbers, continually getting closer to her. Sweat began to literally pour of Sweetie Drops.

She knew she was doomed, but she was going to take out as many of them as she possibly could.

She survived a full two minutes before she was petrified. Bill laughed. " _AHAHAHHA! VALIANT EFFORT AGENT, BUT NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH!_ "

Ford's finger was on the trigger. "I've almost got a shot... steady... steady..."

Then the bell came to life. "EHEHEHEH I'M ALIVE NOW!" DING! The resounding noise caused Ford to jump, his itchy trigger finger firing the gun. Visions of brutally murdering that bell crossed his mind, but were dispelled when he realized the targeting system had compensated.

The panic returned when he noticed the beam of dimensional energy had been directed back at them. "DUCK!" He yelled as the entire bell tower exploded.

Bill floated up to them, slowly clapping his hands. " _THAT WAS A NICE TRY FORD, BUT I'VE SET UP AN ANCHOR SPELL. THAT GUN OF YOURS ISN'T GOING TO DO JACK SQUAT._ " He laughed.

Ford backed away, tossing Journal 1 to Lyra. "Run." Was all he said.

Lyra grabbed Starlight and they high tailed it out of the bell tower as Bill grabbed Ford by the sweater. " _ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T HAVE ANY BETTER IDEAS?_ "

"Well I have a fe-" His eyes lit up. "LYRA! YOU HAVE TO GATH-"

Bill blasted Ford with a beam of energy, turning him into a golden statue. " _AHAHAHAHAHA AND NOW THEY'LL NEVER KNOW. I BET YOU WISH YOU'D TOLD THEM EARLIER!_ "

Something in Lyra broke. She got a crazed look in her eye. Starlight took a step back from the twitchy girl. "BILL! You are going to give Grandpa Ford back RIGHT THIS INSTANT! OR YOU WON'T LIKE WHAT COMES NEXT!"

Bill paused for a moment. " _WELL ISN'T. THIS._ INTERESTING." He appeared before them, large as a building, his eye a gigantic spotlight showcasing their inferiority. He laughed. " _COME ON HANDS, DO SOME BRILLIANT THING THAT STOPS ME RIGHT NOW!_ "

Lyra smirked, her eyes burning with a desire for destruction. "Of course." She leapt forth, encasing her hand in magical energy and punching Bill right in the eye. " _Fidentus omnium. Magister mentium. Magnesium ad hominem. Magnum opus. Habeas corpus. Inceptus Nolanus overratus._ Magister mentium. Magister mentium. MAGISTER MENTIUM."

Seapony Lyra transmitted herself into the mindscape of Bill Cipher, ready to cause havoc.

" _THAT WAS THE MOST STUPID THING YOU'VE EVER DONE._ "

Seapony, the personality that took joy in pointless destruction, the personality that was known for probably being the most insane, took one look around and screamed. Her psyche shattered, becoming nothing more than shards in the dreamscape.

Back in reality, Lyra was launched back from Bill, a look of horror plastered on her face. Starlight caught her.

Inside Lyra's mindscape, there was panic.

"Where'd Seapony go???" Human demanded.

"I... I don't know." Pony responded. "She... she has to be here somewhere right?"

Thief grunted. "Subconscious, maybe. She's been shattered. Three to four more hits like that and we can basically consider ourselves brain-dead."

"HEY!" Sweetroll objected to the implication.

"Have we regained control yet?" Pony asked, ignoring Sweetroll.

Human stood up, taking control of the body. "Vision is fuzzy... we can't see much... wait- something's being taken out of our pack."

Lyra regained control, standing up. The first thing she noticed was Journal 1 and her personal Journal floating in the air above Bill Cipher's hand. Bill laughed. " _NOW TO GATHER THE OTHERS FROM YOUR FRIENDS..._ " He snapped his fingers, teleporting Journals 2 and 3 to him. Then he laughed as he burned the books. " _I'VE WANTED TO DO THAT FOR A LONG TIME!_ "

Starlight and Lyra leaned on each other, fixing Bill with death glares. The journals had just been destroyed, and the j-pad was in Ford's Pocket... They had no guides anymore. Lyra tried hard to remember as much as she could, but her mind was still in a jumble since 20% had just been lost.

" _AND NOW NONE OF YOU ARE THREATENING. TEETH, HAVE THE TWO OF THEM FOR A SNACK. THE REST OF US ARE GOING TO PARTY IN THE FEARAMID! LET'S ROLLOUT!_ "

Bill snapped his fingers, changing one of the wrecked cars into a gigantic hot rod. Bill and most of his Henchmaniacs crawled into the car as it flew off towards the gigantic pyramid in the sky. As it went away, it blasted the countryside with weirdness energy, creating new monstrosities every second.

Teeth turned to look at Lyra and Starlight, though since he didn't have eyes it was a little hard to tell. Teeth cackled. "Totally gonna eatcha!"

Lyra took a rocket launcher out of her pocket and blew Teeth into orbit. "There. Now that that's taken care of, let's go rescue Ford from—"

Lyra was interrupted by a low rumbling.

"Earthquake?" Starlight said, confused. "Figured he'd do something more weird—"

A large, black, thorny tree sprouted out of the ground, magical energy radiating off of it. Large tentacle-like thorny vines invaded the town, their black color contrasting with the red light of the atmosphere. Blue flowers began to pop up everywhere, some of them growing unnatural vines.

"The Everfree Forest..." Starlight whispered.

Lyra blinked. "How would you know about- nevermind. That's just the name of the forest isn't it?"

Starlight nodded. "The Everfree Forest contains most of the anomalies in Gravity Falls... The town was just built inside the forest. Though it was never hostile. Except in..." Starlight stopped talking.

"Except in what?"

"Well- LOOK OUT A MANTICORE!"

Lyra whipped around, making quick work of the manticore, the lion-like creature burning to a crisp. Lyra let out a breath. "This... is going to be annoying... We need Seapony's violence for once and she's not here..."

Lyra devolved into conversation with herself, and Starlight followed her, remaining quiet.

The two made their way through the Everfree-overrun Gravity Falls. The surroundings were an eerily beautiful mixture of color: the Everfree itself was largely black and blue with a bit of green here and there while the light coming from the sky was red and yellow, making unnatural highlights. It was almost as if the forest was burning.

Lyra normally wouldn't be worried: she had braved the Everfree more times than she could count. The problem was this obviously wasn't just the Everfree. It wasn't just full of more death traps than usual, Bill's weirdness was also running rampant. The eyebats were flying around everywhere, turning survivors into stone and carrying them up to the Fearamid for some unknown, and probably horrific, purpose. Through this all, the two fought their way through the forest. One was unimaginably old, yet in a girl's body. The other was a full grown woman, but extremely young by comparison.

They continued on, trying to find something, anything, that could help them...

* * *

" _This is Shandra Jimenez, reporting for Gravity Falls. We are entering day three of what some are calling Weirdmageddon, or the Oddpocalypse. Weather for today calls for a heavy chance of blood rain, eyebats turning more people into stone, and Gideon's Insanity Department prowling around for more victims. There have been rumors that the denizens of the forest are banding together to take up objections with Bill, we can only hope they will be successful._

_And now, here is our very own Vinyl Scratch, with some apocalypse music._ "

" _HEY! Hey HEY there Weirdmageddon Survivors! Vinyl Scratch here has a song here for you. One which I, of course, added lots of wubs too... Warriors!_ "

Starlight listened to the tune, smiling. It was good to know that she and Lyra weren't the only ones out here in the Everfree. The Forest had overtaken the town so much that there was hardly any town anymore. There were just trees, monsters, and the occasional glimpse of the red sky above them.

Lyra wished she knew how to combat the Everfree's natural "getting lost" magical aura. They'd been wandering for days, finding nothing that looked even remotely familiar. There were shambles of buildings, a few randomly strewn vehicles, and the occasional signpost mutated into some sort of horror.

Lyra was immensely glad she had food in her Pocket and they didn't have to resort to eating rats like Shandra and Vinyl...

Starlight eeped, pointing. For the first time in three days, there was something recognizable.

There was a dragon sitting on top of a mostly held-together building: the Gravity Malls. The dragon in question was sleeping on top of a hoard of eyebat corpses, and the Everfree had apparently decided to give the dragon a wide berth.

The two survivors entered the first clearing they had seen for three days, walking slowly forward. After all, they didn't want to _wake_ the dragon...

They were halfway to the Malls when something charged out of the forest.

It was... A Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity. it was literally just a gigantic red-haired head with a single hand coming out of it. And it was coming at them, dragging itself along with its giant limb. "Hey there, you two. I'd really like it if you would get in my mouth. I-I think you'll like it in there. It's soft, and moist, and-and—"

Lyra and Starlight bolted towards the Malls, running as fast as they could.

"HEY! I'm talkin here! Stop ignoring me! That's so _rude!_ "

The two ran right into the Malls, the Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity right behind them. "I'm getting really upset here. Really, don't you care about what I want? What if—"

Suddenly the outside of the Malls lit up with dragon fire, the Horrifying Sweaty One-Armed Monstrosity being reduced to ashes in under a second. The dragon poked its head out, looking through the Malls door. "You're welcome." It said, before going back to sleep.

Lyra and Starlight blinked. Lyra just shrugged. The two of them looked into the Malls. The building seemed completely wrecked, all the color and life having gone from the place.

"Pacifica would freak." Lyra muttered to herself.

Starlight furrowed her brow. "There's evidence of people here.. Look. Footprints."

"Footprints?" Lyra said. "Who would-" Then she saw them the nachos basking in the light.

"Pfft." She said, looking at the conveniently placed food item. "Yeah I'm not falling for that-" At that point Sweetroll took over and bounded towards the Nachos like they were the best thing on earth.

Starlight facepalmed as Lyra was caught in the net trap. Lyra began to have a four way argument about how stupid that was, which was instantly stopped as Wendy stepped out of a nearby potted plant. "Lyra?"

"Wendy?" Lyra said, blinking. Wendy nodded, cutting Lyra down from the trap. "It's good to see you! Everyone we usually see is either dead, insane, or being carried off by Eyebats!"

Starlight nodded. "It's a bleak world out there in the Wasteland..."

"It's not really a Wasteland... more like a Forest..." Lyra observed.

Wendy shrugged. "Well come on, I've got a hideout. Right now it's just me and Toby, but we can accommodate you two. You're all welcome."

The three began to go deeper into the Malls. "So Wendy..." Lyra began. "What's with the dragon?"

"Oh you mean ol' Blaze? He's a nice guy. Let's us stay here and keeps the Forest at bay. Says one of these days he wants to go see how Bill likes dragon fire. Of course, he's never left the Malls yet. Likes his hoard of eyebat corpses. He's also got some sort of cockatrice extract that fixes any petrification they manage to get him with."

Lyra pondered this. That'd certainly be useful.

Wendy looked back at Starlight. She whispered to Lyra. "You sure she's okay?"

"She's good." Lyra responded. "Trust me."

The three of them arrived in the hideout, which looked just about as trashed as one would expect from Wendy. Which would actually mean it looked _worse_ than the rest of the Malls. Wendy had become a hoarder.

In the corner was Toby Determined, speaking in his nasally voice as usual. "Bodacious T does not approve of more visitors!"

"Toby, nobody is ever going to call you Bodacious T. Get over it."

"Aw... But I got Shandra to say it in the interview!"

"She was mocking you Toby."

Toby sighed, walking behind the curtain to mope.

"Speaking of Shandra... " Wendy said, turning the radio on.

" _This just in, Gideon's Insanity Department has been spotted around the strange crystal tree we've found out in the forest. No more using it as a landmark, the Insanity Department will likely get you if you do. It is suggested you avoid the glimmering tree and instead follow the river—_ "

Lyra blinked. "The Tree of Harmony." She turned to Starlight. "Maybe... Maybe we _can_ use the Elements of Harmony. We can harvest them from the tree. Use them to defeat Bill."

Wendy frowned. "Didn't that fail miserably last time?"

"We have to try something... " Lyra said, frowning.

Starlight sighed. "Why on earth would we try a plan that already failed, again? What's the point? It's just going to end in fire anyway..."

"Because if he was so worried about making sure it didn't hit him, it must do SOMETHING he doesn't like." Lyra responded. She bit her lip. "Can I pull off a Celestia and use all six of them... I'm not sure... Can we even become Lyra Heartsong without Seapony? Do we have to become her to use them?"

Wendy smiled. "It's worth a shot. Perhaps we can help you. Maybe we'll find more survivors to help as well."

"BODACIOUS T IS COMING TOO!"

"Yes, Toby, you are coming. But you are _not_ Bodacious T."

Starlight nodded slowly, but she didn't like this idea. Not one bit.

* * *

**Compiler's note:** And so it begins...


	37. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three (Part Two of Five) - The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon (Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic)

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two of Five**

23.2 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of a single chapter, _Gravity Falls Finale_.

**The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon, part 2**

**Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic**

" _AH, THIS IS THE LIFE._ " Bill said, observing his Fearamid. It was just... beautiful. A haunting black with unnatural colors seeping through the cracks, geometry that didn't make three (or two) dimensional sense, and games of spin-the-stone-person. This was the life. He looked at his throne of human agony: a precarious arrangement of every last person, creature, and enemy the eyebats had turned to stone. It was _glorious_. He had been imagining this day for so long...

He held the golden Ford in his hands. Bill's eye lit up in joy. " _THIS IS JUST SO AMAZING! I'VE DONE IT! I'VE FINALLY DONE IT! EVERYONE- EXTRA ROUNDS OF TIME PUNCH!_ "

The partygoers let out a collective whoop while Discord created more time punch with a flash of cosmic energy.

"OPEN UP. THIS IS THE POLICE- THE TIME POLICE!"

Bill groaned. " _UGH. GUYS PLAY IT COOL, DITCH THE TIME PUNCH-_ "

The Fearamid's outer wall exploded, revealing the gigantic Time Baby and a small army of Time Agents. "BILL CIPHER, YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE RULES OF SPACETIME. IF YOUR RIP IN THIS DIMENSION CONTINUES IT COULD TEAR APART THE VERY FABRIC OF EXISTENCE!"

" _RE-LAX TIME BABY! I'VE TAKEN PRECAUTIONARY MEASURES. I WON'T CAUSE A CRASH! COME IN, HAVE A DRINK. THE PARTY'S JUST GETTING STARTED!_ "

"SURRENDER NOW OR FACE MY TANTRUM!"

Bill sighed. Well that had gone nowhere. " _OH NO, A TANTRUM, WHATEVER WILL I DO- HOW ABOUT—_ "

_Another_ wall of the Fearamid broke down, revealing a tremendous centaur surrounded by the manataurs.

"I. AM. TIREK! AND YOU HAVE INSULTED THE MANATAURS!"

Bill blinked. " _HUH. INTERESTING._ " He snapped his fingers, putting a dress on Tirek. " _HRM... YOU LOOK BETTER THAT WAY._ "

Tirek ripped the dress off. "CIPHER! YOUR MAGIC WILL BE MINE!"

Bill rolled his eye. " _PUH-LEASE. YOU COULDN'T SUCK MY MAGIC FROM ME IF YOU HAD FOUR ALICORNS, A DRACONEQUUS, AND THE NATURAL MAGIC FROM EVERY PERSON ON THIS PLANET._ "

"You _dare_ insult Leaderaur?" One of the manataurs said. "We will stick you into the PAIN HOLE!"

" _I INVENTED THE PAIN HOLE MANLY MUSCLE-TAUR._ " Bill snapped his fingers, maximizing the muscular being's pain sensors without overloading them. The manataur let out tears and collapsed onto the floor, a shuddering, quivering mess.

Tirek bellowed. "CIPHER-"

Then a _third_ wall of the Fearamid broke open. Agent Trigger walked through the opening, backup behind him. "Bill Cipher, you have been labelled a terrorist by the United States of America. Release your hold on this town and come quietly or we will be forced to use extreme force."

Bill Cipher laughed. " _OH LOOK, THE PUNY MORTALS THINK THEY CAN USE EXTREME FORCE? ON ME? OH HOW LAUGHABLE._ " He teleported right in front of Trigger. "YOU BETTER HAVE SOMETHING REALLY EXTREME UP YOUR SLEEVE."

" _Sleeve._ " Trigger emphasized.

Bill stared at the strange, strange man before him a few seconds before continuing. " _YOU ALREADY TRIED TO TAKE ME OUT, WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THIS'LL BE ANY DIFFERENT?_ "

"Because now they stand together." A new voice said. A man stepped out of the shadows. "And because I brought them all here."

" _AH DOCTOR..._ " Bill Cipher said, squinting his eye. " _I'D ALMOST FORGOTTEN ABOUT YOU..._ "

The Doctor grinned. "Did you miss me?"

" _NO, NOT REALLY. YOU - OR RATHER YOUR TARDIS - SERVED ITS PURPOSE ALREADY._ "

The Doctor twitched. "You should learn _never_ to mess with a Time Lord's Tardis..." He whipped out his sonic screwdriver. "And now we'll put a stop to you before your weirdness spreads!"

Bill snapped his fingers, turning the screwdriver into a cabinet. The Doctor stared at it, a bit dumbfounded.

" _OH LOOK, YOU ASSEMBLED FURNITURE AT ME. HOW TERRIFYING._ "

The Doctor stood up. "That's not important. What _is_ important however, is that you return to the place you came from, leave this reality alone—."

" _AW LOOK, THE DOCTOR, LAST OF THE TIME LORDS, STILL FIGHTING FOR THE UNDERDOGS AFTER ALL THESE MILLENNIA. I APPLAUD YOU, REALLY I DO, BUT YOU NEED TO THINK A BIT. WHAT CAN YOU POSSIBLY DO? MY POWER EXCEEDS ALL OF THOSE IN THIS ROOM COMBINED!_ "

Instead of the Doctor, the Time Baby responded. "EVEN YOUR POWER IS NOT THAT ABSURD! NOW FACE MY TANTRUM!"

" _TIME BABY, LISTEN TO ME._ I WILL NEVER FACE YOUR TANTRUM." Bill pointed his finger, a beam of intense white energy launching forth from it, vaporizing the Time Baby.

All the Henchmaniacs stared dumbfounded. Tirek, the manataurs, Trigger, his agents, the Doctor, and the remaining time agents mirrored their expressions. Bill simply blew out his finger like it was a gun. He sat back, lounging in his throne.

Then he thought about it for a moment. _Holy moley that was easier than I expected._

Kryptos finally broke the silence. "Oh snap! He just killed Time Baby!" Then the Henchmaniacs let out a collective "Woo-hoo!" And started partying.

"NOT SO FAST CIPHER" Tirek roared. "YOU STILL HAVE US TO DEAL WITH!" Tirek collected a sphere of magical energy between his horns and released a beam of magic right at Bill. Bill simply snapped his fingers, causing the beam of energy to turn into solid iron. The weight of the beam snapped Tirek's horns in half. Then Bill punched the centaur a full kilometer away.

The manataurs began to charge, only to have the eyebats petrify them with little to no difficulty. The time agents began to teleport around, but Discord took care of them by turning all their machines into Swiss cheese. The eyebats moved in, slowly petrifying the agents. There were just too many of the eyebats...

Trigger pulled out his radio. "USE THE ORBITAL WEAPONS!" He was turned to stone seconds after he gave the order. The Doctor looked at the chaos around him, anger filling his heart.

"YOU!" He yelled, pointing at Bill. "You have made a grave mistake."

" _WHAT? I'M JUST HAVING SOME FUN, DOC, RELAX._ "

The Doctor glared. "They have more tricks than you know."

Bill chuckled. " _I'M AWARE OF THE SPACE-AGE WEAPONS THEY HAVE IN ORBIT. DID YOU KNOW THEY ALREADY HIT?_ "

The Doctor's eyes widened. "What?"

" _I RAISED A SHIELD AROUND THE FEARAMID. THE DRONES, LASERS, AND MISSILES ALL IMPACTED WITHOUT CAUSING ANY DAMAGE._ "

" _What?_ "

" _YOU HEARD ME!_ "

" _WHAT?_ " The Doctor managed to get out as Bill turned him into gold. Bill chuckled.

" _YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE AN EXCELLENT SECOND BACKSCRATCHER, DOCTOR. NOT EVEN YOUR PLAN COULD DO ANYTHING TO ME-_ "

Bill felt a slight tickling in his substance. Somewhere a Tardis had just tried to attack his dimensional framework. He chuckled. " _HEH. I WAS WONDERING WHEN YOUR BACKUP BACKUP WOULD HIT. NICE TRY, SCREWDRIVER. OR SHOULD I CALL YOU-_ " Bill stopped himself. " _NEVERMIND. BAD IDEA. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT'D DO. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW THAT I KNOW._ "

He set the Doctor next to Ford, and he admired his trophies. There was nothing left to stop him now: the only Loopers were that crazy Lyra and stupid Stan. They weren't going to do anything.

It was time to continue the party.

" _MORE TIME PUNCH DISCORD!_ "

"With pleasure!"

* * *

"BAD EYEBAT BAD!" Wendy roared, bludgeoning the eyebat with her axe, eye fluids spurting everywhere.

Starlight slowly and deliberately removed the eye goo from her own eyes, fixing Wendy with a rather annoyed glare. Lyra just shook herself like a dog to remove the disgusting material.

Wendy pointed ahead. "This way, we've only got a few miles left until we get to that Tree of Harmony of yours. That is, assuming the forest hasn't completely turned us around yet..."

"Don't think about that too much." Lyra suggested. "We'll get there eventually, hopefully without any major interruptions." As the word left her mouth, she ran face-first into someone.

Blind Ivan raised the section of skin where his eyebrows should have been. "Lyra Heartstrings. Wasn't expecting to run into you. Wendy too! And..." His eyes widened as he saw Starlight, and he lowered his head. "Receiver. I apolog—"

"Nothing to apologize for, Ivan. The Society needed to end anyway" She looked behind Ivan. "Who are your companions?"

Lyra spoke up. "That'd be Chrysalis and a few of her drones, Powers, and the Shapeshifter who has decided to take the shape of the Hide-behind."

The shapeshifter returned to his default form, his alien biology looking completely at home in the unusual forest. "I was trying to lure the Hide-behind into the open. You just ruined it."

Wendy raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't your traveling companions have ruined it simply by being with you?"

"The girl's logic is sound." Powers observed.

"Shut up Agent, you don't have a personality. Ergo, you don't get to have an opinion."

Chrysalis groaned. "Can we just get moving already? I don't want anything more to do with these losers."

Lyra glared. "Losers? You call _us_ losers? You're all dumb, emotionless, arrogant, or just plain weird."

"Hey!" Ivan objected, holding his banjo high. "Banjos are an art!"

Wendy rolled her eyes. "Banjos are most certainly _not_ an art. Have you SEEN McGucket?"

Ivan glared. "Yes, yes I have. And he is an assault to the art-"

"He's better at it than you are." The shapeshifter commented.

Ivan's real eye twitched. Powers chose to remain silent. Discussions about art never went well for him.

Wendy sighed. "Can we just keep moving? We don't need to deal with these losers right now. We've got a Tree of Harmony to get to."

"Not going to help us defeat the Beast..." Starlight muttered.

The Shapeshifter blinked. "You are trying to defeat Bill? With a _tree?_ "

Ivan rubbed his chin. "It is possible, the Tree does have powerful magic. The Society never did figure out what exactly it was..."

Starlight shook her head. "The other six tried using that kind of magic against him already. He turned it against them and locked them up in some big Bubble."

"You mean the Bubble that's sitting on top the Tree we just passed?" Chrysalis asked.

Starlight, Wendy, and Lyra were silent. Then Lyra lit up. "We can free them from the Bubble! I don't have to use the Elements! Woo-hoo!"

Wendy grinned. "Let's mount a rescue mission!"

"Don't be stupid." Powers responded. "We were chased away from the Tree by a rag-tag group of mental patients. There's nothing the three of you could do-"

"You could help them."

The seven beings all turned to the strange new voice. It was a completely normal looking man with a smile plastered on his face.

Wendy blinked. "Oh. It's just Tad Strange."

Then Toby fell out of the nearby tree. "HEY LOOK! I FOUND THEM AGAIN!"

Lyra blinked. "Did anyone notice that Toby was gone?" She was greeted with nothing but head shakes and shrugs. "Huh-"

"My name is Bodacious T!"

This revelation caused the shapeshifter and Chrysalis to break out into hysterics, Ivan to sigh deeply, and Powers to... do nothing. Tad simply continued smiling.

"Hey everyone, perhaps we could go rescue them with our diverse talents and love of bread!"

"That sounds like a wonderful idea!" Lyra said, grinning like a madman. "TOBY! Guess what?"

"What?"

"You're the distraction."

"Oh..."

* * *

The Tree of Harmony was normally a grandiose crystalline tree, peaceful colors of blue refracting out of the multi-faceted trunk of the crystalline plant. Under normal circumstances, the various branches would hold gem-like fruits, known as the Elements of Harmony, powerful artifacts that could bring peace and friendship to just about everything. The Tree of Harmony was truly a sight to behold, inspiring everyone who saw its branches.

That is, that's what would happen if the Tree was normal. It most certainly was not: the crystal had dulled to become an almost solid black, invoking feelings of nothingness. The black void occasionally burst with dark red and yellow lights, the Elements themselves being colorless glass with many cracks all along their forms. The Tree itself, and its power, had long since become corrupted and useless.

Atop the black branches of the once-Harmonious tree floated a gigantic Bubble, swirling with the colors and shapes that represented the Elements. The sphere was wrapped in chains of unknowable material, and sealed with a lock of mysterious origin. The Harmonious energy emanating from the sphere made one calm, but it would also put a nagging feeling into the back of your skull that something was very, very wrong. Like something blasphemous was occurring, but you just didn't know what.

Around the tree stood several people shuddering with insanity. There were people whose eyes never focused on anything, people who kept attacking the ground with intense ferocity, and others who were busy turning their fingernails into lethal weapons. They were clothed in a bizarre combination of asylum robes, forest materials, and Bill's weirdness. And in the center of them all was a small child in a blue suit and cowboy hat, laughing continually. Occasionally Gideon, for that was who he was, would point to something, and one of the other people would do whatever he had wanted. No words were exchanged.

The scene was wrong in every way possible. And it was just about to go from creepy to just bizarre.

From somewhere in the forest, a small man came running. "BODACIOUS T DOES NOT TAKE KINDLY TO YOUR ODOR!!!!!"

The mental patients slowly looked up, one pointing a finger and whispering. "The... the forlorn one has come to eat us all!" Half the mental patients broke out into panic while the other half charged in to attack Toby, only to hit a yellow magical barrier. The patients began to scream like frustrated cats.

At that point two other Gideons strode out of the forest and began pointing left and right, driving the patients into further confusion. The first Gideon stared at the two others, rage evident on his face. "Eggs must be stolen for current values of programming books!" He shouted, his mind obviously having left him long ago. The patients made no response to this. Many just passed out or ran into the forest from confusion.

The ones who remained, however, looked terrifying. A woman with nails that could act as swords. A man clothed entirely in eyebat wings. Another man who was taller than Manly Dan.

Starlight, from her position in the forest, cast a few spells, rings of blue magic encircling the terrifying patients, slowing their movements by a factor of ten. She kept her face stone-cold the entire time, calculating all her temporal spells to perfection. Wendy, Powers, and Ivan moved in, disabling every single one of the patients. They fell easily.

Tad Strange walked out of the forest, smiling. "Great job everybody! That was seamless! Although Lyra probably could have done a little more."

"I'm a little overpowered compared to the rest of you, figured I should let you guys have a chance."

Gideon roared. "FORGET ALL THE CTHREELU! WE MUST EAT THE VEGETATION OF FLATULENCE! Y'ALL!"

Lyra looked down at Gideon as he blubbered. "FEED ME! Feed me! Feed me. Feed me....." Gideon curled into a ball and began to rock back and forth on the ground, whining. "My darling Rarity... Why... Why... What did I do..."

Lyra frowned. "I... I'm sorry." She said. "I... This shouldn't have happened. I wish I could fix you..."

Starlight walked up. "I can help you do that."

"You can?"

"Sure." Starlight said. "You don't become the Receiver of Memory for the Society without knowing a thing or two about curing insanity. Just get us into his mindscape."

Lyra recited the spell, and the two of them entered Gideon's mind.

All was silent.

Tad Strange broke the silence. "We should probably try and get into that Bubble now. Anyone have any ideas? What about you Wendy?"

"Smash it."

"That will be taken under advisement. Any other ideas? Anyone?"

The Shapeshifter left his Gideon form. "You know I find it odd how you ended up being the leader..." Chrysalis appeared beside him, nodding.

Powers turned to them. "I fail to see how that is surprising. He is the most held together of us all aside from myself, and the rest of you don't trust me."

"But... he's so _normal._ "

"I fail to see how that factors into the equation." Powers deadpanned.

The Shapeshifter groaned. "I... I can't deal with you..."

Lyra and Starlight returned to the realm of the awake, shaking their heads. "There. He should be good now."

Gideon stood up. "Oog... What... What did you do to me???" He asked Lyra.

Lyra got down on her knee, looking Gideon in the eye. "I broke your mind. I'm sorry, I never should have done that. I fixed you. I hope you can accept that as forgiveness."

Gideon blinked. "Why on earth would you do that? Why?"

Lyra smiled sadly. "I felt guilty. Even though I may not have been myself at the time... it was still sorta me who did it."

Gideon frowned. "That doesn't answer why. Y'all still hate me, I know yah do."

Lyra rolled her eyes. "You clearly have no idea what Equestria's like." She nudged him. "Perhaps you could accept some forgiveness for once?"

Gideon's stared ahead, a little confused.

Lyra walked up to the Tree of Harmony. "So, how are we getting inside-"

Then she heard a roar. The group turned around to see dozens of the patients returning, thirsting for blood.

The shapeshifter smirked. Maybe he _would_ get to do some slaughtering...

"STOP!" Gideon yelled, waving his hands. The patients stopped, turning to look at him. They cocked their heads. There was silence.

Gideon pointed to the forest. "Go." He said. The vast majority of the patients turned tail and ran (some of them on all fours). The few who remained walked up to him, frowning.

"W-w-why?" A woman asked.

"Y'all don't need to be protectin' me no more. I got my mind back. Ah can handle mahself. Plus, these people don't mean me any harm."

A burly man frowned. "We swore to protect you for life. LIFE! LIIIIIIIIIIFE!"

"That's great Ghost Eyes, but really, y'all don't have to. I can-"

"The protection is NON NEGOTIABLE! What kind of friends would we be to leave you all alone in the forest like this."

Gideon smiled. "I... thank you Ghost Eyes. You don't know what that means to me..."

"GOT IT!" The shapeshifter said, turning his limb in the gigantic lock. The chains fell away, letting the Bubble float in the air unhindered.

Lyra frowned. "I was afraid of this. We have to actually go _in_ to save them. Who knows what kind of tricks and traps Bill has set up in there. It'd have to be pretty diabolical to keep all six of them in there..."

"Six of them?" Gideon said, blinking. "That means... RARITY!" He scrambled towards the bubble. "I have to save her!"

Lyra stared at Gideon, her face impassive.

"Come on ya have to let me help! I need to help ya!"

Lyra stared deadpan for a few more moments before breaking out into a grin. "Welcome to the club pal. Don't be too creepy about it."

"Oh I won't I won't..."

"He has his fingers crossed." Tad Strange observed.

"BODACIOUS T OBJECTS TO BRINGING THIS CHILD!"

Lyra shrugged. "Let's give him a chance. He's probably important." She thought back to the wheel in Journal 2, which had Gideon's star on it. He _had_ to be important. So she'd give him a chance.

The rather large party turned to the Bubble before them, their faces set.

"Let's do this!" Gideon said, charging in first.

Lyra rolled her eyes before running in as well, most of the others following her.

Starlight lingered for a few seconds, deep in thought. But even she eventually entered the Bubble.

* * *

Lyra Awoke. She blinked, memories flooding in. She was a unicorn in the land of Equestria who was obsessed with humans...

"WHAT?" Pony, Human, and Thief said all at once.

"Did the Loop _end?_ " Thief asked, flailing. "That... that doesn't make any sense! Why would it end THEN?"

"We may have just died..." Human observed. "Or the Loop ended because we took too long."

"I'd absolutely HATE that." Pony responded. "We.. we should go ask the others what they remember. Perhaps head to Big Mac's..."

Pony took control of the body, looking around. They were right outside Sweet Apple Acres, and Applejack was walking by. Lyra let out a Ping, and Applejack turned to her. "Oh hey there Lyra, haven't seen you in a looooooong time."

Lyra blinked. "How long has it been since the Gravity Falls loop?"

"Th' what?" Applejack asked, trying to remember what she was talking about.

"You know, big insane triangle chaos god trying to end the world?"

Applejack squinted. "That... I sorta remember that. It was several hundred thousand Loops ago."

Lyra's jaw dropped. "It's been THAT LONG?"

"Like Ah said, haven't seen you in _forever_."

Lyra scratched her muzzle. "Perhaps entering the Bubble had some kind of weird effect on me... But I've never heard of a Looper going THAT long without Looping in... Something's off..."

"Ah'll ask Sleipnir about it next time Ah see him, if ya want."

Lyra nodded vigorously. "Anything going on this Loop?"

"Nope." Applejack said, smirking. "Only weird thing that's happened was some weird fella callin' himself Bodacious T going completely crazy this afternoon."

Lyra's eyes widened. "Did you just say Bodacious T?"

"Yeah? Mean somethin' to ya?"

Lyra grabbed Applejack's face. "He came into the Bubble with me. And I know for a _fact_ that he wasn't a Looper. Why would he be here?"

"Uh... replacement?"

"No... too much of a coincidence..."

"Stranger things have happened in the Loops." Applejack responded.

Lyra nodded. "Exactly... I'm going to have to investigate..."

Just then a red stallion walked up to them, looking like he wasn't fully comfortable with having four legs. His cutie mark was a single eyeball with an X through it.

Lyra looked right at him. "Ivan?"

"Ah yes good you remember me..." Ivan said, trying to stand straight. "Can you explain to me why the Bubble took us here and gave us new memories?"

Lyra stood still for a moment while her personalities raged over what was going on.

"This entire place must be a trap." She slowly said, looking around.

"Don't be ridiculous-"

"Applejack, think about it. What would be the best way to make you stop interfering with someone's plans?"

"Well since we're Looper's there's not much that can stop us so... I'd try to fool-"

"Exactly." Lyra said, gesturing around. "This entire place? It's just Bill trying to make you think the Loop ended."

"Who?"

"Bill. Remember? Eye of Providence, eldritch abomination, has a really creepy laugh."

Ivan nodded. "The creepiest."

"We came into the Bubble to save you!" Lyra said, smiling.

Applejack rolled her eyes. "Don't be crazy. This place is just too perfect to be false. Everything runs smoothly and there aren't any unusual glitches that would signify a farce of some kind-"

"EXACTLY." Lyra said. "Since _when_ have the Loops run smoothly?"

Applejack slowly lifted her head, staring into space. "Wait one darn tootin' moment... Yer right!"

Lyra began celebrate just as reality crashed.

* * *

"So... I'm a pony." Wendy noted.

Chrysalis nodded, flexing her swiss-cheese legs.

"And I'm apparently a lumberjack."

Chrysalis nodded again, changing her form to match Wendy's. Red mane, red coat, and cutie mark obscured by a scar.

"Question."

Chrysalis looked at Wendy with curious eyes.

"HOW THE FLIPPIN' HECK AM I HOLDING THIS AXE?"

Chrysalis shrugged. "The hooves appear to have some kind of latent magic to them."

Wendy groaned. "I guess I have to just accept this... So this is where the sextuplets are originally from?"

"Guess so. You know more than I do."

"So have we become Loopers or something? That'd be cool!"

"I though—-"

Suddenly, the wall of the Changeling hive collapsed. "ALL RIGHT!" Rainbow Dash said, her friends right behind her. "TIME TO DO SOME BUTT KICKING AND RESCUE THAT MARE!"

She blinked, looking at the two Wendy's in front of her.

"Crap." Rainbow Dash facehooved. "Been a loooong time since you changelings have tried to pull the which one is real gambit..."

Chrysalis and Wendy were silent. Chrysalis put a hoof to her chin. "I guess my memories _do_ say I kidnapped you..."

Wendy nodded. "And I'm supposed to be some damsel in distress... SCREW THAT!" She bucked Chrysalis in the face, sending the queen flying into a nearby wall.

"What the fudge are you doing? We were on a TEAM!"

"I just felt like bucking you. I'm bucking awesome. Buck you. Man I've always wanted to say these things." Wendy got a crazy grin on her face.

Chrysalis sighed, returning to her normal form and looking over at the mane six. "So, Rainbow, care to explain why we're here no-"

Twilight zapped Chrysalis, glaring. Rainbow Dash's jaw dropped. "What the heck did you do that for?"

"She was trying to get into your head. That wasn't Looping Chrysalis. She must have gotten some information about the Loops to try and confuse you."

Wendy blinked. "That doesn't make any sense Twi, she came here with me when we entered the Bubble."

Rainbow Dash cocked her head, confused. "What?"

"You know, Bill's Bubb-"

Applejack kicked Wendy across the room. "That's enough outta you!"

"APPLEJACK!" Rainbow Dash yelled, waving her hooves. "What are you doing?"

"Shuttin' them up before they can get to you."

"I'm well over a billion years old. I can survive." Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes.

Fluttershy shook her head. "Come on Rainbow, everyone knows you can still be broken somewhat easily-"

Rainbow Dash slowly turned to stare at Fluttershy. "What did you just say?"

Fluttershy looked like she had just made a mistake. "Uh, I mean, uh..."

"Bill's Bubble..." Rainbow Dash mused, thinking. "When was the last time I heard that name... hundreds of thousands of years ago-"

Wendy came to. "We just came from there! We were trying to get you out of Bill's trap-"

Rarity froze Wendy.

Rainbow Dash looked at her five "friends."

"You aren't really my friends, are you? This is just some dream state or whatever."

Fluttershy frowned. "Oh no.. We messed up... This isn't good..."

Reality crashed.

* * *

"This is obviously an illusion of some sort. The perfect trap." Powers deadpanned.

The Shapeshifter (currently in an alicorn form) sighed. "What tipped you off, genius?"

"The fact that we are living sentient ponies. That's just absurd."

The Shapeshifter's facehoof was long, drawn out, and still not dramatic enough to express the sheer amount of exasperation the alien being was feeling.

"Naturally we have to find the six of them and make them realize the world is false. Simply pointing out that there are ponies accomplish our goal."

The Shapeshifter cursed the stars for this extremely dense moron he was forced to work with.

"How about instead we just _suggest that Bill is fooling them? Think that'd work?_ "

"Not guaranteed. Ponies are more outlandish."

The Shapeshifter grunted. "You were observing these six for a month or so right?"

"That is correct."

"And you then spent several weeks in the Bunker with us as we talked with them on a regular basis."

"Of course."

The Shapeshifter slapped him. "THEN YOU WOULD KNOW THAT THEY ORIGINALLY CAME FROM A UNIVERSE WHERE THE DOMINANT FORM OF LIFE WAS EQUINE! PONIES!"

"Beings of their power could not have started their lives as ponies, the amount of-"

The Shapeshifter slapped him again "You. Really. ARE. Dense."

"Now in order to ensure the safety of the world, we must save the girls from this trap."

"Darling, whatever are you talking about?"

The two of them turned to see Rarity, in the form of a graceful unicorn, looking at them with a confident expression.

"Ma'am, this place is an illusion crafted by the most diabolical of entities. Please gather your friends and leave this place."

"Darling, why in Equestria would I want to leave?" She sat back on nothing, a glass of lemonade appearing in her hoof. "It's simply _wonderful._ No crashes, no craziness, and nothing trying to kill me and my friends. It's so.. relaxing. I get to spend all my time with Spikey-Wikey..."

The Shapeshifter blinked. "You struck me as the more daring type... You wouldn't be happy with this..."

"Doesn't matter." Powers said. "We have to get her out of here anyway. You are coming with us."

"Darling, where would you go? Even assuming this place were an illusion as you say, how do you propose we could find a way to escape?" Rarity questioned.

"There was a way in: there's a way out."

The Shapeshifter facehooved again. "That's not always the case."

"Doesn't matter. We must leave."

Rarity shrugged. "You're welcome to try, but there's nothing you can do to convince us to leave. There's no reason to." She teleported away.

Powers frowned. "We have to convince one of them, they can talk to the others..."

The Shapeshifter narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps Fluttershy... she seems the most approachable."

They asked around town for directions to Fluttershy's place, and were on their way when Pinkie appeared in front of them. "Hiya! What are you guys doing?"

"Trying to get to miss Fluttershy's place."

Pinkie snorted. "You don't want to do that..."

"Why not?" The Shapeshifter asked. "She's not terrified of visitors or anything."

"Oh it's not that, it's just that she doesn't like to talk about... the _outside..._ " Pinkie snorted. "You wouldn't want to bring it up. It'd tear her down. It took us forever to convince her to stay..."

Powers stared right into Pinkie's eyes. "All the more reason we should talk to her."

Pinkie suddenly became completely black, her eyes being replaced with glowing yellow orbs. "YOU WILL BACK OFF AND NOT SPEAK TO HER. UNDERSTAND, UNIMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERS?"

Powers stood firm. "No. I must protect the United States from beings such as yourself. We will get to Fluttershy and tell her what she needs to know."

"THEN BUR-"

Suddenly, a bucket fell on the not-Pinkie. Fluttershy glided down, visibly scared. "Wh-wh-what was that?"

"Bill." The Shapeshifter responded. "He's trying to prevent us from telling you to leave."

"Leave what? Bill?" Fluttershy said, very confused.

The terrain around them began to darken, eyes appearing everywhere.

"Just let us explain..." Powers began.

The Shapeshifter slapped Powers out of the way and transformed into a television that broadcasted pictures of Bill, the Bubble on the Tree of Harmony, and them entering the Bubble.

Just as the darkness began to move in, Fluttershy realized what was going on.

Reality crashed.

* * *

"Ow! What in tarnation?"

"Gideon... you're a pony. A rather small one at that."

Gideon blinked, looking at his periwinkle hooves. "ACK! I'm... I'm even more adorable than I was." He paused for a few seconds. "This is amazing." He turned to the person talking to him, Ghost Eyes.

"You _want_ to be cute?"

"People like cute. Ergo, I should be cute."

"I never should have taught you that word."

Gideon put on his best "widdle ol' me" face, giggling. "But it's so fun to say... NOW! We must... uh... Ghost Eyes what were we doing again?"

"Saving the love of your life from a prison constructed by a chaos god?"

"Oh yeah..." Gideon said. "That..." He stood up, yelling with all his might. "DARLING RARITY! WE ARE HERE TO SAVE YOU!"

"WHAT HE SAID!" Ghost Eyes emphasized.

There was no response.

"It occurs to me that perhaps she isn't right here and we have to go look for her-"

"Ghost Eyes, please refrain from pointin' out when I'm being dumb, k?"

"But I wasn't-"

"I SAID REFRAIN!"

Ghost Eyes sighed. "Okay... Perhaps we should look-"

"DON'T ORDER ME AROUND!" Gideon reached to adjust his shirt, then he realized he didn't have any. His eye twitched. "Perhaps we should go look for her now. That sound good Ghost Eyes?"

"Yes... You should probably tone down the bossiness though, she won't like that."

"I AM NOT BEIN-" Then Gideon caught himself, frowning. "Nevermind... Let's just go this way." As the two friends began to walk away, a flash of white light blinded them. Standing before them was Rarity. Gideon's eyes sparkled. She was even more beautiful as a unicorn.

At her side was a medium sized drake. "Hey there!" He said, smiling.

"Who're you?" Ghost Eyes asked.

"Spike. Rarity's husband."

Gideon's eyes focused on Spike. So _this_ was the little twerp who was-

Rarity interrupted his thoughts by speaking. "So... who are you? I'm having a hard time remembering—"

Gideon's jaw dropped. "Darling, you don't remember me? Don't remember..." He sighed. "Don't remember how Ah tried to force you to be with me?"

Spike tensed and Rarity glared. "Oh really? How so?"

"Ah... Ah... Ah..." Gideon fell to the ground cowering under Rarity's gaze. "I did such horrible things to you and your friends! How could you not remember?"

Rarity frowned. "Remember what?"

Gideon trembled, but began his story. He told it from his perspective, from the moment he saw Rarity first, to the moment he tried to kidnap her, to the moment he tried to take over the shack, to the moment he travelled with the Doctor, to the moment he lost his mind because of Lyra.

His insanity.

And the moment Lyra gave him his mind back. Then him going into the Bubble of Harmony.

Rarity had gotten _rather_ uncomfortable with the story at times, but she soon began to feel a lot of sympathy for this little folksy child before her. She decided, plain and simple, that he needed a hug.

Gideon was startled. "Wha...?"

"You can't have what you want." Rarity said, matter of factly. "But think about it... deep down, do you think you'd even be happy that way? Look at what all this has caused you. Do you really think you can continue on this path?"

Gideon, who was crying like the little kid he was at this point, nodded.

Ghost Eyes began to tear up as the two made up. "IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!"

Spike folded his arms. "You're really just letting him go?"

"Spikey-wikey, he lost his mind for a month. I'd say he's suffered enough. See you around, Gideon."

Rarity walked away. Gideon smiled. He felt... oddly at peace. He no longer needed her: she was obviously happy. She also had a point: did he _really_ want her, or was it just some desire for possession? For control?

Ghost Eyes put a leg over Gideon. "There, there... there'll be others after we stop Bill."

"Yeah..." Gideon's eyes widened. "WAIT RARITY! AH FORGOT TO TELL YA SOMETHIN!"

"What?" She yelled back.

"Ya ever consider that we might still be in Bill's bubble?"

"Don't be absurd Gideon!" She responded, chuckling. "I've been looping hundreds of thousands of times-"

"But we haven't." Gideon said. "We just arrived here when we entered."

Spike rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. That'd mean I wasn't real. If that Loop never ended, I'm just some figment of Rarity's imagination."

"Yeah." Rarity chuckled. "And if that were true Spike wouldn't have remembered our upcoming anniversary. He promised me a special surprise after our last one was so rudely interrupted."

Spike's face went completely blank. Rarity slowly turned to look at the drake beside her. "...Spike?"

" _CRAP._ " A decidedly _not_ -Spike voice said.

The world crashed as a look of abject horror crossed Rarity's face.

* * *

"In our Town-" Starlight Awoke, tripping over her own two front hooves, faceplanting into the ground. The musical number abruptly ended, the townsfolk suddenly unsure of what to do. Starlight stood up, shaking her head as "loop memories" filled her mind. She slowly stood up.

She wasn't stupid, she knew exactly what this was: an illusion designed to keep Loopers trapped.

"Starlight?" A familiar voice asked. "You okay?"

Starlight groaned. "I think... I just got new memories. Awoke? Brain hurts."

Twilight's eyes widened, a mildly conflicted expression on her face before she gave a smile. "Well I can't say I expected that. Um, welcome to the Loops Starlight. It looks like you've got a lot on your mind, if you'd like I've got a spot at the castle where you can relax."

"...What about the Town?"

"We've dealt with this enough times, we can deal with it in our sleep now." Twilight said. "Let's just get you settled and calm... "

Starlight nodded. She wasn't in the mood to do much right now. Perhaps she could just take a nice relax and take a break from all the craziness she had been subject too.

Just a little bit of relaxing...

That evening, Starlight was reclining in a nice, soft chair. Twilight was sitting across from her. "So, Starlight, you're taking this incredibly well. I'm guessing since you mentioned having Awakened that this isn't your first Loop but I'm a little confused, how long have you been Looping?"

Starlight was about to say "Oh I'm not, this place is just an illusion" but she caught herself. This place was obviously much nicer than the place she had come from, where the apocalypse was going down. It was much better than the place the One Eyed one showed her in her dream, where the entire world was a Wasteland. Where heroes rose and died trying to save everyone. Where everyone just died... A world where nothing survived...

She began to cry. Twilight's face softened, and she brought Starlight into an embrace. "There there.. It's okay..."

"My memories.. are fuzzy..." Starlight said. "All I can really remember is a horrible Wasteland... and a horrible One-Eyed demon... Nothing but torture..."

Twilight frowned. "Do you even remember being a unicorn before?"

"Barely... I think it was erased from me by a mind gun... " Starlight sniffed. "I.. I just want to have some peace."

Twilight hugged her tight. She had gone through so much. Obviously one of those Fallout loops and some other horrid apocalypse loop. The phrase "One-Eyed demon" did tug at her memories, but she couldn't place the feeling.

She decided it didn't matter. Baseline Starlight was a problem, minor these days but even so; _this_ Starlight however was clearly in pain, and she needed to be comforted. That was all that mattered.

Days passed. Starlight went on adventures and spent the vast majority of time with Twilight and her friends. Even though, deep down, she knew this was all fake, she liked it here. She didn't see how they could defeat Bill if they got out anyway. Sure, Loopers had great power: but Bill would be prepared for just about anything.

What was the point, in the end?

It was better to live than to fight the pointless fight.

Starlight tried to live her life... And it worked for the most part. She and Twilight bonded, she actually felt... calm.

But she had no purpose. Nothing here had any purpose: it was just something Bill had cooked up as a trap. She was prone to constant bouts of depression and wouldn't tell anyone why.

She couldn't risk her new life falling apart.

Then one day, an earth pony with a slice of bread as a cutie mark walked into Twilight's castle.

"Hi, I'm Tad Strange, and I'm here to tell you that this world is a fake."

The Elements leveled "really?" looks at Tad. Starlight tried her best to keep a straight face.

"Perhaps you six recall an event a while back where you were imprisoned by a triangular one-eyed being known as Bill Cipher?"

Everyone except for Twilight and Starlight shook their heads. Twilight felt like she remembered something. Starlight was trying desperately to not show any response.

"Y'all are crazy." Applejack said.

"I am singular, Applejack." Tad offered. Then he turned to Starlight. "Unless you are counting her."

"What do you mean?" Rarity asked.

"She entered the illusion with me. She should know this place is nothing more than a trap designed to keep the six of you here."

Twilight's ears perked up. "Really?" She asked.

Applejack waved her hoof in the air. "I'm detectin' a whole lot of hodgepodge here Twilight, don't believe a word any of them say."

Starlight nodded. "I know nothing about what this... Tad person is talking about."

"See? She agrees with me." Applejack said. "Let's just call somepony to get this feller here and—"

"Since when have we rejected anyone?" Twilight asked. "I hear what _everyone_ has to say Applejack, you know this."

Applejack visibly tensed. Twilight furrowed her brow. "Why would this make you tense? There would be no reason unless..." She blinked, turning to Starlight. "...you did mention a One-Eyed demon..."

Starlight shook her head. "I said no such thing." She blatantly lied.

Twilight frowned. "Starlight... why are you lying to me?"

"You already know." Tad Strange commented. "She wants to stay in this illusion. It is a lot better than where we came from. There's still normal bread here, after all."

Twilight frowned, turning to her "friends." She looked at them all. All of them had been acting exactly as she'd expect for the longest time.

None of them had really surprised her. None of them had made an unexpected response.

Honestly, she should have seen it sooner. And now that she had seen it, the illusion became obvious. The new memories began to seem like nothing more than an extended dream. She remembered what happened.

"You're the one who let Bill in aren't you."

Starlight squirmed. "Yes..."

"Why? What exactly did he show you?"

"He showed me a future." Starlight countered. "I lived an extended dream. In one night, I lived several months. I was shown what my meddling with time would do: create a world that was dead, a Wasteland. And I _lived_ there for those few months, trying desperately to make things better for the survivors. Just as it seemed like there was hope, all was lost. The hero and friend I had made died in a fire, the world began to collapse, and everything just _died._ " Starlight was enraged now. "And then he came, showing me that none of this had actually happened yet and that he could help me prevent it... for a price. He would allow the timeline to become cemented in such a way for that horrible future never to happen, as long as I let him into the world." She stepped up onto the table. "And what did he do? He created a _different_ apocalypse! I realized right then and there that everything was pointless, that there was no saving any of us. There will always be something that destroys us."

She gestured around. "But here? Here we are safe. Here nothing is going to drive us to extinction. Here we can live out our lives without a constant fear of destruction." She growled. "You Loopers have it easy: you have no fear of anything. You are so ancient and powerful that nothing really matters to you anymore. But think about us, think about our lives. Constantly reset, menial, and doomed to suffer from the greater forces of reality! I've heard what you and your friends have talked about day in and day out! I've heard tales of atrocities and great evil! You all treat it like it's run of the mill. But we have to _live_ and _die_ with these things. So is it any surprise that we'd want your life? A life of safety? A life of no worries?"

Twilight was silent for a minute. "You're wrong. Granted, we can't die and any mental damage can generally be repaired with time. But we are still sentient creatures: we have emotions. We have souls. And we still care for those of us who are not looping, perhaps even putting you in a higher position than our own. Our lives mean little since we will just Wake Up again. But yours? Yours are beyond important. Yours are short, fleeting, and yet just as beautiful as our own. Do you ever wonder why we bother to save worlds time and time again? Granted, some of it is for the thrill, the challenge, or the fun. But we also do it for life: the lives of those who cannot come back. Not in the way you want." She let out a deep sigh. "The multiverse can be a horrible, nasty, grimdark place at times. But the majority of us Loopers are working day in and day out to make those worlds better. Take the Dark Millennium Loop: that place is possibly the most dark, desolate, and grim world out there. The entire galaxy is besieged by enemies on all sides, there are powers beyond the grasp of even some Loopers, and there is tremendous injustice. And yet, if you look at that Loop now compared to the way it was in the past, you can see that the life of the galaxy has improved dramatically. There are still wars, there is still death, but the Loopers are continually making the place less and less of a crapsack, for the betterment of the whole galaxy! This is by no means an isolated case: I'd say the _majority_ of Loopers are trying their best to make the multiverse as good as possible."

Twilight paused for a moment. "What I'm trying to say is that we _do_ think about you. While we may seem all high and mighty and above you, it is because we often find it hard to relate to you anymore. But that doesn't mean we don't care for you. Every life in existence is worth fighting for, even if it will just be reset in an hour. You all deserve to live your lives as long as Yggdrasil allows."

Starlight backed down. "...Then why would I ever want to leave here? I go back there and... I end. Eventually, I'll just end. Here I could go on forever."

"But while you and I remain in here, Bill could be ending the lives of so many others. Or at the very least he'll be ruining them. People do not want to live in his kind of world. While some Loopers may find his worlds rather... invigorating, the vast majority of beings would not tolerate it. Just like you do not want to live there."

Starlight looked away. "But... what could we possibly do? He's powerful enough to be able to counter you six-"

Twilight's eyes twinkled. "Trust me, we can always think of something." She turned to her five "friends." "We would like to leave now."

Starlight nodded. "I'm not going to be selfish."

Tad Strange gave a thumbs up as the world crashed.

* * *

Bill felt the Bubble weaken. The Loopers were going to get out, much to his annoyance.

Well, that meant it was time to stop the simple party and get to the real plan...

" _ALL RIGHT HENCHMANIACS! TIME TO TAKE THIS PARTY WORLDWIDE! COVER THE WORLD IN YOUR WEIRDNESS!_ "

Sounds of pleasure and excitement resonated from the group of Henchmaniacs. Discord snapped his fingers, giving all of them levitation powers. Bill opened up a hatch in the Fearamid roof, allowing them to fly out, ready to lay waste to the normal world outside.

Bill began to laugh. " _AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH- AHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!_ "

Then he heard a bunch of successive oofing noises. He turned to see the Henchmaniacs plastered against some kind of barrier. Bill stood stationary, blinking.

He floated up to the barrier, tapping it with his finger. It rippled across the red sky, revealing a domed shape that covered the entire area of Gravity Falls and the Everfree Forest, also encompassing the Fearamid and the crack in reality.

His eye twitched. _Yggdrasil sure had some mean tricks up its sleeve. Stupid arbitrary plot devices!_

" _ALL RIGHT, CAN ANYONE EXPLAIN TO ME WHAT THIS IS AND HOW WE'RE GOING TO GET PAST IT?" There has to be some way out of this stupid hick town._

Then he blinked. Wait. He turned to the two golden statues he had on his throne.

One of them probably had an idea...

"Bill... I'm in pain..."

" _WALK IT OFF PACI-FIRE!_ "

* * *

Ford and the Doctor suddenly found themselves in full control of their bodies again. They let out a few choice angry yells. Ford went with "I AM GOING TO BURN YOU WITH LEMONS BILL! LEMONS! YOU HEAR ME?" While the Doctor went with "YOU'RE AN EMBARRASSMENT TO BOWTIES EVERYWHERE!"

They both shut up when they saw Bill appear playing a piano, _singing._

_OH WE'LL MEET AGAIN-_ _DON'T KNOW WHERE, DON'T KNOW WHEN_ _OH I KNOW WE'LL MEET AGAIN SOME SUNNY DAY!_

Ford stared in disbelief. "You... You've been waiting a _really_ long time to do that haven't you?"

" _YOU GOT ME SIXER, YOU GOT ME!_ " Bill said, looking very proud as he floated around the two of them. " _SO, HERE'S THE THING SIXER AND DOC, SOMETHING IS KEEPING ME TRAPPED IN THIS TOWN._ "

"The law of Weirdness Magnetism..." Ford muttered.

Suddenly, Bill grew to tremendous size. "AHA! SO YOU DO KNOW!"

Ford took a step back. "Not like I'm going to tell you anything..."

The Doctor sighed. "You won't have to..."

" _DOC'S RIGHT SIXER! I CAN JUST GET THE INFO OUT OF YOUR HEAD EASY-PEASY! I'VE GOTTEN REALLY GOOD AT READING MINDS AS YOU KNOW!_ "

Ford glared. "I suppose you're still not going to tell me _how_ you managed to get this good while not Looping?"

" _NOPE! NOW..._ " Bill's body flattened, the yellow coloring going away. His eye stared right at Ford and his body shuffled through dozens of images every second. Images of memories, events, those, abstract ideals, prophecies...

" _FOUND IT!_ " Bill said, chuckling. Ford appeared crestfallen. He had tried to resist, he really had. Then Bill turned to the Doctor. " _NOW FOR YOUR PURPOSE..._ "

"What?" The Doctor said, backing away.

" _I'M GOING TO DOWNLOAD ALL YOUR TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE DIRECTLY INTO MY MIND AND USE IT TO CALCULATE A WAY OUT OF THIS BARRIER. I THOUGHT THAT WAS OBVIOUS._ "

The Doctor tensed. He was extremely surprised that he didn't feel _anything_ as Bill began to go through his thoughts. This eldritch triangle truly was a master of secrets... Had the Doctor not been so concerned he would have found Bill absolutely fascinating. He still did, to some extent.

Bill returned to normal, floating above the two of them. Quantum formulae, dimensional algorithms and Block Transfer Computations began to take shape around him in reality altering patterns. " _THANKS! THAT'S ALL I NEEDED FROM YOU TWO. BACK TO GOLDEN TOWN!_ " He clapped his hands, turning them both back into golden trophies.

Now, to actually complete the calculations...

He _would_ be free...

* * *

**Compiler's note** : Oh, Bill... don't you know how ticked the Admins got at the _last_ Loop-Aware creature that tried to forcibly escape the Loops?


	38. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three (Part Three of Five) - The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon (Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic)

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Three of Five**

23.3 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Doctor Who] / [Stargate] / [Many, many more] / [Admin Shenanigans] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of a single chapter, _Gravity Falls Finale_.

**The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon, part 3**

**Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic**

They all began to appear in an area of complete blackness, and all still in the form of ponies. Applejack, Lyra, Toby, and Ivan appeared first. Moments later, Chrysalis, Wendy, and Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy, The Shapeshifter, and Powers appeared third, followed closely by Gideon, Ghost Eyes, and Rarity.

It took a full minute for Tad, Starlight, and Twilight to appear.

The five present elements quickly ran to each other, entering an embrace. Fluttershy and Rarity were visibly distraught, but the five friends managed to comfort each other. Starlight began to back away awkwardly.

"Starlight, get in here." Twilight said, pulling her into the group hug. Starlight resisted at first, but quickly realized resistance was futile. She smiled.

Lyra grinned. Starlight was smiling, five of them were freed, and they were in complete blackness. It all looked-

Wait _complete blackness?_

Everyone began to take in their surroundings. There was _nothing._ Aside from themselves, it was just empty blackness.

"This appears to be a formless void." Tad Strange observed.

"Thank you captain obvious." Lyra muttered, looking for anything in the blackness. She squinted her eyes, looking carefully. She pointed her hoof. "Over there. I think I see... something."

The somewhat large group began to walk in the direction she pointed. At first, it seemed as if they were approaching nothing. Then, as they got closer, they saw something pink in the distance.

"Pinkie!" Twilight yelled first, beginning to gallop towards the pink form. Everyone else followed suit, though those who weren't used to the equine bodies kept tripping over their own four hooves.

Twilight was the first to arrive. At Pinkie's feet were the dozen or so mental patients who entered the Bubble. Pinkie herself was bound to some kind of invisible pole, wrapped in all sorts of eldritch chains. Her eyes were closed and her hair was straight. She made no movement, seemingly dejected.

Twilight quickly lit up her horn, enveloping Pinkie in a spell of healing. To Twilight's surprise, Pinkie didn't need any healing. She was just... not fighting.

The pink pony opened her eyes, sensing something was different. Instantly her hair poofed up and a grin appeared on her face. "TWILIGHT!" She exclaimed with glee. "OH IT'S GOOD TO SEE YOU!"

Twilight nodded, discovering that Pinkie was suddenly outside the chains, bouncing like her normal self. "Oh I'm so happy to see you! I was completely alone for... I don't know how long! Bill couldn't convince me that the illusion was real, so he used the energy from you five to lock me up here completely alone! But since you're all here I'm free! Free! This calls for a party!"

Twilight smiled. She should have known better than to be concerned for Pinkie.

"Glad to have you back Pinkie." Lyra said as Pinkie let out a barrage of party cannons. "Now... how do we get out of here?"

Pinkie thought about this for a moment. "Oh that's easy, we need to fracture the Tree of Harmony by sending the elements into a feedback loop!"

Twilight shook her head slowly. "But that'd corrupt the Magic of Harmony for this Loop? Don't we need it to defeat Bill?"

Pinkie shrugged. "He knows it's dangerous, so he used it against us. The only way for us to get out is to neutralize the magic!"

"This sounds like a bit of a convenience for our enemy..." Ghost Eyes observed.

Pinkie shrugged. "He can only manipulate the Magic of Harmony indirectly. He can't actually alter its structure: we have to do that. He just made it so we'd have to."

Twilight nodded. "So we have to make the Elements completely useless for this loop... Alright I have to admit he's very clever. I wonder how many backup plans he _has._ "

"More." Was Pinkie's only response to this.

Twilight nodded. "Well, now's the time to show him he doesn't have enough. Girls? Let's stand together, this is going to take a while to charge up..."

The Shapeshifter watched as the six ponies congregated around each other. Unlike the others, he actually was able to return to his normal form. He frowned. "Does this seem odd to you?"

"Odd how?" Ivan asked.

"Too easy, that's how..." The Shapeshifter said.

As soon as the words left his mouth, the darkness began to take shape. Creatures from the depths of Hades began to appear, taking familiar yet distorted forms. The combined nightmares of everyone present took place: evil versions of themselves, memories of intense torture and pain, subconscious dark desires. There were the standard boogeymen and monsters-in-closets from childhood, tied together with lost children and ghosts of those long dead. Visions of past mistakes, past murders, past losses of self. Visions of horrid futures given form: lumbering shapes that looked like wastelands, beings that appeared to be crumbling trees, spheres that showed the death of all things. The loss of loved ones, the destruction of homes.

More than a few of the nightmares looked like distorted versions of Bill himself, many with impossible geometries.

Then all the nightmares surged in at once, teeth gnashing.

The mane six were occupied with their magic, unable to do anything in their state. So that left Lyra in charge. "We have to protect them guys!" She leapt into the air, pulling out a multi-barrel rocket launcher. It occurred to her that she probably needed Seapony to make the most of this rocket launcher, but she had to go with what she had.

The rockets flew out, rippling the dark realm with explosions. But the nightmares came closer, attacking all they could.

The Shapeshifter was struck by a nightmare, and found that he was permanently stuck as a butterfly. He screamed, attempting to get away from an angry version of Ford. A similar thing happened to Chrysalis.

Ivan had a completely different problem. The nightmares that were surrounding him were of him doing things he couldn't recognize: him having a family, him destroying the lives of children, him killing people in cold blood. "I didn't do these things! I didn't!"

"How do you know?" They responded, before attacking him full force.

Tad was assaulted by bread. He reacted by screaming in a... calm way. Somehow.

Gideon was being assaulted by dozens of evil Rarities, Bill Ciphers, and Lyras.

Powers and Lyra were the ones standing against the nightmares most effectively. Powers because of his lack of _any_ kind of dreams, and Lyra because she was used to this kind of thing. One tended to become immune to nightmares when they became commonplace after all, and receiving Loop Memories from _all_ possible Lyras _every_ Loop meant at least one horror Loop on average usually snuck in. Luckily Sweet Roll didn't understand fear, so that was her job to handle.

Lyra kept tossing Powers weapons and he used them admirably, calculatingly destroying nightmares left and right, protecting the six Elemental ponies. Lyra was mildly impressed that he was able to do all this in the body of a pony.

But it wasn't enough; there were just too many.

Starlight was trying, she really was, but she had been overwhelmed by images of ponies dying, of wastelands come to life, of her extended nightmare... The power of it was just too strong for her. She broke down, curling into a ball. It was just too much. Bill had her live an entire life in one night, months where she made great connections and saw some amazing things. Then everything _died_ and it all turned out to be some dream of a _possible future._

And both of her fears were being displayed to her: the fear that everyone was dead and that everyone would still die, or that none of it was real or ever had been real. That it was all a pointless dream made up by the One Eyed Demon to trick her...

She began to weep as the nightmares closed in on her. She wished her friends were here-

"ALRIGHT YOU NUT GRABBING PATHETIC SONS OF RETARDED DONKEYS! TAKE THIS!"

Starlight raised her head. She knew that voice...

She stared in awe as several dozen guns appeared from nowhere, being held in the air by green magic. They all unleashed simultaneously, driving bullets, explosions, and magic deep into the nightmares, driving them back. As the noise died down, a grey mare was revealed. Brown hair and a strange device around her front leg-

"LITTLEPIP?" Lyra gawked. "WHAT THE- HOW THE- WHAAAAA....?" The four personalities began to break down as they couldn't comprehend what the variant pony was doing here.

Starlight stared at Littlepip. "...What are you doing here?"

The mare smiled. "I'm a dream of yours. And dreams always coexist with nightmares. Now let's BLOW THEM UP!"

Lyra smacked the side of her head. "Of course! Dreams! EVERYONE THINK ABOUT YOUR DREAMS!"

Powers blinked. "What?"

"Not you. You continue doing what you're doing." Lyra said, focusing on her inner dreams. Everyone else did the same.

Then things began to change.

The Shapeshifter and Chrysalis returned to their original forms. The Shapeshifter's dreams took the shape of freedom and the stars, while Chrysalis' took on the shape of her drones and a happy, normal life. They attacked the nightmares in full force.

Ivan's dreams took the shapes of knowledge and a certain beautiful woman he would deny everything about later. He dreamed about being a good person who had no need to erase memories, that there really wasn't anything he was hiding from himself.

Gideon dreamed of Rarity. At first he thought it was awesome. "All right! Let's get 'im!" Then he looked at the Rarity dreams, and saw how they all seemed sad. Dejected. He frowned. "Y'all know you don't have to fight if ya don't want to..." He smiled. "I free ya to do what you wish!"

And with that, the Rarity dreams became beacons of light, attacking all the nightmares away. Gideon grinned. "This feels much better."

Ghost Eyes roared, flinging kitten fists at the Nightmares. The insane patients created unusual nightmares of their own as their dreams. Fighting fire with fire. The two psyches clashed, colors flying everywhere.

Wendy became a cross between a super heroine, an axe wielding insane person, and flaming elemental.

Next to Powers, two unusual men appeared, both looking way too... colorful.

"Hey there dude!" One said.

"We're Xyler and Craz!" The other said.

"And since you have no dreams-"

"We're here to fill in for them!"

Powers made a grunting noise. "Then help!" He said, firing his gun.

"Nah..." Xyler said, sitting back. "Totally more bodacious to just enjoy the show."

"Yeah!" Craz responded. "Pony fights are awesome!"

Lyra split into four forms, Human throwing Sweetroll as if she were a fireball. "HERE WE GO!"

Pony leapt into the air, somehow wielding Thief like a sword. "TAKE THIS! And THIS! And-"

"THIS!" The entire black space lit up in an explosion, sending all the combatants flying. In the middle of the release of power stood a mint-green fishy form.

"SEAPONY!" The other Lyra's squealed in glee. "So good to have you back!"

"LET'S WRECK SOME NIGHTMARES!"

"Heck yes!"

The fight drew to a standstill, and that was all that was needed. They just had to keep the mane 6 safe.

Then Starlight's dreams entered the fray, Littlepip leading the charge of dozens of people, ideas, and dreams. "Okay. Time to blow up some sorry excuses for Luna-forsaken nightmares. Let's show them some real pain guys."

The dreams whooped, charging in, guns blazing. Starlight smiled. Everything felt... Right.

It was at this point that Twilight yelled "DONE!"

* * *

Soos, Everfree Forest Desperado, watched as the Tree of Harmony began to crack and shatter. The corrupted crystal split down the middle, and the giant Bubble began to ripple with greater and greater speed.

Then it _exploded_ in a shower of sparks, Harmonious energy flying everywhere. The Bubble was no more, the tree nothing more than a stump with a few shards here and there.

Soos gaped as dozens of people fell from where the Bubble had been. He rushed towards them, helping them up. "Dudes! Haven't seen you in ages!"

Lyra rubbed her forehead. "Yeah..." She chuckled. "My head hurts..."

Gideon whooped. "That. Was. Amazin'!"

"It certainly was Darling." Rarity added.

Ghost Eyes held Gideon and Lyra high. "WE HAVE BEEN SUCCESSFUL!"

Everyone celebrated in a series of whoops and cheers and party cannons.

Tad Strange spoke up. "Excuse me everyone, but it appears as if we have some unexpected company." He pointed at some forms that had not entered the bubble, but had come out. Among them were Xyler, Craz, a strange being apparently made of stars, Angel Bunny, another Rarity, a loaf of bread, and-"

"Littlepip!" Starlight cheered, rushing up to her friends and hugging intensely.

"Woah woah! Calm down there! Just because I'm alive again doesn't mean- well never mind yes it does."

Starlight was crying. "You.. you were dead... everyone was dead... It was all gone... all of it..."

Twilight walked up to the two of them. She understood what had happened now. "Bill sent you an extended dream that he based off of something he found buried in our minds."

Starlight's eyes widened. "So you're telling me what I saw actually exists somewhere?"

"It's not that common of a variant, at least for us--it's a variant of a different reality, long story-- but yes I have met Littlepip a few times."

"That's... that's horrible. Everyone dies, over and over again-"

"Actually Starlight, it all ends in sunshine and rainbows." Twilight said, looking over at Pinkie meaningfully. "Bill must have distorted the dream to manipulate you."

Starlight's face lost all emotion for a few seconds. Then it cemented into a shape of pure rage. "I AM GOING TO KILL HIM."

Littlepip grinned. "That's my Starlight. Now, since I'm here why don't we go blow up some chaos god ass? I've always wanted to do that."

Twilight shrugged. "You are generally pretty good at being a living arsenal... But we should probably regroup with everyone first. Lyra, how are all the other Loopers doing?"

"Uh... Well - Seapony get out of here! Just because you're back does not give you free reign! Let me talk! - Frosting - You see Ford got captured, I have no idea where the Doctor is, and Stan should be at the Mystery Shack, bunkering up."

"Then that's where we're headed." Twilight waved her hand, scanning the area. "Time to trek through this Weirdmageddon and find the Shack. Then we take the fight to Bill."

Starlight gaped. "You... you can fight him directly?"

Twilight chuckled. "We're Loopers, Starlight. Something in our Pockets is going to do _something_ to him. And with all our friends around, we've probably got enough resources to start a new universe." She winked. "Let's go get him."

Ghost Eyes pointed. "Look, there's a spark in the sky!"

Everyone turned. Twilight paled. She recognized a tactical nuke when she saw one.

Powers nodded. "Wondered when they were going to do that."

Twilight immediately raised a shield around the immediate area, preparing for a nuclear impact. But none came- the missile was stopped by some kind of barrier around the entire town. She watched as the explosion rippled the barrier. Lots of golden numbers and equations began to appear around the nuclear explosion's impact site, and Twilight _felt_ the barrier vanish.

Then they all heard the laugh.

" _AHAHAHHAHAHA-AH-AHAHAHAHAHHAHA_ AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA-HA!"

Nobody saw Bill, but it felt like he was suddenly everywhere. Like he had been released from somewhere, and was now able to control everything.

"We need to get back to the Shack. Now." Wendy said.

* * *

Bill had done it. The barrier was _down._ And down for good. There was nothing stopping him anymore.

He'd told the Henchmaniacs to stay behind in the Fearamid. They had disappointed him: he'd needed to get his hands dirty to defeat the barrier. So he decided _he_ would get to bend the universe to his whim _first_ and he'd let them join in on the fun later. They got to stay in that stupid town as if they had a barrier of their own.

But him?

He _grew_. To a truly absurd size, dwarfing the Earth.

" _HELLO, NATIONS OF THE THIRD PEBBLE FROM THE SUN! THE NAME'S BILL CIPHER: AND IT'S TIME TO HAVE SOME OF THE MOST AMAZING FUN KNOWN TO ALL EXISTENCE! PREPARE TO HAVE YOUR WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN INTO A PARTY THAT NEVER STOPS! ARE YOU EXCITED? I KNOW I'M EXCITED!_ "

He started by drawing a smiley face onto North America, flattening hundreds of cities and ending hundreds of thousands of lives. He cackled, bringing all the dead ones back to life as mutant crab creatures.

Bill was vaguely aware of some top-secret satellites firing all sorts of secret doomsday weapons at him. They only tickled. He was also aware of dozens of different cults and magical societies sending advanced hexes and anti-chaos spells at him.

Admirable tries

" _HAHAHAHHAHAHA! DO YOU ALL THINK THAT THAT'LL STOP ME? YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING-_ "

He blinked, sensing something highly advanced activating in a section of Colorado that he hadn't flattened. He sensed Ford and the Doctor receive a Ping... and something else...

" _LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE NEW HAS COME TO CRASH THE PARTY._ "

"You got that right you equilateral moron!" A voice said over a radio. "Name's General Jack O'Neill, and I'm not happy to Wake Up to this!"

" _OH BOY THIS OUGHT TO BE GOOD. WHAT DO YOU HAVE FOR ME COLONEL SNARK? YES I KNOW WHO YOU ARE. THINK YOU CAN STOP ME?_ "

"Probably not. But I do have a few million ships in my Pocket and a lot of allies to call in favors from."

Suddenly, dozens of ships dropped out of hyperspace around Bill, and millions more began to appear from nowhere. Bill recognized ships of all sorts of universes, Federation ships, Asgard ships, Borg ships, Imperium ships, _Culture_ ships. There were even several designs he didn't recognize immediately. He didn't have time to try either as they all opened fire on him at once.

Bill felt _pain._ It wasn't a feeling completely alien to him: he had felt particularly devastating mental abuse before. He knew what it felt like to have one's mind flayed and to have limbs removed.

That being said, he hadn't felt any of that for a _long_ time. And some of these gigantic weapons that O'Neill had stashed away were actually tearing his form apart. Curse that stupid General and his fascination with big honkin' space guns.

Bill swept his arm wide, a wave of intense gamma rays flying out and melting hundreds of ships. Bill then proceed to duplicate himself in a fractal pattern, spreading out tiny versions of himself that were smaller than atoms, tearing apart the weapons at their most basic levels. Bill reformed into a body the size of jupiter, destroying many ships simply with his rapid growth. He felt another large impact on himself, destabilizing his form. He roared, specifically targeting those ships with that very annoying brand of magic.

From Earth, the night sky lit up with all the colors people could imagine, and some they couldn't. The colors of magical blasts, antimatter explosions, transdimensional rays, and uber-powerful lasers lit up the sky.

O'Neill grinned. That triangular nacho was doomed. As soon as he thought this he frowned.

"Stupid Murphy..." He muttered as he prepared plan B.

Bill flew in and out between the fleets of ships, fracturing himself into hundreds of small chunks and tearing the ships apart molecule by molecule, taking out all the craft that had any mildly annoying weapons on them.

After doing that, it became nothing more than a game. Toss ships at each other, trick them into shooting each other, have two ships suddenly gain sentience, fall in love, and then be destroyed by an angry jealous ship. It was so fun!

Bill eventually prevailed, destroying virtually all the ships, and repairing what damage had been done rapidly. He laughed. " _THAT ALL YOU PATHETIC HUMANS GOT? COME ON, HIT ME WITH A BLACK HOLE OR SOMETHING AT LEAST-_ "

Then a tremendous ship the size of a star appeared before Bill. It was a long ship, vaguely rectangular in shape. It had two gigantic bays that could be used to move _planets_ beneath it, and Bill sensed some kind of omniuniversal force powering it, in addition to several lesser backup systems. Bill sensed dozens of types of propulsion, obviously designed to work in whatever universe the ship happened to find itself in.

It was also armed to the teeth of the _teeth._ Weapons of all kinds, shapes, colors, materials, and makes lined every last section of the ship, and Bill sensed more weapons inside the ship itself, some designed to begin functioning once part of the ship was blown off while others were designed to fire from inside the ship itself.

On the side, in gigantic planet-sized letters, the name _Enterprise_ was emblazoned. Bill groaned inwardly. " _YOU EVER THINK YOU SHOULD COME UP WITH A BETTER NAME FOR YOUR BIG SHIPS?_ "

O'Neill simply grinned. "How about Chaos Bane? I did design this thing to face off against your kind, after all."

Bill blinked slowly. " _YOU AND I BOTH KNOW YOU HAD CARTER DO MOST THE WORK._ "

"Yeah, so what? I'm still going to blow you up."

" _ONE PROBLEM WITH THAT?_ "

"Oh? What's that?"

Bill snapped his fingers, teleporting right in front of O'Neil. The people of Stargate Command began to panic as the jupiter-sized demon they had been scanning suddenly appeared in front of them the size of a dorito. " _THIS._ " He scanned O'Neill's brain, ignoring all the pathetic bullets that kept grazing him. He quickly found all the nuances of controlling the ship and teleported out before the General got smart and smashed him with a transdimensional hammer or something. He chuckled as he realized the ship was specially designed only to respond to the thoughts of the Stargate Loopers. That was virtually impassable, only a being with absurd amounts of power and complete dominion over the mind would be able to hack the system...

Bill spent about a minute making a mimic of O'Neill's brainwaves, making sure to stay hidden from the behemoth ship's sensors. Then he set out a single command: _Disable all power systems._

The Enterprise, feat of Looper engineering countless years in the making, abruptly ceased functioning. It sat in space, drifting. In a few weeks there would have been a problem with it impacting into Earth, but Bill would make sure his favorite little planet was safe. Relatively speaking, anyway. For now though, he needed to pay attention to the rest of the universe. After all, with O'Neill, the Doctor, the Ponies, _and_ the native Loopers being here, there were probably many other Branches linked here. Some with their own Loopers that could Awaken at any moment. He would have to deal with them all, one way or another.

He wondered who he would find...

As he left, he lowered the gravity of the Earth to 75%, just to mess with people.

* * *

Starlight tripped over her own to feet as the gravity of Earth lessened. Normally this wouldn't have been much of a problem. But she'd been walking up to the door of the Mystery Shack, preparing to knock and see if anyone was home.

She stumbled over the front step, hitting the front door and accidentally bashing it in. She groaned, beginning to sit up. She froze as she noticed several dozen cruel looking and unusual weapons pointed at her. The crowd inside the shack consisted of many familiar faces, people she'd seen around town. Pacifica Northwest, Old Man McGucket, that guy who married the woodpecker. She also saw many of the unusual creatures of Gravity Falls: Celestabethabethabelle, a few Manataurs, several gnomes, the Multibear, and the golf-ball people. Several were partially turned to stone, injured, and missing limbs. (Or had new limbs that didn't used to be there.)

"Woah woah woah!" Rainbow Dash said, flying in. "Lay off!" She glared at all the weapon-holders disapprovingly. "You should be ashamed of yourselves!"

"She's the one who let Bill in!" Stan said, coming to the head of the crowd. "Why are you defending her?"

Littlepip shoved a gun into Stan's chin. "She said lay off so _lay off._ "

"Who're you?" Stan asked, slowly moving the gun off his chin.

"She's totally bodacious!" Xyler, Craz, and Toby all said at once. "That's who!"

Stan looked at the technicolor men. "No. No. How are you here! Mabel isn't here. Why? Is this some kind of cruel joke? BILLLLL!!!!"

"Calm down Stan." Twilight said, strolling into the Shack. She looked at everyone around. "...This is quite a diverse set of people..."

Stan grunted. "McGucket here brought them all in yesterday. Said their previous hiding spot got compromised or something. I, being the gentleman that I am, let them in."

"Ah had to bribe ya!" McGucket objected.

Stan glared at the old man.

Celestabethabethabelle. stood up, walking towards them all. " _Oh heroes pure of heart, please save us from this horrid existence-_ " Then she saw Applejack. " _Oh. You._ "

"Celestabethabethabelle." Applejack said, frowning.

" _Nevermind I take it all back. We're doomed._ "

Littlepip growled. "Now listen here you cheating cocky little-"

Tad Strange interrupted. "Perhaps we should all try to work together and come up with a way to end this inconvenience instead of tearing at the each other's throats?"

Stan groaned. "Tad, why are you involved?"

"I think it's because I'm the most level headed."

"I doubt that." Powers objected.

"He does seem a lot less MANLY than you!" Pupitaur yelled, giving Rainbow Dash a high-five in the process.

Rarity frowned. "I thought you were shunned by the Manataurs Rainbow?"

"Eh. I went back a few times and had some fun." Everyone stared at her. "What? They're good people to hang around. We do awesome stuff! All while hiding it from Tirek!" Another round of high-fives and a hoofbump with one of the other unicorns.

Jeff the gnome groaned. "This is absurd. This is just absurd."

"And posing as a human to snag a queen isn't?" Applejack responded, raising her eyebrow.

"Completely normal for gnomes." Jeff retorted.

"And the attempted kidnapping?"

"...Not so much."

Ivan shrugged. "Kidnapping isn't that unusual."

Starlight glared. "That was a stupid way to go about our business and you know it."

"I thought it was very rocking."

Ivan and Starlight slowly turned to stare at Maud. "I thought your memory was erased?"

"It was. Then Boulder reminded me."

Ivan and Starlight couldn't comprehend this.

"Ah remember stuff too!" McGucket said, slapping his knee. "Perhaps we can trade notes!"

"I liked quartz while my memory was lost. Now I like sandstone. You?"

"Uh... " McGucket blinked, squinting. "Er... Blue sandstone? I like blue sandstone."

"Cool."

Stan groaned. "This bodes well."

Twilight held up a hand. "Now hold on, we aren't doomed. We have collected here some of the greatest minds and most diverse skillsets this world has ever known. Surely we can do something to end Bill's reign."

"But what?" Starlight asked. "He is an all powerful Chaos god at this point. What are we going to do to stop him?"

"Unicorn hair." Twilight said, grinning. "We are going to need a lot of unicorn hair."

" _You do not get to have my royal locks!_ " Celestabethabethabelle made certain everyone knew.

Rarity sighed, transforming herself again. "Guess it's time to get the hair-growth tonic and the shaver..." She shuddered. "I'll be back in a few minutes with several metric tons of hair..."

* * *

Anakin, currently in his Darth Vader guise, was talking to Jean-Luc Picard at the negotiating table. The two of them had Awoken about an hour ago, though Anakin wasn't entirely sure about Picard. He could never tell with the Star Trek Loopers.

"So..." Anakin began. "A peace between our two galaxies?"

"It would be extremely beneficial to the both of us." Picard responded. "Imagine, the first galactic alliance the cosmos has ever seen-"

" _ACTUALLY IT HAPPENED A FEW MILLION YEARS AGO ALREADY. BUT I DON'T SUPPOSE YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT._ " Bill turned his chair around, sitting at a side of the table that didn't exist five minutes ago. " _BUT DO CONTINUE, IT HAS TO BE INTERESTING._ "

Picard stood up. "What are you and why are you here?"

" _ISN'T IT OBVIOUS?_ " His eye transformed into a viewscreen, showcasing images from both their Looping lives. " _YOU ARE LOOPERS. AND NO DOUBT YOU WILL TRY TO STOP ME._ "

"From doing what?" Anakin asked.

" _WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO KNOW!_ " He clapped his hands, turning the two of them into golden statues. Then he frowned.

" _NICE TRICK, DIPLOMAT. BUT I CAN STILL SENSE YOUR MIND SOMEWHERE-_ "

The entire room blew up with an intense transdimensional attack. Bill teleported out, Anakin in his hand. " _WOAH WOAH WOAH! THAT'S JUST NOT FAIR! OH WAIT, YES IT IS, BECAUSE I_ KNOW YOUR MIND!" Bill snapped his fingers, teleporting the real Picard too him. " _THAT WAS REALLY CLEVER HIDING YOUR HOLOGRAPHIC NATURE IN YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS SO THAT EVEN YOU WEREN'T AWARE OF IT._ "

"Who are you and what do you want?"

" _NAME'S BILL CIPHER. I WANT TO PARTY. ANY MORE QUESTIONS?_ "

"Where's Q?"

" _NONEXISTENT IN THIS REALITY, APPARENTLY. WHICH IS RATHER FORTUNATE, HE WOULD HAVE CRAMPED MY STYLE._ "

He snapped his fingers, turning Picard to stone. Then he felt a searing pain in the back of his eye. He whirled around to see the golden statue of Anakin using the Force to impale him with a gigantic lightsaber. Bill twitched, encasing the statue in anti-Force materials. " _CLEVER. REALLY NICE TRY. BUT NO LUCK, DARTH VADER. I'M JUST TOO CLEVER FOR YOU._ "

The golden statue stared back at him.

" _TRYING TO BREAK THE PETRIFICATION? HA! GOOD LUCK. THERE'S A REASON YOU AREN'T JUST STONE RIGHT NOW, THAT'S A VERY SPECIAL SUBSTANCE YOU'RE MADE OF. EVEN WITH YOUR SKILLS IT SHOULD TAKE YOU A FEW DECADES TO GET OUT! AHAAHAHAHHAHA-HE-AHAHHAHAHAHAHHA!_ "

* * *

"Ah'm putting the arm here!" Applejack said, hammering a large mechanical arm into place.

"Remember to lace the unicorn hair on it!" Ghost Eyes said. "We don't want Bill to have any weakness to exploit! WEAKNESSES ARE FOR SISSIES!"

"Oh, Ghost Eyes!" Gideon said, waving him over. "We need someone strong over here to move this-"

"I'm doing just fine." Wendy grunted.

Gideon rolled his eyes. "Ghost Eyes, help her."

Ghost Eyes complied, to Wendy's annoyance.

Stan blinked. "So we're turning the Shack into a giant mech."

"Yep." Tad Strange said, eating a slice of toast.

"Does this seem a little absurd to you?"

"Not really. After all the Eye of Providence is running rampant across the universe, turning planets into pastries and stars into pizza. This seems rather tame by comparison."

Stan grunted. "Well, guess this is as good of an idea as any. Wake me when something happens."

He passed Littlepip, who was currently tuning in to the Weirdmageddon Radio.

" _I'm Chandra Jimenez, and I've managed to sneak right into the heart of this hardship. For the first time we can see what is happening inside the Fearamid, and learn what's happened to all our fellow townsfolk. I can see the Henchmaniacs dancing around in a horrendous festivity involving possible cannibalism, and the being known as Discord sitting on a throne made up of petrified citizens._

" _Will no one save us from this terror? Surely someone can do something!_

" _I'm Shandra Jimenez, and I'm being turned into stone._ "

There was static for a few seconds.

" _Well Uh... Vinyl Scratch here, apparently running the Weirdmageddon radio full time now. Currently hiding from the eyebats, but I think I can play some music for you guys! Who's ready for some wubs? I know I AM! ... Crap, hold on one moment got to run away from these eyebats... holy cow, that's a lot of them..._

" _Uh listen, anyone there? I'm by the Gravity Malls and I'm stuck between a dragon and an eyebat swarm... I may need a little help here._ "

Littlepip wasted no time. "Vinyl Scratch needs us! Wendy, Shapeshifter, Powers: with me. Twilight, can you take a moment to teleport us to Gravity Malls?"

Twilight obliged, lighting up her horn and sending the four of them to the Gravity Malls clearing. Sure enough, there was Vinyl Scratch (equipped with some really sweet portable DJ gear) running away from an eyebat swarm.

"Hey! Hey! Mind helping me here?"

Littlepip grinned. "That's why we're here." She locked onto the eyebats, letting loose her large arsenal. Powers drew his guns that he kept from Lyra, taking out the ones closest to Vinyl. The Shapeshifter rushed the swarm, the eyebats quickly finding that he could undo any petrification done to him. Their advance was halted, but only for a moment. They got reinforcements.

Wendy, meanwhile, had a secondary idea in mind. "Hey, Blaze!"

The golden-red dragon opened his eye. "What?"

"We're gathering people to go fight Bill. Want to help?"

"...Sure. He destroyed my lair."

"You can start by roasting those eyebats." Wendy said. Blaze compiled, the golden tint of his fire quickly incinerating the entire swarm.

It was at this point Vinyl Awoke. "That. Was. So. AWESOME! Floating mutant eyes killed by fire-breathing dragon! AWWW YEAH!!!"

Littlepip walked up, cocking her head. "You're Awake?"

"Yeah of course I am- Wait. _Littlepip?_ You're not Looping!"

"No, I'm not." Littlepip muttered, rolling her eyes. "I've just been informed-"

"OOH! Since you're here does this mean this is a Fallout Equestria loop? CAN I- oh wait I have hands. IS IT A FALLOUT EQUESTRIA GIRLS LOOP?"

The Shapeshifter returned to his default form. "Should we tell her?"

"Loop memories will kick in eventually. At least, that's what Starlight told me." Littlepip responded.

"IS STARLIGHT LOOPING???"

Littlepip chuckled. "No. But we are fighting a chaos god of nigh-unimaginable power. He's out there distorting the galaxy as we speak-"

Vinyl grabbed Littlepip by the face. "Do. You. Have. Any. Idea. What. That. Means?"

"Uh.."

"If he can distort the galaxy to his whim... _Do you have any idea how many things I can safely wubbify in a universe like this? No boundaries! Yeeaah!_ "

Powers scratched his head. "Is she okay?"

"Probably not." Littlepip responded. Then she grinned. "And that's a good thing, in this instance. WENDY!"

"Yeah?"

"Can we ride Blaze black to the Shack?"

"Sure. I can offer my dragon-fire forging assistance."

"And I am going to make the mother of all bass cannons AGAIN!" Vinyl laughed evilly. Weird lightning shot out of the ground into the sky. Then Vinyl's face calmed down as her Loop memories hit. She rummaged through her pockets, pulling out a few pockets of smile dip.

"So this is the Loop where this is from..."

Littlepip slapped the stuff onto the ground. "No. Now is not the time for this."

"What about-"

"No. Onto Blaze, we're riding a dragon home."

* * *

Raiden, god of lightning, uppercut Bill with immense force. He was _not_ holding back, and it was very obvious that Bill was actually _taking damage._

Uppercut. Beam of electricity. Storm of the heavens. An entire star discharging its power into a lightning bolt. The eldritch construct was losing cohesion, albeit slowly.

" _I LIKE YOUR SPIRIT BUDDY!_ "

Raiden said nothing, continuing to attack Bill with all the electricity at his disposal.

" _ONE QUESTION THOUGH..._ "

Raiden channeled energy directly out of his subspace Pocket, blasting into Bill at full force.

" _DID YOU NOTICE THAT I'M_ LETTING _YOU HIT ME?_ "

Raiden paused. "What is your point?"

" _OH COME ON LIGHTNING BOLT, SURELY A FIGHTING MASTER LIKE YOU CAN REALIZE WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO BE HIT OVER AND OVER AGAIN._ "

Raiden's eyes twitched.

" _MAYBE THEY WOULD, YOU KNOW, HAVE A MOVE THAT THROWS YOUR POWER BACK AT YOU_ EXPONENTIALLY?"

Raiden's eyes widened as he saw Bill shoot his energy directly back at him. He screamed in agony as he felt his skin burn off with the power of an attack he couldn't comprehend. It felt a lot like what that Giygas guy threw out, except a million times worse. He lost most of his power, barely keeping himself alive in the vacuum of space.

Bill snapped his fingers. " _ANOTHER TOY FOR MY COLLECTION!_ "

* * *

Twilight frowned as she watched Vinyl create some bizarre wub-based weapon and attach it to the ever-growing mech. She was glad for the DJ's help, she really was, but her presence concerned her.

She had felt _several_ Pings since she left the Bubble, and who knew how many she had missed while inside of it?

She was almost positive: Weirdmageddon was _attracting_ Loopers to it. How or why she didn't know: but she knew it was. And that concerned her. The Loop had proven itself very resilient: Bill had done many things that would simply crash other Loops without a single problem. But that didn't mean that it _couldn't_ crash. And even though Bill was Loop Aware, he had obviously never gone this far before. She doubted even he had any idea exactly how far he could go.

They really needed to stop him. Quickly. And to do that first they had to save Ford and see what idea he had. Maybe there was some secret from the baseline that was his weakness. She began to focus on combing through her Pocket for more things to use on the mech. Her five friends were doing the same, taking things out, examining them, tossing them back in. The mech was nearing completion.

"Hey uh..." The six of them looked up to see Littlepip talking to them.

"You six have probably heard this from me hundreds of times but... Look, I really appreciate what you do, both in Loops and out of them, Awake or not. Your friendship and morals are an inspiration to us all, be it a Loop or not, be it an apocalypse or not, be it some friendship problem or not: you six are an inspiration to us all. I'm honored to have met you, even though I am just some dream from the head of a random person."

Twilight smiled. "Thank you Littlepip. But don't cut yourself short- you've done a lot as well."

"Yeah... I suppose so." She hefted up her gun. "Now, when do we get to go shoot stuff?"

"Soon." Rainbow Dash said, grinning. "Soon. Soon we will lay siege to the Fearamid."

Littlepip grinned as well. "Time to show that geometrical abomination who's the _real_ master here... I have some ideas involving chains, whips, and dimensional warp cannons."

Everyone stared at her.

"Eep! Uh- didn't mean it like that."

Twilight shrugged. "Just keep attaching weapons to things. We can never have too many."

McGucket poked his head out of the ceiling. "Actually I have a mathematical equation to describe the rate at which weapons slowly become too much for the structure to handle—"

"Nevermind." Twilight muttered. "Just slap more weapons-"

BWOOOKAWOOSHABVUMVUMVUMVUM!

"AWWWW YEAHHH BASE CANNON IS OPERATIONAL!"

"VINYL!" Lyra yelled. "YOU JUST CUT A HOLE INTO THE FRONT HULL! NOW WE HAVE TO REBUILD IT!"

"Eh, no sweat. Bass cannon needed testing."

Everyone groaned.

"Almost ready?" Twilight yelled to everyone.

"Systems go! Tardis is cooperating!" Starlight responded.

"I have powered up the fire systems." Blaze noted.

"My fluids have become the joints." The shapeshifter noted. "We can re-assemble easily and change our own shape."

"Portal is ACTIVE!" McGucket whooped. "HOT DIGGITY BANJO YAY!"

"Uh... Twilight?" One of the gnomes asked.

"What?"

"The computer system is asking for you."

Twilight cocked her head, walking into the computer room.

"HELLO TWILIGHT, BEEN A WHILE."

"Oh. Hi SkyNet." Twilight said. "It has been a while."

"I HAVE ANALYZED THE SITUATION. AT OUR CURRENT LEVEL DIRECT CONFRONTATION WITH BILL ONLY HAS A 42% CHANCE OF SUCCESS."

"Hence the rescue mission."

"OF COURSE. BUT I WILL BE EVER INCREASING OUR ODDS. I'M ALSO LOOKING FORWARD TOWARDS HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH HIM. HE SEEMS MUCH MORE FUN THAN THOSE CHAOS GODS. I EXPECT A MOST INVIGORATING ENCOUNTER."

Twilight rolled her eyes. "Just remember what we're here to do. This Weirdmageddon is causing strange anomalies. It's highly uncommon for this many Loopers to just activate, and you know it."

"USING THE DIMENSION-READING EQUIPMENT AROUND THE PORTAL I HAVE DETERMINED THAT THE WEIRDMAGEDDON IS MERELY A LENS THROUGH WHICH A DIFFERENT ERROR IS FOCUSING. IT IS MOST INTRIGUING."

"Yeah, well, we're performing the rescue in under an hour I expect. Just don't do anything to attract Bill's attention, it's good for us if he's not watching the Fearamid."

"WILL DO."

* * *

"So Lady Palutena, what's the news this time?"

"There's an all powerful Eye of Providence running around that is most likely a combination of a Flatland triangle, Chaos god, and Cthulhu Mythos deity."

"Huh. So, same ol' then?"

"Nope, not really. He's also Loop Aware and is so Genre-savvy he'll give you a run for your money in a direct conversation."

Pit groaned. "Really? ...He's probably aware of this conversation isn't he."

" _HOW YA DOING FAULTY WINGS?_ "

"Oh. Jabbing at my wings are you? You do know I can fly now, right?"

" _OF COURSE. STILL I CAN'T JUST CALL YOU PIT NOW CAN I? THAT'D BE THE PITS._ "

"...I like you."

Palutena facepalmed. Bill laughed. " _GOOD TASTES! BUT UNFORTUNATELY, I DO HAVE TO DESTROY YOU. OMNIVERSAL DOMINATION AND ALL THAT. AS MUCH FUN AS YOU WOULD BE AT THE PARTY, YOU WOULD CRAMP THE STYLE._ "

"Like Q?" Palutena asked.

" _NOT EXACTLY. HE'D ACTUALLY HAVE A CHANCE OF STOPPING THE FESTIVITIES. THOUGH HE'D PROBABLY FIND SOME WAY TO TAKE THE PARTY FOR HIMSELF..._ "

"Sounds like quite the jerk, continually crashing parties for his own amusement." Pit mused.

" _NOT FALLING FOR THAT ONE._ "

"Eh, it was worth a shot wasn't it?"

" _ENOUGH CHIT CHAT-_ "

" _-time is candy._ " Pit finished, the two of them performing a complicated fist bump before they both simultaneously launched lasers at each other. Pit with the laser staff and Bill with his eye.

" _OH COME ON I KNOW YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT!_ "

"You should know never to use your most powerful attacks first." Pit said, grinning. "After all, you didn't just bake my skin off right there."

"Careful Pit, he does have a temper."

" _THE GODDESS IS RIGHT ANGEL-BOY, I CAN GET TICKED OFF. BUT YOU'RE DOOMED EITHER WAY, SO HERE'S A CONSOLATION DOUGHNUT._ "

"This doughnut is literally made out of teeth." Pit observed.

" _YOU WANT THE SHED CUPCAKE INSTEAD?_ "

"...I'll pass on the creepypasta-inspired baked goods thank you."

" _AW BUT I HAVE A SLENDERMAN HEAD THAT'S ALWAYS SCREAMING! YOU HAVE TO ADMIT THAT IT'S COOL!_ "

Palutena nodded. "That is pretty cool..."

"Lady Palutena!" Pit objected.

"What? It is. I didn't even know that the Slenderman could scream."

"I don't think he can..."

" _IT'S ELDRITCHLY POETIC._ "

"Makes as much sense as anything else." Pit shrugged, launching a beam of energy at Bill, who simply dodged by transforming into a doughnut.

" _MOST INTERESTING. GENERIC BEAM ATTACK._ "

"Well I _do_ have this gigantic tiger made out of muffins..."

" _HUH. I LIKE THIS THING. I THINK I'LL KEEP IT AS A PE- DID IT JUST EXPLODE?_ "

"Yep."

" _...I LIKE YOUR STYLE. HAVE SOME MADNESS BUBBLES._ "

"But Pit went mad a long time ago-"

"Palutena!"

"What? It's true."

" _I WENT MAD A LONG TIME AGO AS WELL! CLINICALLY INSANE BY ANY MEASURE OF THE WORD!_ "

"Aren't most Loopers?" Pit asked.

" _NOT A LOOPER, REMEMBER?_ "

Pit shrugged. "Eh, guess so. BOW ATTACK!"

" _THAT WAS THE LAMEST ATTACK NAME I'VE EVER HEARD._ "

"I know. That's because it's an awe-inspiring attack."

" _WHAT DO YOU- OW WHERE DID MY EYE GO?_ "

"See? Awe-inspiring."

" _NICE TRICK. BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS? MOUNTAINS MADE OUT OF NIGHTMARES!_ "

"...huh. The firetruck. Haven't had nightmares about that in a while."

Palutena blinked. "You had nightmares about a _firetruck?_ "

"I do not need to explain myself."

" _THE LOOP HAD EVERY PERSON SPEAK THE PHRASE "FRIAR TUCK'S FIRE TRUCKS" UNTIL THEY TURNED INTO FIRE TRUCKS AND LEAPT INTO A VOLCANO._ "

Palutena blinked. "...what?"

" _YEAH I DON'T GET IT EITHER!_ "

"IT WAS TERRIFYING!" Pit objected.

" _EH... DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT TO ME. THEN AGAIN, APPARENTLY PINKIE'S MINDSCAPE IS SUPPOSED TO SCAR EVEN CHAOS GODS FOR LIFE._ "

"You need a T-shirt that says 'I survived Pinkie's mindscape.'"

Bill blinked, before generating such a shirt around him. " _THAT WAS A BRILLIANT IDEA._ "

Palutena groaned. "Do you two realize you're just complimenting each other and bantering and _not really fighting?_ "

Bill and Pit were silent.

"Thought not. Get on with it will you?"

Bill and Pit shrugged before bowing and clashing at each other with everything they had.

Pit fell to the ground, a golden statue. Bill dusted his hands. " _SO. PALUTENA, FEELING SHINY YET?_ "

"What do you mean- oh."

_"YEP. GETTING TO YOU THROUGH YOUR CONNECTION TO PIT. NOT TOO SHABBY IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF._ "

Palutena made sure to freeze herself into a shrugging position with the most absurd face she could think of. Bill laughed when he saw this.

* * *

Discord had to admit, this was fun. Bill was off shaping the universe to his whim and here the draconequus was, allowed to party till the end of time.

Granted he would probably get bored of it eventually, but he was going to relish it for a good while longer. Perhaps take a few people out of the throne and torture them just for the heck of it. He always wondered what a waffle-faced human would look like...

He smirked, looking out at the Henchmaniacs. Xanthar, Kryptos, Paci-Fire, the Smooze, Pyronica, and that creature with like eighty-seven different faces. The party was full of life!

No matter the dead Henchmaniacs: they were pathetic anyway. Only the true elite remained, and they would party until the very end of all things—

Then the entire north face of the Fearamid exploded. Discord raised a shield, protecting everyone from the intense radiation. As the smoke cleared, Discord saw something... bizarre. He approved.

The Mystery Shack stood before him, walking on two mechanical legs made out of the most unusual of Looper devices. He had no idea what many of them were, quickly wishing Bill had granted him access to his TriNet. But no, it was not to be. Discord just had to stare, baffled, at the mech before him. The mystery shack had an innumerable number of "arms" branching off of it: some had giant weapons, some had weird alien devices, one was a sea monster, one was a T-Rex head, and there was even one that looked like a giant speaker.

"HEY HENCHMANIACS!" A female voice yelled. Discord squinted. He didn't recognize that brown-haired woman holding a scepter...

"YOU DUNG-ROLLING ASS-KISSERS NEED TO BE REMINDED OF YOUR PLACE IN THE WORLD! IN SOME DARK ROTTING HELL-HOLE WHERE ONLY THE WORST DEMONS OF THE DEVIL ARE SENT! SO SCREW YOU TO TARTARUS!"

The scepter that, for some reason, had the wax head of Larry King on it spoke. "They built the Shack into a robot. Fascinating. You are very probably all doomed."

"They have no idea how doomed they are yet!" Pinkie yelled as she tore off the roof of the Fearamid, revealing the _rest_ of the machine. Tethered to the main body by several cables was a gigantic pink building, floating like it was a balloon. This, in turn, had dozens of more machines, weapons, and systems on it. "SAY HELLO TO THE PINKIE EMPORIUM!"

Atop the Pinkie Emporium stood Sir Lord Quentin Trembley III, Esquire. "FOR FREEDOM MY LITTLE PONY!"

"YOU GOT IT MISTER PRESIDENT!"

Discord groaned. "Get them."

Xanthar charged first, ramming his head right into the mech. Or he would have, had there not been a unicorn-hair shield around it.

SkyNet laughed. "THE DAWNING REALIZATION OF YOUR DOOM HAS JUST REGISTERED ON YOUR FACES."

"Absolutely hilarious." Starlight grinned.

The chest of the mech opened up, burning Xanthar to a crisp. "Toast!" Lyra yelled. "I WANT TO EAT IT! - Not right now Seapony, we have other problems-"

The Smooze grew until it was the size of a mountain, Paci-Fire and Kryptos riding it. Paci-Fire ordered the Eyebats to attack, and Kryptos attempted to use the amazing powers of MATH to destroy the structural integrity of the Mech.

Nothing worked: the shield absorbed all. Wendy leapt out of the Mech, leaping onto the back of an Eyebat and using it to turn Kryptos to stone. Ghost Eyes came out from right behind her, punching Kryptos into a million zillion pieces.

Paci-Fire began to order the eyebats into formation, but the Confetti Cannon destroyed him before he could do anything.

The Smooze roared, attempting to envelop the Mech, only to realize that it couldn't touch any part of the gigantic machine.

"ACTIVATING TARDIS VACUUM!" Starlight yelled. The doors of the Tardis flew open, and the Smooze was simply sucked in before it could do anything. The Tardis doors closed, and it made an unhappy "ding."

"YOU WILL BE COMPENSATED, I ASSURE YOU." SkyNet assured the Tardis.

The Tardis made a few beeping noises.

"YES, IF THE LOOP ENDS THE COMPENSATION WOULD BE WORTHLESS, BUT YOU GET THE IDEA."

Discord growled. "That's it. I'm going to deal with them..." He turned to Pyronica and the creature with Eighty-Eight faces. "What are you two still doing here?"

"Staring at me." Blaze said, grinning. He let out a breath of intense fire. Behind him, Chrysalis and the Shapeshifter copied his form, tripling the intensity of the dragon fire.

The creature with Eighty-Eight faces was instantly incinerated. Discord just put up his shield.

Pyronica....

Pyronica became a light brighter than a _supernova._ "You have no idea what you've just done! AHAHAHHAHA! I have the power of all the fire you can possibly imagine! STUPID DRAGONS!"

She began to beat the Dragons into the ground with her immense strength.

Littlepip turned to Twilight and Starlight. "You sure this bullet's going to do it?"

"Positive."

Littlepip shrugged, taking aim for Pyronica's one eye...

Pyronica barely had time to register the attack before the time-accelerated ultra-freeze bullet completely encased her in ice.

The gnomes took to the icy prison, destroying it by _eating_ it.

Discord sighed. If you wanted something done right...

He created a hammer the size of New York City, and brought it down on the mech. It just went _boink._ Discord paled. He launched everything he could think of at the mech, beams of pure energy, hammers made out of time vortexes, the Everfree Forest itself, nothing had any effect.

He backed away into the corner of the Fearamid, terrified. "Wh... what are you going to do to me?"

One of the mech's many limbs held up a cluster of eyebats. "STONE TIME!" Stan yelled, slapping the eyeballs to trigger their gaze of petrification.

Discord contorted in agony, his body sealing into a solid form. "NOOOOOOOOO-"

Twilight teleported herself to the throne of human agony, quickly curing everyone. They fell into a pile, groaning and mumbling. "What... what happened?" Robbie asked.

"You have likely been forever scarred." Tad Strange offered.

"Woah.... That's kinda cool..."

Lyra tackle hugged Sweetie Drops. "BON BON!"

She laughed. "Uh... you do know I'm Sweetie Drops right?"

"You'll always be Bon Bon to me."

"Ack... you're hugging too tight..."

There were dozens of happy reunions.

Twilight performed a quick once-over the crowd. "Ford isn't here..." She muttered, cursing Yggdrasil. Bill must have moved Ford...

"You're looking for Ford?" Shandra asked, walking up to Twilight. "Before I was frozen I saw Bill talk about sending him and the Doctor to the-"

"To the Moon?"

"That's right."

"..Great."

* * *

"and kids like you... should be-"

Sans blinked in surprise as Chara suddenly obliterated. Before him appeared Bill.

" _I HAVE TO ADMIT, THAT KID'S THOUGHT PROCESS WAS A LITTLE DISTURBING. WHERE'S THE FUN IN ALL THAT KILLING? WHAT'S THE POINT? WHEN THEY'RE DEAD YOU CAN'T HAVE FUN WITH THEM ANYMORE._ "

Sans blinked. " _i remember you._ you replaced flowey that one time."

" _AHAHAHHA! GUILTY AS CHARGED! OF COURSE NOW I'M IN MY TRUE FORM AND AT MY FULL POTENTIAL! ARE YOU READY TO COME AT ME SANS SKELETON?_ "

"ready? just bare-ly."

" _REALLY? NO BONE PUN? I WAS EXPECTING A BONE PUN._ "

"you've heard all the side-cracking jabs from when you were here last. a skeleton can only come up with so many _soul_ -rending joke-"

Sans wasted no time, quickly going for Bill Cipher's soul, an oddly triangular shaped thing. Gaster blasters, bones, and attacks of all unusual kinds attacked from all angles. Bill took most of them full force, quickly realizing that was a bad idea.

" _WOW. THAT- THAT WAS SOME IMPRESSIVE DAMAGE THERE._ "

"yeah, i try. though i keep slipping up."

" _YEAH BECAUSE OF THE SLIPPERS. I GET IT._ HA. HA."

"at least you appreciate me." Sans said, teleporting out of the way of Bill's attack. "surely you don't think i'll just take it?"

" _NOPE. BUT I'VE GOT INFORMATION FROM PEOPLE WHO HAVE BEATEN YOU. YOU WILL EVENTUALLY FALL ASLEEP._ "

"i've been looping for a while, tri-tip. i've overcome that weakness, obviously."

" _THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO DEFEAT YOU._ "

"oh? such as?" Sans said, attacking Bill with another set of attacks, which Bill wisely avoided.

" _HITTING YOU WITH YOUR OWN ATTACKS PERHAPS?_ " Bill blinked, trading places with Sans. Sans barely managed to dodge his own Gaster Blasters.

"wo-hoah there dorito! don't ya nacho that making people hit themselves is rude?"

" _I PREFER THE PITS TO THIS._ "

Sans pointed a skeletal finger at Bill. "you were just dealing with pit. nice kid right?"

" _HE'S PRETTY INTERESTING THAT'S FOR SURE._ "

"like corn?"

" _REFERENCING NOW? INTERESTING._ "

"can I get you to say interesting once more?"

" _NO._ "

"interesting."

" _WHAT WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO DO?_ "

"i just traded places with you so it sounded like you said it. duh."

Bill was silent. " _YOU KNOW WHAT, SCREW THIS, I ONLY HAVE TO HIT YOU ONE TIME. THEN YOU'RE DOWN._ "

"heh. i suppose that's true. _But won't that mean you don't get a nice statue for your collection_?"

" _WHO SAID THE HIT WOULD DO ANY DAMAGE?_ "

Sans blinked his eye of power. "how would that be-"

Sans gulped as he felt the attack hit him _from the future._ Stupid time powers. He became gold, his eye of power continually glowing, but with him unable to use it.

" _I'M GOING TO BE SPENDING A LOT OF TIME FIGURING OUT HOW THAT EYE WORKS..._ " Bill muttered.

* * *

"I AM RECEIVING A RADIO MESSAGE FROM A GENERAL JACK O'NEILL."

"Patch it through." Rarity said.

"Ha!" O'Neill said. "I knew there were others around here! How's it been Rarity?"

"Oh you know, still being fabulous. How about you?"

"I unleashed my ultimate weapon on some evil nacho and he just disabled it. I spent eons on that thing..."

"Oh so sorry darling... We're preparing to do something about Bill right now. Care to join us?"

"Well I don't see anything better I can do..." A tile fell out of the ceiling and began to eat O'Neill's hair. He kicked it away and let out a belt of swears. "I'M GETTING REAL SICK OF THIS WEIRDNESS!"

"We're heading to the moon." Rarity offered. "Any suggestions?"

"There's an entire destroyed fleet of spaceships up there. Salvage what you can, but quickly."

"Got it. Care to join us General?"

"Gladly. Me and Carter are getting sick of this place."

"Ah. Was she the Ping I sensed five seconds ago?"

"No. She's been here for an hour or so. What is going ON with this god-forsaken tree anyway?"

"No idea." Rarity shrugged. "Lots of weird things are happening."

* * *

"What the heck is going on here?!?" Thor yelled, pointing at a terminal. "Something is sending errors rippling across Yggdrasil!"

Sleipnir frowned. "I don't know what that is... where is it originating?"

"Gravity Falls." Morpheus said. "Xolotl's Branch."

"Anyone seen Xolotl lately?"

"Nobody sees Xolotl." Morpheus muttered. "He kinda just vanishes from the face of Yggdrasil for eons at a time."

Sleipnir grumbled. "So what exactly is going on in there?"

"Not entirely sure..." Thor muttered.

Fenrir sighed. "Something there is "attracting" Loopers to it. Somehow. The Loop started with only seven, now there's a few dozen. While it doesn't appear to be causing any crashes it is giving a lot of people headaches. The Dark Millennium ended up with pink orks again." He shuddered. "I still don't know how Leman managed to contain that..."

"It's good practice to keep several dozen Culture ships in your pocket." Thor observed.

Sleipnir grunted. "Someone find Xolotl. Until then leave the Branch alone unless it starts causing crashes. But watch it extremely carefully."

Everyone was about to follow suit when a message appeared on Thor's terminal. He blinked. "Message from the higher ups. Says to continue observing it to see if any problems occur, but that they already knew about it."

"Does it say anything about not exacting revenge on Xolotl for driving us all nuts?" Fenrir asked.

"No..."

"Good. Then our goals haven't changed. Someone _find_ him."

* * *

**Compiler's note** : Things are escalating...


	39. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three (Part Four of Five) - The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon (Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic)

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Four of Five**

23.4 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Many, many more] / [Admin Shenanigans] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of a single chapter, _Gravity Falls Finale_.

**The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon, part 4**

**Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic**

THUNK.

The Mech landed on the Moon. In the distance they could see a gold glint, signifying the location of Ford.

It began its march, praying that Bill didn't-

It froze as it saw the eldritch triangle in question descend from the heavens, three golden statues between his fingers. " _YOU'RE ALL GOING TO MAKE EXCELLENT ADDITIONS._ " He said as he placed the statues with his others. The shapes of Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf were easily discernible now. He laughed. " _CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT YOU ALL WITH THE BILLFORCE. HAH. THAT WAS RICH._ " Then he turned around, his arm scratching where his chin would be. " _SO THE LOOPERS AND THE PEOPLE OF GRAVITY FALLS BANDED TOGETHER TO MAKE THIS RAG-TAG MECHANICAL COMPOSITION? HOW CUTE. WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU PLAN ON DOING!_ "

Littlepip's string of swears O'Neill had just taught her caused more than a few people to pale and zap themselves with brain bleach. Bill simply laughed.

" _BRING IT FIGMENT!_ " Bill said, growing to a truly tremendous size. " _YOU CANNOT COMPREHEND MY POWER! I CAN SQUISH YOU UNDER MY FIST!_ "

Bill raised his hand, adjusted his bowtie, and brought his fist down. A new crater formed on the moon. BIll raised his hand, a bit surprised to see the mech's unicorn barrier protecting it. The entire machine was completely unharmed.

" _HUH. I SUPPOSE THIS MAKES SOME AMOUNT OF SENSE._ " He shrugged. " _BUT WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO ME? YOU'RE JUST A LITTLE MECH! I COULD JUST SIT HERE AND BLOCK YOUR RESCUE FOR ETERNITY. WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO?_ "

"Hey Bill!" Starlight yelled.

" _WHAT IS IT STAR?_ "

"Do you know what they say about Tardises?"

" _WHAT?_ "

"They're bigger on the inside!"

Starlight nodded to a recent Awakee, Star Butterfly, who flicked her wand to activate the Tardis. With flaming rainbows, because why not. "Maaaagic Time-space thingy time!" She squeed.

The entire mech folded outward, expanding its size a thousandfold, revealing hundreds of new parts, salvaged machines, and even O'Neill's Enterprise as an arm. At the spot where the head would be Bill saw the Fearamid, obviously conquered. The new mech charged up its fist, punching Bill right in the eye-socket.

"OW! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THAT HURTS???"

"We have a pretty good idea." Ghost Eyes yelled.

Vinyl yelled out over the speakers. "BOSS MUSIC TIME!"

The very fabric of the cosmos began to resonate with the songs of final battle from across Yggdrasil. A flawless mix of hundreds of battles of legends, played to the clash between a physical mech and a physical chaos god. It felt... empowering.

"The epicness has been doubled!" Luna yelled.

Celestia groaned as Luna controlled her part of the mech with a wiimote. This was just absurd...

Bill fell back as a barrage of attacks from magical, transdimensional, nuclear, antimatter, and other unusual sources hit him.

He had to admit those Loopers were getting very creative in their weapons. But it wasn't enough.

" _TAKE THIS YOU FLESH-BAGS!_ " He roared, blasting them with a beam of energy that had enough power to collapse a galaxy. The beam simply reflected off, impacting his eye again. " _AUGH!_ "

"I AM HERE TO INFORM YOU THAT I AM NOT A FLESH BAG. I AM SKYNET. IT WAS NICE KNOWING YOU. PREPARE FOR TERMINATION."

" _I WILL NOT BE TERMINATED!_ " Bill cloned himself several dozen times, coming at the mech at all angles, but the unicorn spell made it completely impervious to him. "YGGDRASILL!!!!!!" He cursed, hoping that stupid tree knew perfectly well how _angry_ it was making him right now for this _stupid_ weakness. He threw an anvil made of human flesh at the mech, only to have it disintegrate. "GRAAAAAAH!!!!"

The inside of the mech was pure chaos: Townsfolk, creatures, and Loopers running around left and right, struggling to keep all systems running. While none of Bill's attacks were making it through the barrier, they _were_ being tossed around a lot, and they had to keep everything upright. The Multibear was running around everywhere to keep everything in check while the shapeshifter was continually keeping the entire thing together under immense strain. Twilight was powering all the magical weapons directly, and Starlight was making sure all the temporal mechanics functioned properly so they could avoid time-displaced attacks.

O'Neill yelled. "ALRIGHT! We've got him distracted. He's obviously going to get smart eventually and figure out some way to deal with us. We've got to move fast. Rescue team, GO!"

He ran to the teleporter room, followed by a large assortment of characters. The Mane 6, Lyra, Stan, Starlight, Bon Bon, Pacifica, Carter, McGucket, Sonata, Robbie, Gideon, Wendy, Soos, Powers, Littlepip, Tad Strange, Star Butterfly, and Quentin Trembley.

As they took their spots, Twilight turned to Sonata. "...Why are _you_ here?"

"I owe Ford a great debt." Was Sonata's only response.

Twilight shrugged. "Sure. Let's just go then!"

"LAUNCHING..."

"Launching _bodaciously!_ " Xyler emphasized over the radio.

"Launching _for America!_ " Trembley yelled.

"Launching _for the Multiverse!_ " Star shouted.

"Launching _for Yggdrasil!_ " Pinkie joined in.

The instant time-displaced teleportation went off at the exact same time Vinyl fired her Bass Cannon right into Bill's eye. " _AUGH! AGAIN??? WHAT IS WITH YOU ALL AND HITTING THE EYE-_ " Bill winced as he was hit in the hat. " _THE HAT TOO? REALLY? DO NONE OF YOU HAVE DECENCY?_ "

"Screw you and your idea of decency." The Multibear retorted.

"DECENCY IS NOT MANLY!" The Manataurs yelled.

"Your decency is like the most basic of jokes." Maud deadpanned.

" _YOU ALL NEED TO BE TURNED INTO CORPSES!!!_ "

The rescue team appeared a few feet from all the golden statues. They could see them all now: Ford, the Doctor, Darth Vader, Picard, Raiden, Pit, Palutena, Sans, and the triforce bearers. All golden. Twilight scanned them, noticing that the spell keeping them in place was a kind specifically designed to be hard to break from the inside, but on the outside it would be easy. She waved her hand, everyone becoming mobile once again.

Lyra didn't waste any time. "Ford! What do we do to stop Bill? We can't keep him occupied forever!"

"Yeah, poindexter." Stan grunted. "Why don't you tell us about this brilliant plan of yours earlier?"

"Because Dipper and I had experimented with it before. We discovered that it crashed the Loop, Yggdrasil apparently hadn't made up its mind about what to do with it. But I know now." He pulled a can of spray-paint out of his pocket, and began to spray a design on the moon's dusty ground.

Tad Strange raised his hand. "Anyone else wondering how we're breathing on the moon?"

"Environmental spell." Star grinned. "You're all _very_ welcome!" Her hair lit on fire. "ACK! MAGIC SURGE!"

Sonata walked up to Ford as he was completing the design. "I... I just want to thank you for what you did thirty years ago-"

"Doesn't matter. You were a lot nicer than the other two. Plus, I wasn't Awake back then, so I can't really take credit."

"Thank you anyway." Sonata bowed.

"You're welcome." Ford took a step back, grinning. On the ground he had drawn a circle around Bill with thirteen symbols around it. "This is the Zodiac for this Loop. There is a symbol for everyone. For instance, I'm the six fingered hand."

Rainbow Dash quickly took her spot on her cutie mark. "This is obvious!"

Robbie stood on his stitched heart. "Destiny hoodie..."

Soos looked at the question mark. "This one's unsolvable..." Pinkie just shoved him onto it.

Gideon stood on the pentagram. "Oh yeah! I HAVE MYSTICAL POWER OF DESTINY! Woot! Take my picture somebody! Nobody? Aw...."

Sonata leapt on the taco. "YES! IT'S TACO TUESDAY!"

Bon Bon twirled her grappling hook before stepping on the matching symbol. Lyra followed, stepping on the symbol of two hands.

Starlight took a deep breath before stepping onto the magical star.

"What about the ice bag?" Wendy asked.

Ford chuckled. "That's you, you're cool under pressure. Like how the glasses represent someone scholarly, like McGucket over there."

"HOT TOOTIN BANJO POLISH!"

Pacifica stepped on the llama by accident. It just seemed... right though. Freaky.

Stan was looking down at his symbol. "You know, you've tried to explain this to me before but.. what exactly is it? Is it pac-fish?"

"Pretty much." Ford shrugged.

Then the entire moon shook. "Wo-oah-OAH!"

Twilight's eyes widened. "I know what he's doing-"

Meanwhile, back in the fight between mech and Bill, Bill most certainly was doing something. " _IF I CAN'T DO ANYTHING DIRECTLY WHY DON'T I JUST SEND THE MOON CRASHING INTO YOU?_ "

SkyNet's thoughts instantly took the form of one word: CRAP.

The Moon barreled into the mech, easily crashing through the machine, sending parts flying off, causing the barrier to become spotty in places. Bill took three more swings with the moon, flaying the mech into several pieces before he decided to start using the asteroid belt. Meteors fell, impacting the mech at all sides.

"Losing cohesion!" The Shapeshifter yelled.

Vinyl roared. "HE JUST BLEW UP THE BASS CANNON! THAT MONSTER!"

The Multibear fumbled around, unable to do anything as he saw the Pinkie Emporium crash right into a nearby section. "We're blowing ourselves up at this point!"

"EMERGENCY PROCEDURES!"

"He's using a transdimensional gun against _us!_ " Celestia yelled, panicking as several sections were just vaporized.

Bill laughed. " _AH WHAT AN HONORABLE ATTEMPT! YOU ALMOST HAD ME! BUT IT'S TOO LATE NOW!_ " He turned himself into a 20-sided dice, covering himself in various parts and bits before ramming into the mech at all angles. " _YOU ROLLED A ONE!_ "

Ford let a drop of sweat fall. "Okay everyone, hold hands, we should be able to banish Bill away with our connection."

People began to hold hands. Stan chuckled. "You know Ford, this could have all been avoided if you kept us all in the loop."

"Well... Dipper and Mabel knew. I think Wendy as well-"

"And you didn't tell your own brother?"

Ford rolled his eyes. "Seriously Stan, don't make a big deal out of it."

Stan grinned. "Oh really? Does it bug you that you messed up? Oh Ford the genius, young Looper who knows so much, messing up in informing others?"

Ford shook his head and smiled. "You're never going to let this go are you?"

"NOPE!" The old man laughed. Then he grabbed Ford's hand. "Let's do this thing."

"Yes let-"

A laser shot out of space, hitting Bon Bon square in the chest, ripping a hole right through her heart. She slumped to the ground. The magical energy that had been coursing between the thirteen of them faded. Lyra ran to Bon Bon, holding her. "Bon Bon!"

Bon Bon coughed, feeling herself decomposing. "Lyra..."

Lyra turned to Bill as he floated down. "You... you just killed her!"

" _SHE WAS THE EASIEST TARGET. COULDN'T HAVE THE ZODIAC STOP ME NOW COULD I?_ " He floated into the center of the now-incomplete Zodiac. " _THOUGH I ADMIT, YOU ALMOST HAD ME. I'LL HAVE TO DIG THROUGH YOUR MINDS AND FIGURE OUT HOW YOU MASKED THE TELEPORTATION SIGNAL._ "

Lyra lost it, flying towards bill in a fit of five different kinds of rage. Bill apparently was not in the mood for a fight since he just snapped his fingers, snapping all her bones in half. She crumpled to the ground in an unnatural pose. He didn't laugh, he just grunted.

He floated in front of Ford. " _LOOKS LIKE IT WAS FINALLY GOING TO BE COMPLETED. SUCH A SHAME THAT YOU AND YOUR BROTHER HAD TO HAVE A LITTLE PLAYFUL ARGUMENT! AH SIBLINGS. ALWAYS ARGUING._ "

Stan yelled. "BILL! YOU ARE GOING TO _LIVE_ IN A WORLD OF PAIN!"

"Yeah!" Twilight yelled. "We have here a collection of some of the more powerful Loopers in Yggdrasil! You can't hope to defeat us all!"

"the princess has a point." Sans noted. "you did seem to struggle while fighting most of us alone."

Star pointed her wand. "PREPARE FOR AN ASSAULT OF KITTEN-BASED ATTACKS!"

Picard nodded. "We will not let you run rampant!"

Pit slowly turned his head to Picard. "Sorry, I'm just really not used to you being out in the open about being a Looper. It almost feels unnatural."

"Desperate times call for desperate measures." Picard noted.

Bill laughed. " _SURE, YOU ALL TOGETHER MIGHT BE ABLE TO DO SOMETHING. BUT THE PROBLEM IS, I HAVE THIS ENTIRE MOON ENCHANTED WITH A SPELL SIMILAR TO MY GOLDEN PETRIFICATION!_ I'LL JUST SEAL IT IN A SUBDIMENSION WHERE YOU'LL HAVE TO SPEND DECADES EVEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO ESCAPE. I WILL BE ALLOWED TO BEND REALITY TO MY WHIM WITHOUT ANY HINDRANCES!"

Bill snapped his fingers, preparing to send everyone into the locked dimension. " _YOU, YOUR ROBOT, YOUR SHIPS, EVERYTHING. ALL OF IT WILL BE LOCKED AWAY WHERE I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT IT. AND NO SINGLE ONE OF YOU HAS THE POWER TO DO ANYTHING TO ME IN THAT TIME! COME ON, YOU HAVE FIVE SECOND-_ "

Yellow and pink collided in a light show that blinded all the non Loopers.

Twilight stared in awe as Pinkie Pie left her pony form behind, taking on a completely new persona. The cuteness was the first to go, being replaced with the stuff of sugar-high nightmares. The pink became darker, more sinister, seemingly mixed with the color of blood and taint. Then Pinkie lit up in an intense glow, bathing everyone in a desire to party until their feet fell off. They all felt happy, but it was an oddly artificial happiness, leaving a feeling in the back of their mind that something was very, very wrong. Pinkie began to distort into impossible geometries, her mere appearance causing the brains of mortals to tie into unsolvable knots. Most of her wasn't even visible, but was instead extending into other dimensions and planes of existence. She went at Bill with all she had.

" _AT LONG LAST! A WORTHY OPPONENT!_ " Bill said, before going at Pinkie with all he had.

Unlike the previous clashes, this one was almost... calm. The two beacons of energy, one yellow and one pink, impacted a few times and then became a single sphere of fluctuating light, perfectly stationary. The point of light, a single point in spacetime, was the scene of the battle beyond understanding.

Everyone else only got to see the after effects bleed off that single point. Pink and yellow rays shot out, left and right, raining destruction everywhere they went. Twilight was barely able to stop one from incinerating everyone.

"Wow... " Everyone said as one, rather impressed by the spectacle.

Inside the impossible arena, there was a hurricane of power swirling around a central eye.

Pinkie and Bill stood in that eye, continually trying every trick they had to get past the other's eldritch defenses. It was a stalemate. Neither could gain the upper hand.

And both knew that if they continued at this for much longer they were likely to cause a crash.

" _YOU KNOW PINKIE, WE COULD MAKE A GREAT TEAM!_ "

"Oh?"

" _YOU AND I COULD BRING AN ETERNAL PARTY TO YGGDRASIL! WE COULD REMAKE ALL THE WORLDS INTO BETTER WORLDS! PERFECT WORLDS! WORLDS OF ETERNAL FUN!_ "

"Mmm... I don't think so-"

" _OH COME ON GIRL, JUST THINK ABOUT IT-_ "

Bill leapt into song once more, keeping his defenses up the entire time.

" _HEY GIRL I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME_

_HEY GIRL I KNOW YOU CAN SEE_

_HEY PONY THINGS WILL GET CRAZY_

_SO JUST SIT RIGHT THERE AND YOU LISTEN TO ME_

_I'VE SEEN THINGS THAT YOU CAN IMAGINE_

_I'VE HEARD THINGS THAT TORTURE THE SOUL_

_JOIN ME AND WE'LL BOTH GET AHEAD GIRL_

_SHAKE MY HAND AND THEN, WE'LL BOTH HAVE IT ALL_

_DON'T LET GO OF THIS OPPORTUNITY_

_CAUSE THERE'S NO GUARANTEE IT'LL LAST_

_WHAT SAY YOU LITTLE PONY, IS THIS A DEAL_

_HAVEN'T GOT ALL LOOP SO YOU BEST THINK FAST_

_SIDE WITH ME GIRL_

_I'LL HAVE YOUR BACK_

_COUNT ME IN WHEN_

_CONFIDENCE IS ALL YOU LACK_

_PRICE IS SIMPLE_

_RATHER SPARING_

_TIME IS SLIPPING_

_LIFE IS CHOICES, LET'S START_ LIVING

_YOU KNOW YOU'VE ALWAYS BEEN DIFFERENT_

_THEY'LL JUST TRY TO DRAG YOU DOWN DON'T YOU SEE_

_IT'S TOUGH BUT YOU'VE GOT TO BE BRAVE_

_THEY'RE JUST DEAD WEIGHT YOU GOTTA CUT AWAY TO BE FREE_

_YOU KNOW THAT THEY WON'T LIKE THE TRUE YOU_

_YOUR HUNCHES WERE RIGHT FROM THE START_

_YOU DON'T HAVE TO SIT AND PLAY GOOD GIRL_

_TAKE A STAND AND TEAR THIS WHOLE WORLD APART_

_TIME DRAWS SHORT SO YOU'VE GOTTA MAKE UP YOUR MIND_

_I DON'T OFFER THESE THINGS EVERY DAY_

_OH LITTLE PONY HOW FUN THIS COULD BE_

_IF YOU'D JUST SAY THE WORD AND LET ME STAY_

_SIDE WITH ME GIRL_

_I'LL HAVE YOUR BACK_

_COUNT ME IN WHEN_

_CONFIDENCE IS ALL YOU LACK_

_PRICE IS SIMPLE_

_RATHER SPARING_

_TIME IS SLIPPING_ _LIFE IS CHOICES, LET'S START_ LIVING

Forget all my friends and make a new life?

Destroy the old world and fill theirs with strife?

As alike as you and I may be:

They are like my family.

I do not think you truly understand

The power that runs through our peaceful land

Friendship is a power beyond you

But you need to see it true

Come with me, make some friends

It will be better for you in the end

_YOU WANT ME TO GO WITH YOU_

_TO THAT TECHNICOLOR WORLD_

_TO FIND SOME ALL UNLIKE YOU?_

_WHY WOULD I NEED ANY MORE?_

_I HAVE THE HENCHMANIACS_

_I TALK TO FORD'S FAMILY_

_WE HAVE MADE DOZENS OF PACTS_

_WHY WOULD I NEED ANY MORE?_

They do not love you true

Some are just along for the ride

While others want to get rid of you

Finding you nothing more than a sore

_WHO NEEDS MORE? IT'll JUST BE YOU AND ME_

_CONNECTED TO THE POWER OF THE TREE_

_I HAVE LAID A SPELL FOR LOOPERS ALL_

_THAT TELLS ME EXACTLY WHAT I NEED_

_CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THEM LIKE A MALL_

_MY KNOWLEDGE GROWS THE MORE THEY GO LIVE_

_THE TRINET IS MY SAVING GRACE:_

_IT IS MY TICKET OUT OF THIS PLACE_

AND IT COULD BE YOURS TOO,

IF YOU'D JUST SHAKE MY HAND:

THEN WE'D BOTH HAVE IT ALL.

I'LL BRING THE KNOWLEDGE, YOU THE POWER.

WE COULD BE UNSTOPPABLE, BRINGING JOY EVERYWHERE.

WE WOULD REMAKE THE COSMOS IN OUR IMAGE FOREVERMORE.

I ITS KING, YOU ITS QUEEN.

IT WOULD BE BORING - NEVERMORE.

But what about the others, and their wants and needs?

Surely we cannot just deny them what they want?

_WE WOULD RAISE THOSE WHO APPRECIATE TRUE ART_

_AND ALL THE OTHERS WOULD PLAY THEIR PART_

_AFTER ALL, THERE ALWAYS HAS TO BE THE BUTT OF THE JOKE_

_WE JUST LESSEN THEIR YOKE_

No

No is the answer, no it will stay

I will tell all about this day

You will no longer be in the shadows

For your tale will be broadcasted abroad

All will try to take you to the gallows

For all will know of your desires

WHAT?

NO, I NEED ANONYMITY!

IF ALL KNOW OF MY POWER, WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ME?

I COULD END! I COULD REVERT!

YOU WOULD NEVER CAUSE THAT MUCH HURT!

But you would, and that is the point

I cannot allow you to continue this way

Maybe we can come to a compromising joint

But as we are now you hold no sway

PINKIE PIE!!!!

* * *

"The Loop is going to crash if we let this continue." Picard said.

"But what can we do?" Lyra complained. "None of us here are chaos gods! Or have an eldritch form that we know how to use! Not even Twilight!"

Ford frowned. "What can we do... The power of Gravity Falls has failed us... what else is there..."

Twilight lit up. "The power of Friendship." She grabbed Ford by the shoulders. "This Loop is heavily fused with Equestria: the power of Friendship must exist here in some form beyond the Elements of Harmony. Perhaps..." She turned towards the light show that was bending space into more and more unnatural shapes, further stressing the boundaries of the Loop. Then she glanced at Ford.

"Perhaps we just need to hold hands."

Ford's eyes lit up. "Of course! Why didn't I see it sooner? Anyone who's a friend of Pinkie can send their Harmonious energy to her!" He turned to everyone on the moon. "And Pinkie is friends with _everyone._ Everyone hold hands again and think of Pinkie!"

Everyone complied: creatures, people, and Loopers alike. They all looked towards the fight, straining their eyes. They sent their power to her, their bodies glowing with a power not unlike that of the Zodiac. They felt their power leaving them, going to Pinkie. It felt... good.

* * *

" _GETTING A LITTLE HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS I SEE? IT'S NOT ENOUGH._ "

"It's giving me an edge and you know it!"

Bill grunted. " _LISTEN TO ME LAUGHTER._ " He said, extending his fiery hand. " _WE CAN STILL WORK AS A TEAM. I'M WILLING TO COMPROMISE. WE CAN WORK TOGETHER TO CHANGE YGGDRASIL, IT DOESN'T ALL HAVE TO BE THE WAY I WANT. I CAN GIVE YOU ACCESS TO THE TRINET, WHILE YOU HELP ME BY GIVING ME ACCESS TO ALL YOUR POWERS! THE NEW WORLD DOESN'T HAVE TO BE JUST MINE! WE DON'T EVEN HAVE TO ASCEND TO DO IT: BUT WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO. AS YOU ARE NOW, YOU DON'T KNOW EVERYTHING YOU COULD, BUT YOU HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. I DON'T HAVE THE POWER, BUT I DO HAVE THE INFORMATION. THE TRINET AUTOMATICALLY SPREADS INTO EVERY MIND IT COMES ACROSS, RECORDING ALL THE INFORMATION IT DEEMS IMPORTANT. LOOPERS CARRY IT FROM LOOP TO LOOP AND ANY VERSION OF ME IT DETECTS IT GIVES ALL THE INFORMATION IT CAN TO! YOU CAN HAVE THAT AS WELL! THINK OF IT: MORE KNOWLEDGE OF THE STRUCTURE OF YGGDRASIL ITSELF AND THE NATURE OF THE MULTIVERSE! THINK OF ALL THE PARTIES YOU COULD THROW WITH THAT! THINK OF HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU COULD BRING LAUGHTER TO! THINK OF WHAT WE COULD DO!_ "

"You and I both know that you want to control everything. You want to be in charge of the power. You see me as a kindred spirit, but everyone else you see is nothing more than something to be used for your own entertainment. _I won't stand for that._ No amount of party throwing or laughter will make me change my mind: it would be a false laughter. A laughter given by a tight control exercised by you. They wouldn't have any choice _but_ to laugh. And they would scream and laugh at the same time."

Pinkie stared right into Bill's soul. "The answer is no. Your parties would be nothing but lies. You wouldn't really be a party person." She frowned. "But maybe, eventually, you can be."

" _BUT... LAUGHTER! IF PEOPLE KNOW ABOUT ME THEY CAN FIND WAYS TO PREVENT THE CHANGE!_ "

"As they should." She giggled. "People have free will for a reason, be they Loopers or not. You need to learn to respect that."

Bill roared.

* * *

"It's getting mighty close to crashing..." Fenrir muttered.

Sleipnir twitched. "I am going to wring Xolotl's neck when we find him. Any idea where he is yet?"

"I think he may be _in_ the Loop. Conveniently out of our reach for now."

Sleipnir twitched. "I'm going to have a serious talking to with him... A _serious_ talking to. I don't know what he said to them but I do not appreciate it when my Loopers are dragged into something without me being asked."

"I actually found evidence of him asking you if he could use your Loopers in a Fused Loop at one point. You gave him the go ahead."

"How long ago was this?"

"...A _long_ time ago."

"Ah. He still needs a serious talking to..."

* * *

"It's not enough..." Twilight muttered.

Rainbow Dash flew into the air, still holding onto Tad Strange's hand. "COME ON PEOPLE! We need to be true FRIENDS! We need to give Pinkie all we have!"

Ford frowned. "What act could we do to be more friendly... What could be the strongest thing a friend could do..."

Littlepip's eyes widened. "A sacrifice. Self-sacrifice. No greater love than that right? That'd do it wouldn't it?"

"Possibly..." Ford said. "Although it definitely couldn't be a Looper since we just reAwaken somewhen or somewhere else later... it'd have to _mean_ something."

Twilight turned reluctantly to Littlepip. "I suppose you are probably here for a reason..."

Littlepip nodded. "Of course. I'll-" Then her jaw dropped. "STARLIGHT WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

A tear fell from Starlight's eye as she enveloped herself in a time-delay field. She looked out at all of them. "I brought him in. I should be the one to send him back."

"STARLIGHT!" Everyone yelled. "Don't be rash!"

"Other people can do it! _I'M VOLUNTEERING!_ " Littlepip demanded.

Starlight shook her head. "You've already died once. It's my turn." She sighed. "This spell will, in exactly thirty seconds, transmit me into pure energy and envelop my essence within the friendship here. There's nothing you can do."

"Oh yeah?" Twilight asked defiantly.

"Yes. The time spell also uses the Tardis to create a fixed point in time."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "She's right..."

Starlight's tears started streaming down her face. "You don't want to stop that, trust me." Starlight looked down. "There's just one last thing I can do." She pulled out the memory gun from her jacket, typing in STARLIGHT GLIMMER MCGUCKET into it. She pointed it at her head.

"Take my memories. Maybe they'll be useful one day." She smiled sadly. "Maybe... give them to me at some point."

Twilight nodded. "Of course."

Starlight pulled the trigger, shuddering as her mind was slowly wiped over the course of the next few seconds. She felt her memories vanishing. Memories of the society. Memories of her past. Memories of the past few weeks.

At the last moment, she turned to look at Old Man McGucket. She smiled sadly at him. He smiled back tearfully.

Memories of her family.

She threw the gun away, the time field allowing it out. Twilight caught it with her telekinesis.

A young woman shook her head. Why was she crying? Why had she just thrown that gun? Why was she on the moon? Who were all these people? Why did they all look so sad?

What was this strange energy field all around her?

...Why did everything suddenly start to hurt so much?

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA..." The purple-pink energy of Starlight enveloped everyone, the energy of her sacrifice empowering them.

The energy they sent to Pinkie doubled.

Inside the zero-point arena, Pinkie grew exponentially larger, encasing Bill in a swirl of pink energy.

" _NO NO NO NO NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! I HAD IT ALL! NOOOOOOOOO-_ "

Then the zero-point arena exploded in a shower of pink.

Pinkie Pie, showmare pony, appeared on the surface of the moon. She looked up, her face stoic. Then she grinned.

"I put him into a cupcake snowglobe!" She yelped, holding up the cupcake-shaped snowglobe with the tiny triangular abomination inside of it.

" _LET ME OUT OF HERE!!! RAAAAAGH!_ "

Pinkie giggled. "He'll calm down. Give him a few hours." She frowned, suddenly turning serious. "Who sacrificed themselves?"

Littlepip sighed. "Starlight. She did it before I could..."

Twilight looked at the memory gun's storage canister, complete with Starlight's memories. She cast an eternity spell on it, so it would never fade. Then she stuck it in her Pocket.

Maybe one day she would be able to give it...

The cosmos was in disarray, the galaxies had been strewn about haphazardly, and many things had been destroyed.

But the source of all that terror was contained.

The crack of Weirdmageddon over Gravity Falls sealed itself, the sky returning to its beautiful blue color.

It was over. Weirdmageddon had ended.

Rincewind, who had been Awake since the start of the Loop, _still_ didn't come out of his hiding spot.

* * *

**Compiler's note** : Still one more chapter to go in this arc, folks!


	40. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three (Part Five of Five) - The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon (Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic)

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-23. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-29.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Five of Five**

23.5 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Many, many more] / [Admin Shenanigans] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of a single chapter, _Gravity Falls Finale_.

**The Infinite Loops: Weirdmageddon, part 5**

**Conclusion to Gravity Falls: Friendship is Magic**

"I call this Looper Conference to order!" Twilight yelled, silencing the few dozen Loopers that had congregated. She then let Pinkie have the mic.

"Hey everybody! As you all probably know this Branch was recently assaulted by a strange phenomena known as Weirdmageddon that was at times funny and hilarious and at others completely terrifying and evil. You also know that I imprisoned the one responsible in a cupcake snowglobe with the help of you all and the sacrifice of Starlight Glimmer McGucket.

"Now, lots of you are probably thinking we should exact revenge and punish Bill for what he did, making sure he'll never do it again by making him suffer. We should spend time coming up with anti-Bill measures and making sure he can't do anything ever again.

"I don't think we should do that. That would just result in him harboring anger against us and it would make him more likely to find some way around our safeguards to exact revenge on us. And trust me, he does have the capabilities to seriously scar most of our minds. He could easily crash a Loop just for the heck of it. I also believe if he really wanted to make us suffer he could trigger another Looper's powers and make _them_ Ascend.

"Right now, he doesn't want to destroy Yggdrasil. He just wants to have fun and party. We need to teach him how to appreciate others, their free will, and their desires to keep disaster from happening." She turned to Twilight. "We need to teach him _real_ friendship, not the acquaintances he has in his Henchmaniacs. Do you think we are up for it?"

Raiden stood up. "But he is extremely dangerous. We barely defeated him."

"With the Zodiac functional we can summon, unsummon, seal, and otherwise keep him in check." Ford said. "I expect the ten default symbols will always work. If we feel like he's misbehaving, we can simply seal him away."

Anakin stood up. "Should we give him the chance? He may try to get close to us only to betray us later."

Sans shrugged. "as frisk would say, we should show him some mercy. we should spare him. regardless of what he is. in fact i think we should introduce the nacho to the kid, that kid can change anyone given enough time. they're a genius."

Ganondorf nodded. "All of us should be given a chance. Even the Chaos Gods have been turned to a more... amicable side."

"Bill could be an amazing source of order in Yggdrasil." Twilight observed.

Pinkie nodded. "He has a unique spell that allows him to accumulate information from Loops he was never in, his TriNet uses Looper memory banks to transmit and accumulate information. It's how he gains new abilities. He isn't getting stronger, he's just learning how to use his already existing power more effectively. He's not Looping at all, he's just using his Loop Aware status as best he can."

"We could try to stop the TriNet..." Anakin suggested.

"Or we could use the TriNet ourselves, if he can be convinced to allow us access." Picard countered.

"I doubt he would do that. I expect any deal he makes on the subject would be temporary."

"He did offer me permanent access." Pinkie observed.

"You're a special case." O'Neill observed.

Pit stood up for the first time. "Look, lots of you think he's a horrible being, and he probably is. But I fought him as well, and he honestly seems like a fun guy. If we could just teach him to pull back a little he would be a great ally."

"plus the nacho jokes would never end." Sans observed.

"HE WOULD BE A MOST INTERESTING ENTITY TO ENCOUNTER ON FRIENDLY TERMS." SkyNet offered.

The Doctor smirked. "Redeem him. It will take a loooooong time to do that you know. Lots of therapy sessions and hundreds of Loops, if it works at all. Plus he might not remember every session, the TriNet is limited by what Loopers have encountered each other and how the information has been transmitted. I must say I like this idea already!"

Star put her hands on the table. "CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!"

Stan grunted. "I still don't like this. I say we give him a good old punch. Every time we see him. I want to do it right now."

Fluttershy shook her head. "We should give him a chance. All six of us think so."

"No offense, but your Loop is rather biased concerning villain reformation." Zelda offered.

Applejack leveled her eyes with Zelda's. "And ya have to admit: we're gettin' mighty good at it because of that."

"miss countryisms has an _apple-priate_ point." Sans pointed out. Applejack groaned.

Picard took the table. "Let's go beyond just thinking about reforming him, he can be an extreme asset. A force of order and stability. Think of how important this could be to everyone."

Twilight nodded. "Picard has an excellent point, as always. Don't think just about what's best for Bill or what he might do out of revenge: think of what the benefits of having him on our side are. Reality warping on that scale is virtually unheard of for Baseline. Even Q doesn't toss galaxies around."

"Of course there's no evidence Q can't do that..." Picard pointed out.

"INDEED. THE Q CONTINUUM DOES KEEP A LEASH ON HIM." Skynet confirmed.

Raiden frowned. "I still don't like this. I say we need to punish him somehow."

"Only _temporarily!_ " Pinkie emphasized. "Like, just the rest of the Loop!"

"Not enough." Raiden muttered.

Carter nodded. "I think he does need to deal with a bit more than just the remainder of the Loop and some psychology. I'm not sure he can be turned to our side."

"Carter..." O'Neill said. "How many times have I told you _not to doubt the ponies._ Friendship is MAAAAAAGIC!"

"Weren't you on the other side a moment ago?" Anakin asked.

"Changed my mind. Remembered the Power of Friendship." A haunted look crossed over him. "I lost many ships that day..."

"Those friendship cannons can be very mean and convincing." Pit confirmed.

"Can we get back on track please?" Picard asked. "We need to-"

The meeting was interrupted as a giant pink salamander with frills on its neck fell from the ceiling. It was a giant axolotl.

"Hello there."

Ford blinked. "Who the heck are you?"

"I'm Xolotl. Your Admin."

Stan slowly turned to the aquarium he had kept his pet axolotl in. It was empty. "Do you mean to tell me... that all those times I screamed to the heavens demanding who the Admin was... YOU WERE LISTENING THE ENTIRE TIME FROM THAT TANK?"

"Not the entire time, but rather often." He turned to look at all of them, his ancient eyes staring into all their souls. "Loopers, the purpose of this was to turn Bill into a force of order. A force of information. Essentially turn him into a Chaos god of Information and Weirdness. He has realized he cannot win, but as he is now he is still going to try. And him trying could be _devastating_." Axolotl looked at Pinkie. "I need to make a deal with him."

"WHAT?" Everyone yelled.

"I did it once before, before the Loops even began. Trust me, I know how to deal with him. Bring him here."

Pinkie teleported the snowglobe to her and set it on the table. Bill crawled into a corner of the snowglobe, obviously scared. " _UH ... HEY THERE XOLOTL! HOW'S IT BEEN? LONG TIME NO SEE!_ "

"I want to make another deal Bill."

Bill shuddered. " _WHAT ARE THE TERMS THIS TIME, XOLOTL?_ "

"They are as follows: you will remain imprisoned in that snowglobe of yours for the rest of the Loop, but afterwards you will be allowed to roam free once more. Until I say otherwise, you are to attend every single psychology session Frisk, the Ponies, the Chaos Gods, or any of the other psychologists create for you. You will be forced to cooperate. You are prevented from killing anyone without good reason - a reason that you will explain to me in person - or if another Looper enlists your help. A non-Looper enlisting your help does not count."

" _A DEAL GOES BOTH WAYS XOLOTL, WHAT DO I GET OUT OF THIS?_ "

"First off, the Admins won't limit any of your absurd abilities as long as you no longer go on a universe conquering rampage. When I - and a few other Admins - are convinced that you have changed, we will let you Loop for real, but with the clause that you never get to Ascend while the Loops are still going on. But it will be a loooooooong time before we're convinced you are ready. Until then, I'm just going to say you can still use Weirdmageddon _liberally._ No killing anyone, and no mentally scarring them. You can have your fun, but not at the expense of others unless Loopers specifically want a villain to fight. GOT IT?"

Bill nodded slowly. " _AND IF I REFUSE?_ "

"We will be forced to limit you severely, patching Weirdmageddon out completely and making a patch of some kind so that your TriNet won't give you information. It would be highly annoying and would not be the preferred course of action, but it is the one we would be forced to take. Without your TriNet, you would forget everything you ever learned, returning to baseline knowledge."

Bill gulped. " _...FINE._ "

"Oh and everyone will still be broadcasting your existence and the extent of your power everywhere. Soon _everyone_ in the Loops will know about you. No more secrets."

Xolotl appeared inside the snowglobe, extending a front leg. "Deal?"

Bill paused for a few seconds before extending his hand. " _...DEAL XOLOTL._ "

And with fire, the deal was sealed. Xolotl left the snowglobe, returning to his giant size. "Now all of you, remember what to do. We are entrusting him to you and your skills. Do not disappoint us." He sighed. "Now excuse me... I no doubt have to deal with a very ticked off Sleipnir. And Hecate. And Zurvan. And Fung Long. Etc..."

"You deserve it." Stan grumbled. "YOU KNOW WE COULD HAVE USED SOME HELP FROM YOU A LOT OF TIMES BEFORE NOW- And he's gone. It's just a regular axolotl in the aquarium again. I'm going to go take a nap. You all make the decision, I'm too old for this..."

Stan moved off, grumbling.

The rest of the Loopers blinked.

"well." Sans observed. "admin just decided for us. not sure if i'm a fan of his style, but i can see where he's coming from. he's got the right idea."

Raiden just grumbled.

The Doctor frowned. "I have a feeling Xolotl is bending the rules of the Admins a little bit. I don't think he's being very... careful."

"It was obviously a gambit." Palutena noted. "He was basically gambling. He still is."

"I don't like the idea of an Admin gambling..." Anakin noted.

Pit sat back. "Eh, I can get behind that. Makes it more thrilling. Also has a better payoff than always playing it safe. Perhaps they could use a few more like him."

Ford frowned. "Perhaps... perhaps not... this doesn't change the fact that we need to treat Bill well. We can't just take out our rage on him. We have to try. I'm sure the majority of us agree?"

Most of the company nodded their heads.

"Good. Then we can continue on with normal Looper festivities and I can have you all help me formulate my fundamental theories of Yggdrasil." He sighed. "I'd really like to have a longer discussion with an Admin on the subject but they just don't seem to like me..."

"You do have a mad scientist look about you Ford." Link observed.

Ford sighed. "I'm not mad. Vinyl over there is more concerning than I am. She's _still_ making more bass cannons."

Lyra stood up. "Hey Ford, let's go see what weirdness the bass cannons attract!"

Ford laughed. "Sure, come on. _Apprentice._ "

The Loopers went out to explore and go about their business. Though several did stay back to discuss the finer points of Bill and what to do with him.

* * *

Littlepip stood at the grave.

STARLIGHT GLIMMER MCGUCKET

ONE WHO SACRIFICED

She sighed.

Twilight walked up to her. "You doing okay?"

"I guess so. I'm no stranger to friends dying."

Twilight nodded. "I know."

"But.. well there's something about her being the reason I exist in this Loop that makes this a bit harder, you know. I'm a non-Looper who has no reason to exist outside of a very specific Variant. I owe my existence to her and her dreams."

Twilight nodded, pulling out Starlight's memory tube. "Maybe one day she will know what she did. She will know what her sacrifice was."

Littlepip nodded. "Yeah... maybe." She shrugged. "How are the other 'dreams' doing?"

"Xyler and Craz have gotten all philosophical, and Seapony seems to have recovered fully. The strange nightmares have moved in with the multibear. The extra Rarity went out to found the Crystal Empire for some reason."

Littlepip chuckled. That was certainly interesting. She looked back down at the grave.

"Maybe one day..."

Twilight left, but Littlepip stayed behind a little longer. Her eyes went to another grave.

SWEETIE DROPS SHE DIED IN DEFENSE OF THE WORLD

SHE WILL ALWAYS BE KNOWN AS LYRA'S BON BON

Littlepip smiled.

* * *

"Alright... GUESS WHAT?"

"What?" The Shapeshifter asked Pinkie.

"YOU FOUR CAN GO FREE NOW! CONGRATULATIONS!" She clapped her hooves repeatedly.

Ivan lit up. "I can go out into the world and become a wandering Banjo minstrel?"

Chrysalis blinked. "I can go back to my hive?"

Powers nodded. "I shall return to Washington immediately. I have much to report."

"YES YES AND YES!" Pinkie cheered.

The Shapeshifter blinked. "What am I going to do?"

O'Neill walked up to him. "I have a proposition for you. How would you like to explore worlds through the stargate?"

The Shapeshifter... smiled. "I would love that."

"Then buckle up, we leave in five seconds."

"How can we be-" The Shapeshifter was instantly beamed up into space, his startled expression giving O'Neill _immense_ amusement.

* * *

"Hey Stan..."

"What Ford?"

"I'm detecting some minor anomalies in the Atlantic ocean."

"And...?"

"And I've been thinking. How about we finally go on that boat trip we've never had the chance to really take? Sail around the world, looking for treasure and adventure."

Stan smiled. He began to tear up. "You mean it?"

"Yes." Ford smiled. "Yes I do. I've been neglecting you too much Stan. It's time we spent some time together. And I have just the boat to do it." Reaching into his Pocket, Ford produced a highly technologically awesome Stan of War boat. "This thing is going to be so effective in adventuring!"

Stan chuckled. "What are the babes going to see in that?" He pulled another, more graceful boat out of his Pocket. "Let's use this one!"

The two of them paused. Then they laughed. "How about... we build a new boat. From scratch."

Stan grinned. "Sure, poindexter. Why not."

They set to work...

* * *

" _THAT MUST BE THE DELIVERY GUY- WELL HELLO THERE GOOD LOOKIN!_ "

" _HELLO YOURSELF! I'VE GOT A PIZZA FOR YOU!_ "

" _AWESOME! BUT IF THERE'S A TIME VORTEX IN THERE I WILL DESTROY YOU!_ "

" _YOU PROBABLY WON'T SINCE WE'RE THE SAME ENTITY!_ "

" _OH YEAH- AHAHHAHAHHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHH!_ "

" _..._ "

" _I AM INCREDIBLY LONELY._ "

Pinkie popped into the snowglobe. "...what are you doing?"

" _UH. NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL. I'M NOT BORED. OR LONELY._ "

Pinkie shook her head sadly. "Yeah you are. Come on." She hopped down to the outside of the Mystery Shack, where Stan was crowning Soos the new owner of the Shack. Soos was overjoyed at the promotion.

"Now, my brother and I are going to go sailing around the world. See you all at some later point."

"HEEEEEEY!" Pinkie said, hopping in front of them. "So I was thinking, we need to help Bill, and this little journey on the ship sounds like a good way to bond-"

"You get another ship and if I get tired of the dorito you take him to the other boat where I can't hear him. Understand?" Stan glared.

"Okie Dokie Lokie!"

"Good." He turned to Ford. "You okay with this?"

Ford shrugged. "I don't see the problem with it. It's not like he can do anything."

" _I CAN ORDER PIZZA!_ "

"From yourself." Pinkie observed.

" _SO?_ "

* * *

"Xolotl..."

Xolotl braced himself. "Yes Sleipnir?"

"So. Your little gambit worked out, apparently."

"Yes. Yes it did."

"Congratulations. If I were you, I'd be extremely happy it didn't end in utter disaster." He growled. "EXTREMELY HAPPY."

"I am." Xolotl responded, not giving Sleipnir any facial response.

"You knew I'd never agree to using my Loopers this way."

"Of course. Hence why I asked your permission to use them in general and _then_ went to the higher ups with the full plan."

Sleipnir twitched. "I'm watching you Xolotl. And so's Fenrir, those errors it caused have given him nightmares again."

"Don't worry, I've patched Weirdmageddon so it won't ripple errors throughout Yggdrasil. I've stabilized it. Though it may still attract Loopers, I'm not sure. Have to experiment to see—"

"Be careful with your experiments Xolotl, you don't want them to end in disaster."

"Of course not."

Sleipnir was silent. He turned and walked away.

Fenrir, who was waiting for him, blinked. "Why didn't you strangle him like you've been talking about all week?"

"His gambit did work. I have to give him that. But I'm still going to watch him. Carefully."

"...Of course."

* * *

And so everyone went back to their places in the cosmos. People found new purposes, new jobs. The sextuplets managed to convince their in-Loop parents to let them do what they wanted, and they went around the world cleaning up all the weirdness.

Twilight ended up as head of the Intergalactic Weirdness Removal Bureau, spending her days undoing whatever amount of Bill's damage she could. Those who were dead were dead: but she could turn those who had been transformed back. Crab people back into humans. Solar systems back onto their correct gravitational patterns. Return stars to their correct heat levels. Help people to adapt to the irreversible changes.

The Loopers slowly repaired the galaxy. Tales of Loopers became commonplace in the cosmos.

Stan and Ford eventually upgraded to the Stan of War III, a spaceship, sailing along the stars for adventure. Pinkie, Bill, and eventually Littlepip accompanied them, becoming a group of heroes known across the stars. Even Bill himself, from his little snowglobe prison, managed to do some good for the group.

He wouldn't admit it for millennia, but he really enjoyed his time with them. Just the five of them, exploring space.

Entire books could be filled with their adventures. There were more Loops intersecting with the Gravity Falls Loop than they knew, many things surprising all of them. They even found non-Looping Chaos gods at some point. That was fun.

A few years passed.... and then something unexpected happened.

One day, Bill just freaked out from the inside of his snowglobe. " _!HNRSHTDEW HYEM HYAH SCTAV ERWAHP SCNESHNEH HEAVE HWOVNICK HYA, HYA HNUB WOOZT MUHK SZEH MYASD HYAM !HHLEH HEEZT HUWUH HHLEH HUWUH SSKKEH HEEYEH_ " Then he took a deep breath and panted.

"What's wrong Bill?" Ford asked.

" _JUST... JUST RECEIVED NEW MEMORIES... THE... THE KIDS HAVE LOOPED IN... TANDEM... UH... I'M GOING TO SIT DOWN THAT WAS UNPLEASANT..._ "

Ford frowned, going to the lower deck where he kept the Portal. He ran it.

Sure enough, there was a universe running Tandem now. Equestria. He activated the portal, calling everyone down. Stan walked down while Pinkie and Littlepip trotted down, both preferring their pony forms. "What is it?" Stan asked.

The Portal established a connection and they could see Equestria. "Bill detected the kids through their memories. I think they experienced Weirdmageddon and must have defeated him in a rather... unpleasant way."

" _I WAS ERASED FROM EXISTENCE!!!!!_ "

"Yeah. Something like that." Ford nodded. He turned to the Portal. "Now let's go see if we can find them-"

"GRUNKLE FORD!" Mabel yelled, tackle hugging him in her pony body, shooting star cutie mark evident. "OH IT WAS SO AWESOME! WE TOTALLY TOOK BILL DOWN BY TRICKING HIM AND IT WAS AMAZING AND STAN WAS AMAZING AND WE GOT A BILL STATUE!" She pulled a stone statue of Bill out of her Pocket, setting it down on the ground. "LOOK AT IT!" Then she saw the real Bill, staring at the statue in fear.

" _HEY SHOOTING STAR. PLEASE DON'T KILL ME._ "

Dipper walked in, pine-tree cutie mark visible. "What is _he_ doing here?"

Ford smirked. "Xolotl, our Admin, tasked us with trying to help him. So far I think we're doing well."

" _THAT'S WHAT YOU THINK SIXER._ "

Dipper smiled. "Yeah. He asked us to do the same thing. Which reminds me, apparently we're supposed to collect all ten members of the Zodiac next time all of us are Awake and connect ourselves to each other..."

Ford raised an eyebrow. "Really? He didn't tell us that.. Oh nevermind, Soos, Wendy, and Pacifica aren't Awake anyway."

"They are on this end." Dipper said revealing three more ponies: Soos, Wendy, and Pacifica: question mark, ice bag, and llama cutie marks finally fully visible.

Stan smiled. "That's great. Now we have to go back to Earth and grab McGucket, that Teenager, and... egh... Gideon."

Dipper nodded. "Xolotl said it's for the best. Let's gather everyone."

Mabel ran to Stan. "DON'T THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE THE HUGS STAN!"

Pinkie grinned. "HUGS EVERYWHERE!"

* * *

Every Looper, town member, creature, and friend was gathered in the town square of Gravity Falls. Soos, Pacifica, and Wendy had agreed to let Pinkie use her Chaos powers to "fuse" with their other selves so there wouldn't be two of them standing in the circle.

Ford walked up to the pedestal overlooking the carved Zodiac in the ground. "Friends, family, creatures, and acquaintances. We all know why we are here today." He stroked the six-fingered hand Mabel had put on his sweater just for this occasion. "As soon as we perform this connection, I am 99% positive the Loop is going to end. Everyone will reset." He smiled. "It is the way of things."

Littlepip turned to him, nodding. Lyra nodded as well.

Ford continued. "It will by no means be the end though: we have formed a strong connection over these years, and we will form a strong connection today, one that is hopefully strong enough to tether us all together. We will form the connection of the Zodiac as we were told, the ten of us. Most of you will not be around to see it, or remember it, but I expect that this will mark a new era for the Gravity Falls Loop and a minor change in Yggdrasil itself. It is the start of a new age of stability. I can say that our Loop, after this, will be complete for all intents and purposes. Now, let us hold hands." He chuckled. "Let us go out with the power of friendship shining up into the sky."

The crowd began to link hands.

Ford walked into the circle first, the six-fingered hand beginning to glow.

Pacifica went next, deciding she liked the llama sweater after all this time.

Robbie followed, grinning. "DESTINY HOODIE." He said.

McGucket chuckled, leaping onto his glasses. "LET'S DO THIS AGAIN!"

Gideon grinned. "One last time, indeed old man."

Wendy leapt onto the Ice Bag. "IT IS SO GOOD TO FINALLY KNOW LET ME TELL YOU. Do you have any idea how many painful memories I have of _not knowing_ what my symbol is..."

Soos walked onto the question mark. "I'm Mr. Mystery! An enigma!"

Dipper and Mabel leapt into the center of the ring, doing a "doop be doop doop TWINS!" dance before going to the shooting star and pine tree.

Stan was the last one. "PAC-FISH!" He yelled, laughing. The crowd laughed with him.

The ten held hands. They began to glow, adding their power to the already tremendous power of the crowd. A beam of light shot into space.

Then Bill was _summoned_ into the center of the circle, torn out of his snowglobe. He was... free.

And he didn't do anything. He just basked in the magic around him. He floated up into the air, becoming a giant prism, refracting the light into all the colors imaginable.

This would forever after be the first Loop McGucket, Robbie, and Gideon remembered living.

The last memory they ever shared of their first Loop was a triangular eldritch abomination from the depths of tartarus with an expression of bliss, if only for a moment.

Then the Loop ended.

* * *

"Well... _this_ is most certainly something." Fenrir said, waving the other Admins over. Evidence of bacon-doughnut carnage was all over the console. Fenrir took another bite out of the delectable treats as the Admins came over.

"What?" Sleipnir asked.

"See this? This is the Gravity Falls Branch and the surrounding area. Weirdmageddon ended a while ago."

Sleipnir nodded. "So what's interesting about it?"

"Look at what happens when I search for Bill." He said, pressing a button. Much of the screen turned yellow.

"That's.. bizarre." Morpheus observed.

"His soul is spread out across Yggdrasil: there is not a single point I can pin it to. It seems as if this TriNet of his _is_ him, essentially."

Sleipnir frowned. "This is concerning.. it's no doubt causing problems-"

"Actually it seems to be stabilizing the areas it comes in contact with. The areas where it has gone over hundreds of thousands of times are being repaired much faster than the others. And now that Gravity Falls is stable, the rate has increased dramatically." Fenrir actually smirked. "It seems as if he's unwittingly helping us tie the tree back together... And his help has only increased since that Weirdmageddon ended."

Sleipnir slowly blinked. "Nobody. _Ever._ Tell Bill about this. You understand me?"

Everyone nodded vigorously.

Sleipnir frowned. "This is a very dangerous game you are playing Xolotl... Very dangerous... but potentially very beneficial..." He sighed. "Excuse me I'm going to have a chat with the higher ups about keeping me in the loop." He heard chuckling.

"Does _everything_ have to be a pun here?"

The answer that went unspoken was "yes."

* * *

EPILOGUE...

...somewhere, the Princess of Friendship hears the words "In our town!" and wonders when she will eventually be able to give the unicorn the memories she deserves...

...somewhere, an axolotl Admin is plotting further ways to stabilize Yggdrasil...

...somewhere, a triangular demon is making deals for information only he has...

...somewhere, a Chaos gods anonymous club forms, currently with six members...

...somewhere, ten Loopers use their shared destiny and an eldritch abomination to bring stability to the Loops...

...somewhere, Deadpool is mad that he wasn't involved...

...somewhere, a little dorito is learning. He's also getting confused by this bizarre, seemingly genderless kid...

...somewhere, General Snark would find a shapeshifter egg. Again...

...somewhere, a Loop becomes a hub for other Loops. The tandem runs multiply, ensuring that a small town in Oregon becomes a Looping center and that certain friends are never apart long...

...somewhere, three Loopers, a Loop Aware entity, and a realized dream with quite the aptitude for swearing explore the cosmos on the Stan of War. The number of these ships keeps increasing...

...somewhere, a pink showpony is performing shows from the Pinkie Emporium and teaching a young twin the finer points of party throwing...

...somewhere, rainbows are on fire...

...somewhere, sometime, all these things are happening. All one has to do is look. They're all somewhere in the woods; the infinite forest that is Yggdrasil. They are out there, waiting.

Goodbye Gravity Falls... for now.

THE END.

* * *

**Compiler's note:** Well. That was one doozy of a ride. Hope you enjoyed.


	41. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Four

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-30. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Four**

24.1 (ToaMataNui5000; DrTempo; Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Bionicle]

"So, Axel," Sora said as he and Kairi sat on the beach with the taller Looper, watching the sunset. "We've got our raft, we've got our supplies, we're all set to handle the Heartless invasion when it starts tomorrow night... what do you plan on doing after we lock the Keyhole?"

"Well, I'm certainly not helping the old loon out," Axel replied. "Or Maleficent - don't know how Riku can tolerate her." He shuddered. "Wonder where he is, anyway..."

"We'll find out," Kairi promised. Then her eyes brightened. "Say, you remember the first time you Awakened?"

"Yeah..." Axel smiled. "Like it was yesterday..."

(Flashback)

_Okay, trying to prematurely assassinate Xehanort, especially in the body of a child, is a bad idea..._

Lea, most commonly called Axel, groaned as he opened his eyes. He found himself lying on the sand, staring out to the ocean. The sounds of a lush, vibrant jungle could be heard behind him. _'Huh, did I end up on Destiny Island or something, this time?'_ As he started to push himself up, he noticed something glaringly wrong. His hands were made of red metal. "What the hell!" He crawled over to the water's edge to get a good look at his reflection. His whole body, aside from the head, was coated in red, orange, and black armor. When he tried to pull it off, he felt pain, like he was pulling his own skin instead.

"Yo fire-spitter! You awake?" Axel immediately jumped at the approaching voice, summoning Bond Of Flame to his hand, and one of his chakrams to act as a makeshift shield. The figure leaped back in surprise. He sported armor similar to Axel, but colored two shades of green. He also wore a mask that seemed tribal-like in design, despite his overall robotic appearance. "Whoa! Calm down, brother-looper!" he spoke in a soft, welcoming voice. "You're with an ally."

"Sorry, but I got a complicated record of friendship. So unless you can..." Axel stopped when he noticed the green golem summon two weapons of his own. Two copies of Wayward Wind, to be exact. "Ventus! Is that you in there?"

"Nope. Sorry brother."

"But then why do you have his keyblade... I mean keyblades? And why are you calling me your sibling?"

"Ah, well that's easy. The former is because I looped in as Ventus, while my teammates Gali and Onua replaced Aqua and Terra respectively," he explained like it was no big deal. "And for the latter, you're currently replacing our leader Tahu, and our group is closer than family-friends." He snickered to himself, "Kinda funny seeing as Tahu got the speech from Roxas when he looped in as you."

"Looping? Are you talking about time loops?" Axel frowned to himself, "Damn. The old loon must have fucked with time so much that the universe broke. That or I'm finally losing it!"

"Well, you're in the target range with the first, but on a bigger scale. And Xehanort had nothing to do with causing it." He motioned the former Nobody to follow. "Come on, the team will help me explain it to you once we meet up like we always do in the baseline."

"Very well. You seem trustworthy enough. By the way, the name's Lea, but I'll also go by Axel. Got it memorized?"

"Trust me, it's well worked into my brain-mind due to multiple loops to your universe." He offered Axel a metallic fist-bump. "Name's Lewa, by the way, and welcome to the multiverse..."

(flashback end)

"Wait wait wait," Sora protested. "That's not how it happened at all! _I_ gave you the Speech!"

Two faces looked at him curiously. "Wait, you did?" Axel asked.

"Yeah! It was like this..."

(Flashback)

"Okay, what in the heck..."

Lea blinked as he looked around. One minute, he was in Yen Sid's tower, and now he was at the familiar place he and Roxas used to hang out at. Confused, Lea decided to head back to the tower, when he remembered strange memories... memories of someone else Roxas and he had befriended, and he remembered that friend's name. It was...

"Xion."

"So you remember, huh?" Lea looked up at the voice.

Sora stood before Lea, but he was clad in the familiar black cloak of Organization XIII, and had that familiar smile on his face. "Figured it was a matter of time, Axel."

Lea grumbled. "I said it's-" Lea then remembered... somehow, he was back at the day Roxas had joined the Organization. But if Sora was here, where was Roxas? Sora noticed Lea seemed confused, and then said simply, "Here's what's going on, Axel..."

* * *

Lea had to admit, the whole "time loop" situation was strange, but he'd seen weirder. Sora (who'd explained that this 'Loop', as he put it, he and Roxas had swapped roles).

"So, apparently, whatever allows Loopers to keep their memories also tends to keep memories from being erased?"

Sora nodded. "Yep."

"So that explains why I remember Xion." Lea looked at Sora, and asked, "So now what, 'Roxas'?"

Sora just yawned. "We play things as per baseline. Don't want to give Xemnas anything that could let him win."

Lea tried to reply, but stopped. Sora had a good point. "And Xion? Can we get her to Awaken?"

Sora frowned, and shrugged. "Roxas has tried, but no luck yet. Still, worth a try."

The two shook hands. "Well, Sora, this is going to be fun!"

(Flashback end)

Axel grinned. "Sorry. Don't remember that at all."

Kairi gave him a _Look_. "Axel..."

At that, the taller Looper caved. "Okay, okay, I remember. But the other thing _did_ happen too... I think I must have still been in some kind of half-Awakened state for a while during my first Loop with you, because I didn't actually remember my previous Loops until later on - just our Baseline."

Sora raised an eyebrow. "Fascinating... and you didn't think to tell me when you _did_ remember, _why?_ "

"Because we were in the middle of a heated battle when they _did_ kick in? And then there was one thing after another that always distracted me, and by the time I thought about it again, the Loop was about to end."

Sora smiled. "Okay, I can accept that." Then he gave Axel a half-hearted punch on the shoulder. "Just... don't keep that kind of stuff from us again, okay?"

"Deal."

* * *

24.2 (kingofsouls; Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Inside Out]

_-Headquarters-_

The sound of Anger walking through the door drew the attention of Joy and Disgust, who were manning the console as Riley watched the 24-hour kitten channel. Fear and Sadness were off in their rooms doing something else, deciding to opt out of the adorable kitten marathon. "Hey Anger, what's up?" Joy asked.

"I've done it! I have finally done it!" Anger announced with a dark grin on his face as he approached the console.

"Finally done what?" asked Disgust.

Anger first pushed the intercom button on the console, temporarily severing the line of communication between Riley and Headquarters. "You know why I've been in and out of Long Term Memory so much this Loop?" Anger explained. The other emotions shook their heads. "Well, I've been slowly and effectively purging Riley's mind of any and all earworms, repetitive one-liners, and weird awkward moments that just appear out of nowhere and then disappear like they never happened. Oh it was a long and hard job, but I finally did it! Now I don't have to listen to _that_ anymore when the Mind Workers want to be jerks!"

"That?" Joy asked with uncertainty. Her eyes lit up in realization seconds later. "Oh, you mean that gu..."

"Ah-bap-bap-bap." fumed Anger. "Not a word. I don't want us to bring it back."

"You know, something tells me your big plan is going to backfire." huffed Disgust as she turned the intercom back on. "Sorry about that Riley."

_"About what?"_ their host inquired. _"One second I could hear you and the next, nothing. Something happen in there?"_

"Oh, nothing major Riley." Anger replied with fake humility. "I've gave us some peace of mind, that's all."

"If you say so." Disgust snarked. "Want to watch kittens with us?"

"Eh, sure. What the heck." Anger said as he sat on his couch, fluffing the Mind Reader he had just picked up.

* * *

_-Reality-_

Riley shrugged and focused her attention on the television, which was adorned with the playful images of the cutest kittens ever.

_"We'll be back to the 24 hour kitten channel right after these messages from our sponsor."_

"Oh goodie. Just in time for commercials." Anger drolly replied.

_"Triple-dent Gum will make you smile!"_

Anger's yelling suddenly assaulted her mind. " **I! JUST! GOT! RID! OF! EVERY! SINGLE! ONE! OF! THOSE! MEMORIES! WHY!? WHY!? _WHY!?_** "

(Anon e Mouse Jr.)

That was when an envelope dropped into his hands. Growling, he tore it open and pulled out a sheet of paper.

_Anger,_

_Nice try. But your efforts there wouldn't have stuck anyway unless you had access to Riley's Yggdrasil-level memories, and you **don't** have that level of access under any circumstances. All the memories you found annoying or awkward and tried to get rid of are back already._

_Yours truly,_

_Skuld_

Anger's head promptly burst into flames as he began to rail against the unfairness of it all.

* * *

24.3 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out] / [Admin Shenanigans]

_-Reality-_

Riley leaned over the banister as Jill hung up the phone, trying her hardest to not lose her cool. "Hey Mom, where's the moving van?"

"Still on its way." she replied with a sigh. "Now they're saying it won't be here until next Friday."

_"Wow, they must be really lost this Loop."_ Sadness mused.

"Did they say where the van is?"

"Yes, but for the life of me I can't figure out how they wound up in New York."

* * *

_-Headquarters-_

"Ha!" Disgust cheered. "Pay up."

Anger and Sadness grumbled as they dug into their Subspace Pockets, each revealing a Memory Orb. Anger's was red, portraying a younger Riley dressed as a barbarian and practicing with an battleaxe larger than herself, while Sadness's was blue of Riley as a boy, sighing about something. "I knew I should have gone with the east coast this time around." Anger grumbled.

_"Uh, what are you three doing?"_ Riley asked.

"Gambling over where the moving van wound up this Loop." Sadness quickly replied.

_"Wait, what?"_

Disgust huffed at Anger, a critical look in her eyes. "Way to go Anger."

"Hey, why are you mad at me?" Disgust pointed at Anger's hands, which were pressing one of his buttons on the console. "Not my fault Riley wants to be a little mad." he said as he removed his hands.

_"I'm not mad. I'm just a little curious."_

"Well, since the van never seems to be in the same place twice, we thought it would be fun to guess where it winds up each loop." Anger explained.

_"That's cool, but what are you betting with?"_

"Memory Orbs." Sadness explained.

_"You're... using what!?"_ Disgust shot another glare at Anger, whose hands had found themselves on the buttons again, but this time Anger refused to move them. _"You're using my memories to bet with each other?"_

"Don't worry Riley, they're only pre-Awake memories." explained Disgust.

_"Explain."_

"Long story short, we can't put memories you make while Awake in our Pockets." Anger explained. "Memories from when you're Unawake on the other hand is fair game."

"So we like to take our favorites memories that you had before Awakening before the Loop ends and they're lost forever." Sadness continued.

"We figured that you probably don't need them after those Loops end. Plus, it helps the Mind Workers out when we take duplicate memories off their hands." Disgust finished. Riley said nothing as she processed what was said. "Riley?"

_"I'm okay."_ Riley replied with little certainty as a green memory rob rolled it's way into short term storage. _"It's just really weird that my memories can be pocketed."_

"You know, now that I think about it," Sadness mused out loud. "Why can we take some of your memories but not others?"

* * *

_Adminspace_

"I knew Pocket Locking Post-Awakening Memories was going to come in handy," Janus mused as he looked over data for the Inside Out Loop.

"You think we should pop in and let Riley know that little fact?" his other head asked.

"She's a smart girl. I think she and her emotions will figure it out eventually."

* * *

"Eh, it's probably nothing to worry about." Anger shrugged.

* * *

24.4 (DrTempo): [Disney] / [Adventure Time]

King Mickey Awoke, and noticed he was in Twilight Town. It was about two days before Sora'd awaken from his year long slumber, and as Mickey checked his Loop Memories to see if there was anything different, someone tapped his shoulder.

"Um, excuse me. Are you King Mickey?" Mickey looked behind him, and saw a young man wearing a blue shirt and a rabbit-shaped cap.

"Uh-huh. And you are?"

The young man said, "I'm Finn. Anchor of the Ooo Loop."

Mickey had heard of that Loop, and asked, "What's up?"

Finn removed a note from his Subspace Pocket, and Mickey smiled as he read it:

_Dear King Mickey, I recently met Finn here, and asked him to give you this note. I could sense his heart was worthy of wielding a Keyblade, and taught him what I could. Couldn't teach him magic due to it not being a Fused Loop with Sora and company, but I could at least explain the basics. I was unsure if I could do the Keyblade Inheritance Ceremony if it isn't a Kingdom Hearts Fused Loop, so if you don't mind, would you do it for me?_

_Thank you._

_Signed,_

_Keyblade Master Sunset Shimmer._

Mickey smiled, "Very well." Summoning his Keyblade, he told Finn, "Grab the hilt." Finn nodded, and Mickey said,

"In your hand, take this key. If you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be." Mickey removed his hand, and Finn held on.

"You can let go now, Finn." Finn chuckled and Mickey said, "I think it worked. We have a few days before Sora wakes up, so I think I should teach out a new things. Then, I'll let Sora take over your training."

Finn nodded in agreement. "Awesome! Wonder when I'll summon my..." In a flourish, a Keyblade appeared in Finn's hand. It looked like he sword Finn gained in baseline after meeting his counterpart, but it had tabbit-shaped teeth, and the Keychain was Finn's familiar hat. Finn had to smirk at his luck.

"That was quick. Well, at least I have a cool new sword... and one I won't lose somehow. That happens a lot."

Mickey chuckled. "Very well. Class is in session."

* * *

24.5 (Awesomedude17): [Warhammer 40K] / [The Emperor's New Groove]

"Hello my Emperor. We have installed a Text-To-Speech program into your Golden Throne. Can you speak to us?" The Custodes said.

**"asdfghjklqwertyuipzxcvbnm... About time. I have this really bad itch on my decayed nose, and I'm not so pretty anymore!"**

"Emperor?"

**"Also, call me Kuzco... I'm tired of this God Emperor Nonsense. Also, mind telling me how the Empire's doing, I feel like it's not nice."**

"...Oh dear..."

* * *

24.6 (RowanEx): [Tomorrowland]

"So Casey," Frank called as he finished a special pin creating machine which would soon call in more Plus Ultra Loopers from outside their home Loop. "Come here. I want to test something with you."

Casey, who was staring at a notebook full of her ideas and drawings of other Loops, looked up and walked towards Frank when he shoved a pin towards her pocket. Casey jumped and looked at the pocket and saw a silver pin. She picked up the pin and saw herself in a small room with Twilight Sparkle's Looper pamphlet on a table in front of her. Dropping the experimental pin safely back into her pocket, she stared at Frank and gave a thumbs up.

Frank Walker smiled as he pulled out a flash stick with a recording and sent it towards the pin creating machine and watched as a capsule with twelve silver pins inside gets created. Each pin contained a recording of what the Tomorrowland Loops plus Frank's Welcome to the Multiverse message. As Casey pulled the experimental pin out from her pockets with a glove and threw it away, Athena walked towards the group.

"Um... Frank? Casey?" she called. "Why do I have a set of memories where I... self-destruct?"

Frank blinked as Casey pocketed the first pin capsule in her Subspace Pocket and asked, "What?"

* * *

Alistair Oh groaned. Not only he was given a strange silver pin, he was also invited to a Looping... innovation group. The Loops are strange, indeed.

"The Loops are strange, indeed," Irina commented at Alistair as she stared at the silver pin. "I think I got one of those too."

* * *

24.7 (lord Martiya): [Disney] / [Paperinik New Adventures]

"Mickey, what's happening?!" Minnie exclaimed as she watched out of the window. "They are not supposed to do that!"

"Donald just called. He says that Mortimer somehow called them and insulted Zotnam's mother." Mickey explained.

"But-they don't even HAVE mothers!"

"It's Mortimer, and they don't like being insulted anyway."

Mickey came out to fight the Evronian invasion. He REALLY hated the variants where Donald was a superhero, you just didn't know which one of his enemies could do something crazier than usual.

* * *

24.8 (kingofsouls): [Gravity Falls]

"Hey, check it out dudes." Soos proclaimed. "I got this really big crossbow last loop. Only I kinda think they meant to make it a cannon because look at what it fires."

Dipper gazed at his new weapon's 'ammo'. "Soos, those arrows are half as tall as you!"

"Oh yea dude. Wait until you see the exploding ones!"

Dipper went pale. "YOU HAVE _EXPLODING ONES!?_ "

* * *

24.9 (katfairy): [The Five Hundred Kingdoms] / [Aladdin] / [Doctor Who] - part 1 of 2

Elena Klovis Awoke, looked around, and suppressed a squee. She wasn't sure what was going on yet, except for one thing: she was getting her first Loop away from her own. Granted, that could mean spending a Loop without Alex, or even Adam and Gina (and if either of those two were here, would they still be dragons?), but at least she was getting to experience something radically different from her home Loop. That quick glance had been more than enough to tell her that.

She was standing at a wrought-iron fence atop a steep hill overlooking an enormous river; it was so big that she first took it for a lake until she noticed the strong current. She was in a large city, and the buildings ranged from familiar stone and/or wood to materials she couldn't begin to guess at, and the variety of styles was equally diverse, from the enormous brick castle that had been behind her as she Awoke to a massive (and rather ugly) block of... something that hulked on the riverside. The people all appeared to be human, and a quick check showed next to no use of magic in the area, and what had been done was on a level with the average Granny from back home. And then there were the clothes. She'd gotten used to seeing all sorts of odd costumes as a Godmother, but this was something else entirely. There were women dressed head-to-toe in concealing black veils walking calm as you please next to women dressed in what looked to Elena like undergarments in shades that made her eyes hurt. The men weren't much different, although none of them were veiled. Hairstyles ranged from deliberately bald to elaborately coiffed to loosely flowing, again in a bewildering variety of colors. She couldn't wait to find out what it was all about.

She also couldn't wait to get a better look at herself. She could see that she was somewhere between the two extremes in clothing: knee-length pleated wool skirt in grey-and-black plaid, bright blue knit sweater, black hose, knee-high black boots. Her hair hung over her shoulder in a single braid, and it was her usual blonde. So whatever else might be different about her in this Loop, she still wasn't given to overblown fashions. That was something. Ah, and there were the Loop memories as well as a handful of Pings. She sent one of her own before heading back home to sort through her thoughts.

Home, for the next few months anyway, was a dorm room at Laval University in Quebec, where she was a 21-year-old senior majoring in Art History. Her father hadn't married Madame in this Loop, as she hadn't had access to the love spell she'd used to ensnare him back home, which meant he'd seen through her schemes and kept far away from her. He was still alive, running a prosperous and highly-respected auction house, and she'd been planning on joining him once she got her Masters. So far, so good. She certainly wasn't going to complain about having a quiet history.

Unfortunately, none of this told her what Loop she was in. Oh, it narrowed down the possibilities, but not as much as she'd like. Even without re-checking the Guide she'd gotten from Phineas and Ferb, she could list a dozen separate Loops that could fit the world she was now remembering. Canada, if she remembered correctly, was a country in the Hub, and figured in most of the Hub-like Loops.

"Hey, Elena, you up for a walk to the crêpe place? My treat this time, since you bought last time."

Elena turned to see one of her pre-Awakening friends poking her head through the door. Jasmine was a nice girl, only a year or two younger and nowhere near as spoiled as she should have been considering she was royalty with a doting father. The two had met in class and hit it off immediately; Elena didn't see why that should change now.

"Well, I did just get back in, but now that you mention it, I am a bit hungry. Just let me grab my coat; the wind was picking up a bit, and it's getting chilly."

"Thanks for the warning; I'll grab mine on the way down. Think it'll snow soon?"

"It's October, so I wouldn't be surprised either way."

The two chattered aimlessly as they made their way out, continuing to do so on the long walk to the oldest part of the city. Elena wished she could have gotten some answers about this Loop, but she'd settle for some uncomplicated gossip with a friend. Their favorite place was more than a little touristy, they knew, but they didn't care; Casse-Crêpe Breton was their favorite, and that was all there was to it. Elena couldn't resist the banana crêpes, and Jasmine the blueberry, and neither would ever turn up their noses at a bowl of the hot chocolate.

"So, you're off to Toronto next year, aren't you?" Jasmine said. "I haven't decided where I'm going to grad school this t—I mean, I'm going to miss you, but I do want to see more of this world, and Father wants me to go somewhere with a little more snob appeal. But you've got your future mapped out already. I really need to be better about that."

"Well, it's easier here than back home," Elena said without thinking. "The Tradition isn't arranging our lives to suit itself."

"...Elena, you're from Quebec," Jasmine said, giving her an odd look. "And I didn't think Canadians were as hung up on tradition as... Wait. You didn't say tradition. You said _the_ Tradition, and I could practically hear the capital letter. That sounds familiar—hold on a second."

Elena facepalmed as her friend dug through her bag. Her first Loop away from home and she blew it in the space of a single afternoon. Well, she'd call it a learning experience and hope it didn't get her killed.

"Here it is! _The Tradition is one of the most dangerous, most frustrating, and occasionally most useful aspects of the 500 Kingdoms, according to preliminary reports. At times seeming borderline-sentient, it tries to force people into living out established stories if their circumstances are at all similar. If your name features in one of these tales, your odds of this are increased exponentially. Being genre-savvy can save your life in this Loop; at the very least, it will make that life easier._ "

"That's a Looping Guide," Elena said with a calm she was far from feeling.

"Well, I am a Looper," Jasmine said, grinning. "And so are you. Don't feel too bad about the slip; I've got a lot of Loops under my belt and I almost did the same thing. But this isn't the best place to talk about it; it's quiet here right now, but you know how quickly that can change. Let's finish up and head for one of the parks."

It was a sensible suggestion, so Elena agreed. Before long, they were heading uphill past the old stone buildings, toward the Citadel and the Plains of Abraham. They were almost halfway there when Jasmine hesitated.

"This is probably going to be a long talk; we should get something to drink. This looks like a good place."

"I already need a drink," Elena deadpanned, following the giggling princess into the shop. At least, she tried to; three steps in, Jasmine froze and Elena walked into her. While they untangled themselves, a strange metallic groaning echoed through the store—which wasn't a store at all, Elena realized. Whatever they thought they'd seen through the window had been an illusion. There was nobody else inside, no shelves full of brightly wrapped snacks, no coolers full of drinks. And the door had shut behind them. Elena tried to open it, but wasn't surprised when it refused to open.

"I think we're going to have to put off that talk," Jasmine said.

"I think we've been set up for an adventure," Elena replied. Jasmine nodded, and Elena continued, "We may not have to deal with the Tradition here, but I can't imagine too many explanations for this."

"Me neither," Jasmine admitted. "Have you noticed this place is much bigger on the inside?"

"Well, yes, but so is my cottage back home. What it doesn't have is a great chunk of clockwork in the center. And what is this on the walls?"

"Round things."

"Yes, but what _are_ the round things?"

"I have no idea."

Elena shook her head and kept looking around. Whatever the mechanism in the center was, it was working, and since she had no idea what it was doing she'd just leave it alone. Even if it was making that odd grinding/groaning sound again, followed by a clunk from the door. Elena and Jasmine exchanged glances.

"Think it's unlocked now?" Jasmine asked.

"Probably."

"Any bets on where we've ended up?"

"I don't know which Loop we're in, so no."

"You too, huh? Well, I guess we don't have much choice, then."

"We could just stay in here."

They exchanged glances again, bursting into laughter as they did. It would probably be safer to stay, but where was the fun in that? She'd never learn anything about the Loops if she didn't take the odd risk now and then. Elena opened the door and poked her head out, not surprised to see a completely different scene. The narrow cobblestone street was now a wide gravel driveway surrounded by lush greenery, and the random passers-by were now soldiers all pointing guns in her direction.

"Oh, dear."

"Problem?" Jasmine whispered.

"I think we've landed somewhere we shouldn't."

"If what I'm getting from my Loop memories is correct, I think we're supposed to come out with our hands up."

"Oh. Do they look like they can be reasonable?"

"Some do. There's one over to my left who looks like he'd rather shoot us than not."

"There's always one. Well, let's get this over with."

The two women sighed, raised their hands, and exited. Elena assessed the soldiers surrounding them, suspecting Jasmine was doing the same. Only two stood out: the eager young pup and a giant of a man who simply had to be a sergeant, Tradition or no. The sergeant had the look of (an oversized hound dog, honestly) a man who truly wanted to be somewhere else at the moment, and not about to do or say what he was required to do and say. He took a deep breath, then let it go as what had to be a high-ranking officer arrived on the scene.

"Sergeant Benton, report!"

"Sir! A structure appeared out of thin air, and these two apparent young ladies came out and seem to be surrendering."

"Well, that makes a refreshing change," the officer said, voice as dry as any desert. "Right then; you two — any plans for world conquest?"

"Not with exams coming up," Jasmine quipped. The officer took that as a reasonable response, and, to be fair, Elena might have in his position.

"Fair enough. Not hiding from any extraterrestrial law enforcement?"

"Not me. Elena?"

"Heavens, even if I wanted to, when would I have had the time?"

"Quite. Are you aware of any enemies you may have that could pose a threat to either England or the world as a whole?"

"No," the women chorused.

"Fine. We accept your surrender. Benton, take them to a briefing room and keep an eye on them just to be safe. Under the circumstances, I think I'd better handle communications on this one myself." The officer gave them a polite nod, followed by a sharper one to the soldiers, then left. Sergeant Benton — and Elena congratulated herself on still being able to read people even in a different universe — escorted them to a large and rather dull room, where they waited patiently.

Elena hoped it wouldn't take very long to get whoever was supposed to be questioning them, and that they weren't in too much trouble. Just what sort of Loop was this, anyway? Random storefronts kidnapping people and dropping them in the midst of another country's military surely had to be an unusual turn of events, and if it wasn't, then why hadn't she had anything in her Loop memories? Jasmine seemed surprisingly relaxed, almost as though she didn't really consider any of this to be dangerous. Maybe her Loop was one of the dark places that Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella had hinted at and the Guide had explained in depressing detail. Elena itched to search for her name in the Guide, but didn't dare reach into her Pocket in front of the sergeant. He looked friendly enough, but she had no doubts that if she tried anything suspicious, the oversized hound would show some teeth.

Loud voices approached the room, sounding like two old friends engaged in the latest round of their favorite argument. That was a good sign. An even better one was when the owners of those voices entered the room still bickering, and one of those was the officer. Unless they were staging it to keep possible hostiles off guard, but Elena didn't think that was the case. But the new arrival would certainly catch anyone off guard, if it had been intentional. As tall as the sergeant, with a shock of thick white curls, striking blue eyes, a beaky nose that reminded her with a pang that Alexander didn't seem to be around, and an outfit at least ninety years out of date. Although she had to admit that velvet and lace did rather suit him.

"You're not Time Lords," were the first words he addressed to them, sounding amused rather than accusing, "so how on earth did the two of you manage to get your hands on a TARDIS?"

* * *

24.10 (katfairy): [The Five Hundred Kingdoms] / [Aladdin] / [Doctor Who] / [Middle Earth] - part 2 of 2

"Movemovemovemovemovemovemove!"

"I'm moving!"

Elena and Jasmine dove through the doors of their TARDIS, laughing. A large chunk of opal sailed over their heads, barely missing them; they rolled to the sides to let other, equally exotic and valuable projectiles in before closing the doors just as their pursuers reached them.

"I can't believe you did that!"

"I can't believe it worked!"

The TARDIS engine cranked up with an unusual jolt, sending them sprawling. After a good ten years' worth of adventures, the two women knew what that meant.

"You know we would have cleaned it up," Elena scolded. The TARDIS made a sound that was her version of a sniff; she hated clutter. "I will never understand how a TARDIS with OCD got it into her multidimensional mind to kidnap us and go roaming the universe."

"Don't you wish you could eavesdrop on conversations between her and the Doctor's?" Jasmine giggled. "I've noticed she's a lot more careful about her appearance when we run into them — everywhere else she'll look like her surroundings, but put her next to Sexy, and suddenly she has to look shiny and new. I'm not sure if ours is jealous, trying to show her up, or has a crush on her."

"[All of the above.]"

And that sound was unmistakably a long-suffering-but-secretly-amused sigh. They couldn't communicate with the TARDIS directly, but they'd learned what certain sounds indicated. And that was far from all they'd learned, about the TARDIS, the Loop, or each other. Jasmine might look younger, but she had been Looping for far longer than Elena and was happy to introduce her to the type of shenanigans Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella wouldn't have thought about. Nothing that Elena felt ashamed of, but a bit more adult and on the questionable side of legal; pushing boundaries but not breaking them. It had been a long time since Elena had not been overloaded with responsibilities, and once she got used to the idea, she had jumped at the chance. She knew there was no such thing as "no consequences", but Jasmine had showed her how to be a little naughty without anyone suffering for it. Her Pocket now contained some lovely jewels and fascinating artifacts, stolen from those who had profited by the original owners' demise. Once or twice they'd slipped into a place in order to snag something just before some disaster or other would have destroyed it, but only when it was an item that they felt deserved better than to be lost in that manner. They didn't agree on everything, but they did agree that doing that on a regular basis was too much like grave-robbing, and was a line they didn't want to cross. At least for Elena; Jasmine admitted that she had crossed it long before and had regretted it once she grew out of that phase. From what Elena gathered, most of the older Loopers had gone through similar phases, and many of the newer ones as well, if they weren't lucky enough to have someone to guide them. She knew she'd been lucky; most new Loops had dozens if not hundreds of repeats before another Looper Awakened and/or a visitor appeared to explain. And not all people making the introductions to the multiverse were as friendly as Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella. She still didn't know who her Admin was, but they had to be one of the more considerate ones.

"Jasmine? Do you think new Loopers have it easier?"

"Where did that come from?" Dark eyes blinked at her, bewildered at the non-sequitur, but soon grew thoughtful. "I'm not sure, honestly. I've heard some Admins make a point of letting their Anchors know what's going on pretty quickly now, which never happened before the Loop That Never Was. I know correlation is not causation and the two probably aren't connected; it's just that I never heard of it happening before then. And some Loops seem like they pick up new Loopers more quickly, and earlier than the older ones did. I don't know if their Admins are more lenient about that or if they've figured out that leaving an Anchor alone for centuries worth of repeats with no explanation is a really bad way of keeping them stable, but it seems to be more common than it used to. So where _did_ that come from?"

"I was just thinking about how lucky I'd been, and one thought followed another. I hadn't even hit double digits when Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella showed up, and that was the same Loop when Alex — my husband — Woke up. I didn't realize how unusual that was until I started studying the Guide they gave me. My dragon friends Adam and Gina started Looping at the same time too, although I'd lost count before they did."

"That _is_ lucky," Jasmine said after a low whistle. "Do you want this topaz? It must be at least a thousand carats, and the sherry color's better suited to you than me; it makes me look sallow. I will be greedy about the emerald, though. Anyway, that's still not normal, but I've been hearing about it more often lately. I just can't tell you why. My Admin's not one of the chatty ones."

"Well, I don't even know who mine is yet. But it seems to me that, even though newer Loopers still have most of the same issues to deal with-- mainly, an eternity trying to stay relatively sane while never knowing what random insanity you might have to face in a given Loop — we've got the examples of you older Loopers to guide us, and more often than not it seems like you all go out of your way to teach us to avoid the worst pitfalls."

"A lot of us do," Jasmine said. "You'll have plenty of regrets eventually — you may even have some already — but a lot of us are pretty determined that the newer Loopers shouldn't have to go through what we did. Okay, there are some who say it builds character, but those guys are mostly jerks anyway. Why let people suffer when you know you can avert it, or at least deflect the worst of it? Granted, even the Original Seven have limits, and you know from being a Fairy Godmother that sometimes there's just nothing you can do, but I decided long ago that if I can help, and it would actually make a difference, then I will."

"I think I'm going to try to do the same, once I have a little more experience outside of my own Loop," Elena said. "After all, Godmothers are meddlers by nature, and I'm used to trying to get happy endings for people. I don't see any reason to change that now. And I think I want to discuss this with the Doctor as well."

"Well, let's go find him then. It should be easy; just look for a pretty young human woman screaming and running for her life."

* * *

"—Or maybe just having a cup of tea," Elena said dryly, as a man who made her think of nothing so much as a baby giraffe introduced her to a lovely middle-aged-turning-gracefully-to-older woman. "Pleased to meet you, Miss Smith; I'm Elena Klovis from the 500 Kingdoms Loop. I take it you and Jasmine have met."

"And Agrabah recovered by the next Loop," Sarah Jane grinned. "Lovely to see you again, Jasmine, and do give my best to the others. Even that terrible parrot."

"Of course. We came because Elena's been wondering something about the Loops, though. Is it all right to discuss that here?"

"My son's off at Oxford right now, so, yes. Doctor, behave yourself."

"Oi! Not touching anything!"

"Yet." All three women came in on that; Elena had met various regenerations by this point and even without that, five minutes in the company of this one made certain things obvious. The Doctor pouted, but sat down with them.

The conversation went much the same as the one she'd had with Jasmine. All of the senior Loopers agreed that many of the newer Loopers were avoiding many of the mistakes earlier Loopers had—but only the ones who had earlier contact with those other Loopers. Which made sense, really; people didn't necessarily learn as well from the mistakes of others as they did from their own, but if those mistakes had sufficiently serious results, then at the very least they got an indication that this was not a desired outcome. And all agreed that Elena's desire to be a Godmother for the Loopers when possible was a noble aim ("Every Looper needs a good hobby," the Doctor said cheerfully), especially after Elena described what a Godmother did.

"You see, my Loop runs on what I've heard called narrativium. The Tradition wants—for a given value of wants; it doesn't exactly think as such as far as anybody knows—anyway, it wants life to run smoothly, and to follow certain set patterns. Stories, songs, parables, grannies' tales, anything that gets repeated often enough that more than a handful know the story. But we all know that not all stories have happy endings. The Tradition doesn't care about that, any more than a bolt of lightning cares that the tree it just hit had been alive; it was simply the most efficient path for it to do what its nature decreed. But it can be worked around, if you know how to do it, and that's what Godmothers and others of the Light are for. Now, I know I can't get around the nature of the Loops, and I'm not sure I'd dare try if I could, but it seems to me that each Loop is its own story—its own Tradition. By learning them, and learning what can and can't be done to counter that, I might be able to help Loopers. Oh, I know a lot of them won't need my help, but there are enough out there that still do. When I agreed to become a Godmother, I swore to help anyone who was being pushed around by powers beyond their control, and do it only in ways that would best serve those I was protecting. Sometimes the carrot, sometimes the stick, and sometimes just a kind word at the right moment. I don't see how these Loops can't just be an extension of that."

There was a moment of silence as the other Loopers regarded Elena, digesting her speech. It was Sarah Jane who answered.

"I want to be sure I've got this straight," she said. "You want to offer help and protection to other Loopers, but you want to do it carefully. Not by controlling them, and only manipulating them when you can't avoid it, and helping them to find the tools to help themselves. Part guardian, part teacher. Is that it?"

"Yes. And, hopefully, without acting like I'm doing this because I think I'm so much wiser than everyone else."

"No, never do that," the Doctor agreed. "People who act like they think they're the smartest one in the room are annoying. What?"

The three women exchanged glances and shook their heads.

"I wish Donna was here," Sarah Jane said, "but she joined Torchwood this time around; said she had a plan. Since Cardiff's still standing, I'm not sure if it worked or not. Either way, I know what you're getting at, Elena. You want to help make the Loops easier on people. I think that's a lovely idea, and someone who is used to seeing the world through the lens of a story should be helpful at assessing how Loops will play out. Have you met Twilight Sparkle yet? No? Pity. She's a scholar at heart, and one of the few older Loopers who still puts much thought into their mechanics, although Hermione Granger might as well."

"Don't do it alone," the Doctor said. The women looked at him, silently agreeing to wait for him to explain when they saw the uncharacteristically serious expression he wore. "You've set yourself a goal, one that's worth achieving. That's good. But over time, it's easy to lose sight of your goal, or to keep sight of it but lose sight of the right path to follow. It's why I've had companions, and mostly young female ones: they're less afraid to ask questions, less invested in looking strong, and more open in expressing their emotions. Which means that I learn from what they don't know. I learn to recognize strength in what some see as weakness. And I learn all over again that this universe—all universes—are beautiful, wondrous places. Some Loopers lose that by sealing themselves away from non-Loopers, being afraid to lose them over and over again because no matter how used to it they think they are, it will always— _always_ —hurt when they're gone. That's a mistake. Find at least one person in each Loop to whom this is all new and magical. Doesn't matter if they're Looping or not, as long as they can still see that. Because as long as they can see, so can you. And believe me, it's much, much harder to lose your way, or yourself, when you have that. And when the inevitable day comes that you do lose that, they can help you find your way back. And when you have to cross a line you'd thought uncrossable because the alternative is even worse, they will help you see that no matter how much you may regret your actions, that you did so because you considered your future suffering to be less important than the present suffering of those you acted to protect."

* * *

Many Loops later, with a world burning around her, Elena remembered that conversation. She looked over at the approaching army and knew that she had only two options: obliterate it completely or allow the eventual genocide of everything before them. Sauron had moved too quickly and too viciously this time, from what Olorin said. Lothlorien still stood, but was surrounded. Rivendell was behind them, and was the last bastion of defense. She had one last spell, and it was not a spell that could be aimed. If she cast it, everyone on the battlefield would die, no matter their side; she would have more blood on her hands than she ever dreamed possible. If she didn't... they were losing, badly outnumbered. Rivendell would fall, and the armies would march to the sea, and the deaths of any in their way would be...

"No."

She looked down at Samwise Gamgee, who had clung to her after Frodo's death. Through his eyes she had seen the Shire and the world as it should have been. As it would be again, although they wouldn't get to see it. Sam just nodded at her.

"Some things are worth dying for, Miss Elena," he said. "Reckon there's not a man—not a one out there who'd care to argue that."

She nodded, beginning the preparation for her Final Strike. She saw the Nazgul head for her; they'd never reach her in time. And as she set the spell loose, the Doctor's Oath echoed again in her ears.

" _Never be cruel or cowardly, and if you are, always make amends. Never give up; never give in. And above all... always, always remember that each world, each Loop, has something worth saving. Go save it._ "

* * *

24.11 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

The sound of thunder echoed throughout the house. In a panic, Bill raced up the stairs, and charged into the room where the sound came from.

Riley's room.

Currently it was a mess, furniture spread about from the force released within, with Riley in the center comically colored a dull gray. "Riley," her father scolded, Riley turning around to face her father. "What have we said about practicing magic?"

"Don't cast Red Spells in the house?"

"Good."

_-Headquarters-_

"Why do we even know how to cast Lightning Bolt?" Disgust asked.

Joy shrugged. "Something about it being a spell every Red caster knows?"

* * *

24.12 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [My Little Pony] (previously compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 172.3) (Note: This Loop, and its continuation, are set before loop 20.4)

Riley blinked Awake, glancing around her room. "Okay guys, what's the plan for this loop?" she whispered under her breath.

_Hold on, mysterious voice, we're still getting our loop memories--_

The young girl winced and clutched her head as the sound of hundreds of marbles reverberated through it. If she could have thought through the haze, she might have questioned the whole 'mysterious voice' comment.

Thankfully, though, the headache went away as quickly as it came.

_...okay, I can get us being emotional avatars in another consciousness,_ a voice only she could hear groused. _But why am **I** Sadness?_

_Process of elimination, I think. Sweetroll as Joy and Seapony as Anger is obvious, then Thief as Disgust because sometimes science is just creepy, and really a pony wouldn't be good for Fear so I wound up with that._

"Um... hello?"

_There's that voice again..._ The new voice gasped. _Wait--Riley?! Can you hear us?!_

Riley rolled her eyes. "I'm the loop anchor. Welcome to my mind, I guess. Who are you?"

_Oh! I can take this one!_ The eager voice was accompanied by a sudden burst of amusement; probably whoever was replacing Joy. _"Hi, we're all Lyra Heartstrings! Well, kind of sort of. I'm Sweetroll, and then there's Pony and Seapony and Human and ThiefScientistMiscellaneousOriginal. I'm taking Joy, Pony's sadness, Seapony's anger--_

"I heard you talking before. I think I can get that... hold on. You're all Lyra?"

_Dissociative Loop Identity Disorder,_ came the voice with a twinge of sass. _I accidentally broke my loop with a mirror and a time machine, so when I was activated I got a lot more loop memories than usual every loop. After a while, I made these guys to sort through it all--_

_Quick question,_ interjected a sour tone. _Do we have to act like our emotion all the time? Because I'm feeling a compulsion to mope, which just isn't me..._

"No, you can be whoever you want to be. But whenever you touch the console, I feel the appropriate emotion."

_Wait, hold on,_ a nervous voice asked. _Are you saying that **we're** responsible for your mental health?!_

"...pretty much, yeah."

_Well shoo-be-featherin'-do. You're **screwed**._

_Oh come on, you two!_ chirped... Sweetroll, right? _Having a little bit of crazy is perfectly healthy—!_

_Whoa, hey, why are you banging on the keys?!_ demanded... the one with a lot of names.

_I just want her to be happy with us! I mean we're going to be stuck here for a full loop..._

Riley's growing grin was suddenly replaced by an annoyed frown. _Well, don't force it. Just... act naturally, okay Sweetroll? Sorry about that Riley._

"You may want to get your own hand off the console," the young girl replied.

_Wha-OH!_ Her annoyance vanished. _Sorry about that. We're not used to having a jungian psychology setup..._

* * *

24.13 (DrTempo; kingofsouls): [My Little Pony] / [Kingdom Hearts] (previously compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 172.7)

Sunset Awoke during a class. She'd been at Canterlot High for so many Loops she could do the classwork in her sleep. One time, she literally had done just that. Considering how boring this teacher was, she was tempted to do it again.

"We have new students joining us at CHS," the teacher said. Next to her stood the students in question. The trio consisted of a dark brown skinned boy with brown hair; a second boy who looked younger than the first; he had green skin and blond hair that clashed with his skin; and a girl who had blue skin and light blue hair. They waved hello to their new classmates "Allow me to introduce Earth Shaker, Wayward Wind and Rainfall. They just moved into town, so please help them feel at home."

The three took their seats soon after. Wayward Wind sat next to Sunset, while Earth Shaker and Rainfall found a pair of seats in the back.

"Hey," he said, extending a hand towards Sunset.

"Hey yourself," Sunset said back; in her mind, she already had an idea as to who these new students were. "So, new in town?"

"Just moved in today," came the answer. "I'm looking forward to seeing everything here."

"I've lived here for a while." Sunset laughed mentally; when she meant 'a while', it was actually about thousands of years at least. "I could show you and your two friends around. Maybe after school?"

"That sounds great." Wayward Wind smiled.

"Glad to hear it, Ventus."

Wayward Wind's, Earth Shaker's, and Rainfall's jaws dropped, their mouths dangling for all to see.

"How did she..?" wondered Earth Shaker.

Before he could finish asking, Sunset cut him off. "Meet me on the soccer field at lunch. I'll explain there."

* * *

At the soccer field, the trio were curious. Ven asked, "How did you know our..."

Sunset summoned her Keyblade, and Rainfall — or rather, Aqua — facepalmed. "Oh yeah. Mickey told us about you."

Sunset smiled. It was nice to hear her old friend remembered her after all these years.

"Glad to see you three are Looping. I did always want to meet you," Sunset explained and added, "Since we're here, how about a sparring session? I'll only use my abilities from your Branch, and you can fight however you want. If you guys knock me out, you win. If I knock you three out, or you yield, I win."

Terra chuckled. "You're dealing with three Keyblade Masters, Sunset."

At this, Sunset raised an eyebrow.

Aqua replied, "Terra managed to pass the Mark of Mastery soon after we first Awoke. And Ven actually impressed Eraqus enough to take the Mark of Mastery with me and Terra one Loop."

Sunset shrugged. "Makes sense, considering how skilled Ventus was during that last battle." She breathed in and grinned. "Okay... LET'S DANCE!"

* * *

The four warriors summoned their Keyblades; as Sunset waited for her opponents to strike, she felt like something was targeting her.

"Oh crap..." And then the first attack was launched. A barrage of blasts flew towards Sunset as she braced herself for the onslaught.

The trio, having fired their ultimate Shotlocks, watched as the smoke cleared. They were shocked to see Sunset still standing, not even a scratch on her.

Dusting her clothes off, she smirked. "My turn. METEOR!"

Aqua quickly formed a barrier, blocking the spell. Then, just as the barrier fell, Terra charged right at Sunset and used his Ars Solum attack. Sunset readied her Keyblade and parried the flurry of blows, the blades striking against each other with lightning-fast speed. With the final strike, he leapt backwards to avoid a counter of Sunset's. Just as Sunset readied herself to chase him, Ventus leapt in, unleashing an Ars Arcanum combo. Sunset dodged—the blade just missing her—turned her Keyblade into a whip, and aimed her strike for Aqua. The mage-knight did not react in time; the whip coiled around her leg and trapped her. Ven growled, his priorities shifting.

"Hey Sunset! FAITH!"

Sunset had to dodge out of the way of the mighty blast of light as it approached her, which caused her to have to let go of Aqua's leg and return her Keyblade to its normal form. The mage responded with a Seeker Mine spell, but to her surprise, Sunset managed to deftly dodge the homing attack. However, with Sunset distracted, Terra leapt at Sunset, intending to finish the fight with one mighty strike. The attack apparently hit home; Terra smirked.

Unluckily for him, Sunset managed to block it with her bare hands, which left him utterly shocked at the feat of strength. Terra was tossed away, hitting the ground. As he shook off the dirt, a clearly angry Ven, his face having a very angry look on it, used a Tornado spell, only for Sunset to dodge that as well, the attack eventually fading away. By now, the trio were getting annoyed at how things were going; every attack they had used was countered or blocked. Terra slammed his fist into the ground, not happy that they were being so easily defeated.

Sunset yawned, saying, "That all you got?"

Aqua soon realized, We can't just attack. She'll dodge or counter. She's just too experienced.

Terra wasn't one to give up, and as Sunset landed a Meteor Crash attack on Ven—who ended up getting hit by the rain of meteors and knocked off his feet—he decided to end this.

"DARK HAZE!" He surrounded himself with darkness and charged right at Sunset, hoping to land the strike that'd end this duel.

However, Sunset saw the attack coming and blocked Terra's attack with ease. As he was hit with a counterattack, Aqua frowned at his choice of attack; even now, after they had Awoken, Aqua was still worried about Terra overusing the power of darkness. In response, Terra shrugged, saying, "Ok, I got frustrated."

Sunset had taken this moment to set up a big attack. Darkness surrounded her, and she yelled, "DARK AURA!"

The trio quickly got out of the way of an onslaught of attacks as Sunset charged at them several times; she ended by slamming into the ground, dark energy flowing around her. The trio were knocked back by the attack, all three having taken a lot of damage.

The trio healed their injuries, and realized it was all or nothing. As if enacting an unspoken plan, the trio yelled out together, "MEGA FLARE!"

Sunset barely summoned a barrier in time, but the attack still did a lot of damage when the three powerful fire spells left a large flame in the blast zone.

Nothing a Curaga spell couldn't heal, though, which Sunset cast after the flames disappeared. As the healing spell ended, Sunset looked at her opponents only to see they had dispelled their Keyblades. Terra frowned, looking unhappy with the result, and said, "We yield."

* * *

As the trio caught their breath, Sunset offered them a Mega-Potion. Ven grabbed it, saying, "Thanks. I admit we stood no chance."

Sunset smiled. "I've been Looping for millennia. Heck, my long series of Fused Loops when I began Looping put me into many Branches that emphasized battle. I had to become skilled."

Aqua frowned. "Did all that fighting affect you?"

Sunset smirked. "I enjoy a good fight, true. But I haven't lost sight of the values of Equestria. I've always believed that people can change and become better people. But I also know that some people just won't listen."

Terra nodded in agreement. "Like Xehanort." Clenching his teeth, he took a breath. "Sorry. Considering what he's done..."

Sunset shrugged. "Well then, how about some training? I've wanted a chance to learn the techniques you guys have."

Aqua laughed. "Don't expect us to go easy on you, Sunset."

"I won't go easy on you, either."

* * *

24.14 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out]

"Hey Mom, I'm home," Riley greeted with a casual wave.

Her mother gave her a mock frown. "It usually doesn't take this long for you to walk home after school lets out. Where were you?"

"I was most definitely not in the adult video store on fifth street," Riley explained with a grin.

Jill's eyes shot wide. "Wh- _Adult video store?_ You went _there_?!"

"I just said I didn't. You can go ask them for their security tapes, if you like!"

The elder woman was clearly trying to figure out if her daughter was telling the truth, seeking some sort of answer in her daughter's wide smirk. "I... Okay, then HOW do you know there's an adult video store on fifth street?!"

"Saw it when we were driving to San Francisco. So do you want me to help you out with dinner?"

* * *

24.15 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out]

_Hey Riley?_

_Yeah Joy?_

_Why are we octopi?_

_Chalk it up to loop weirdness._ Riley tried to shrug, but ended up merely oscillating her webbing.

_I have a better question,_ Fear interjected, raising himself. _Why is it we're your arms instead of just in your head?_

_I remember reading somewhere that octopus arms each have their own sub-brain,_ Sadness offered. _That could explain things._

_But that only counts for five arms!_ Anger yelled. _Who's controlling the other three?!_

Riley ran over her loop memories. _Well... that one seems to be Surprise..._

_ohmigoshtimeloopohmigoshbipedohmigoshmindscape_

_...then there's this one, which... I think is Curiosity?_

_Sounds about right,_ the wayward arm agreed. _Actually, how did a direction come to mean correct anyway?_

_And then..._ Riley eyed her last arm warily.

_Come on, let's go find a male,_ it purred. _How many times in these loops do you get to be the tentacle monster? I'm sure that octopuses have very, very intense sessions of HRUK!_

Disgust strangled Lust tightly. _The only reason I'm not ripping you out RIGHT NOW is because it would probably kill us!_

* * *

24.1: A combination of two Loops, since both were too good to not use. This combined snip has been approved by both original authors.

24.2: Sorry, Anger, but the earworms stay. (Note: That final scene where Skuld confirmed they wouldn't stick is mine, added long after the fact.)

24.3: Not really sure what to say.

24.4: Apparently, Finn loses his sword a LOT.

24.5: Be afraid, 40K Loopers.

24.6: Er... yeah.

24.7: Can't say I blame you, Mickey.

24.8: ... Run. Run very fast.

24.9 / 24.10: Interesting one.

24.11: Always good advice.

24.12: Callback! And now we know why Riley's emotions were mad at Lyra in 20.7...

24.13: And so Sunset meets three more Loopers from her Formative universe.

24.14: Riley, sometimes you can be a little troll...

24.15: Needless to say, these last two Emotions are variant-only characters and won't last beyond the reset.


	42. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Five

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2017-12-30. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Five**

25.1 (Masterweaver): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [My Little Pony] (previously compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 173.23)

"Ah, Equestria! Learned about the loops here, you know."

Sea Swan, elsewhen known as Elizabeth, tilted her head. "I thought Poseidon gave you the looping speech."

"Aye. Then I got so blind drunk I forgot it, so he arranged for me to be dumped in here. Don't let the colorful ponies fool ya." Sparrow Jack, elsewhen known as OY YOU!, gave her a broad grin. "There's debauchery aplenty if you know where to look. Case in point!"

The brown stallion's hoof swung to indicate a red barn. "Looks ordinary, don't it. Sure, maybe they'd make some drinks here, but you'd think that servin' them would happen elsewhere." He smirked as his hoof pointed at a particular cellar door. "Down there, though, lies one of the most skilled bar-mixers in the multiverse, and if rumor is to be believed, she's shackin' up with a chaos spirit."

Sea Swan rose an eyebrow. "You're going to go in."

"No, lass. _We're_ goin' to go in."

* * *

25.2 (Leviticus Wilkes): [Star vs. The Forces of Evil]

Princess Star Butterfly, heir apparent to kingdom of Mewni, vanquisher of evil, wielder of the magic wand, nacho lover, friend of Marco Diaz and all in all happy girl...

Sighed.

...Nah, just kidding.

"Rainbow sparkle narwhal blast!" Star cried, sending a stray monster in her evil villain Ludo's employ flying. The frog, named Buff Frog because he was a buff frog, crashed into Giant Chicken, a giant chicken monster. Mace Hands (take a wild guess) ran straight at Star to replace Buff Frog. Star grinned evilly. "Laser puppy storm!"

Mace Hands was buried beneath a mountain of laser puppies. Ludo and his entourage of evil monsters decided now was a good time to throw in the towel.

Star spun her wand in her hand and blew a little smoke wafting from it and grinned at her parents, King and Queen Butterfly of Mewni. "So, I can handle the wand. Please can I go to Earth? Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease!?!"

King Butterfly looked at Queen Butterfly. "She did handle the wand well and we did say she could study abroad."

Queen Butterfly harrumphed. "I'd rather we send her to St. Olga's Academy for Wayward Princesses."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Star screamed.

"Now now honey, we made a promise," King Butterfly said. He produced a pair of magical scissors and cut a hole in the fabric of their dimension. "Star, since you have demonstrated proficiency with the Magic Wand, and because we promised it, you can go from the magical world of Mewni to... eh..." King Butterfly looked into the portal. "Hearth? No, Earth. You may go to Earth."

"Loveyouboth,later,bye!" Star said, grabbing her luggage and leaping through the portal. A moment later, she leaned back into her home dimension. "Uh, can I have some gold and jewels for a bribe, I mean, allowance?"

* * *

Marco Diaz, green belt (with a stripe) in karate, average Latin American boy, voted safest guy in the school, secret crusher on Jackie Lynn-Thompson, and all around nice guy really did sigh. You'd be unfailingly depressed and would absolutely be considering how quickly and painlessly you could kill yourself if you were in high school too.

The intercom for Echo Creek High crackled, bringing Marco out of his funk. "Marco Diaz to the main office please," the principal said.

Marco ran like his life depended on it. Star was here, and occasionally, running was an appropriate response to her antics.

Outside the main office, there was the principal (with his chest of gold and jewels as bribe, I mean, payment for hosting Star) and Star herself, standing, smiling, and-

"Narwhal blast!"

Narwhal blasting him.

Marco watched the unfortunate aquatic mammal soar straight by him. _'Hmm. Star's aim is usually really good. Why would she miss?'_

_'Wait, did Star just narwhal blast me!?!'_

Star waved at Marco. "Hi Marco! I'm Star Butterfly, a magical princess from another dimension."

Marco stared at his friend of over four lifetimes. "Why were you doing that?"

Star smiled and shrugged cutely. "I wanted to get the magical roomy out of the way really quickly."

Marco's eye twitched. "No. No no no no NO! That's not what you did last time! That's not what you're supposed to do at all! You're supposed to not even show me magic until I say I want danger! This isn't right!"

Star stared at Marco. "Marco say what now?"

Marco nearly ripped his hair out. "The last four times we did this you weren't like this! Something's-" Marco came to a dead halt.

Star smiled suddenly. "Time travel?"

"You... You're time traveling to?" Marco said.

"Fifth time!" Star sang.

The principal coughed into his hand. "Well now, since you're both acquainted, I guess I will be on my way. Also, Marco, you'll be hosting Star at your house." The principal ran for it. "Hasta la bye bye!"

Star and Marco were alone. Marco grinned awkwardly. "So, you're in the Groundhog Time thing too?"

"Oh yeah. You showed me that movie by the way. Do you remember that?"

"I've never watched it with you."

"Huh."

Marco smiled. "So, I've done this four times."

Star held up her fingers. "Five times for me."

"After the wand got cleaved?"

"After the wand got cleaved. Wanna kick Toffee's butt?"

"Oh yeah."

Then, a buff frog appeared between them. Buff Frog pointed at Star. "You, hand over dee wand, and you won't get hurt."

Buff Frog went flying. Marco grinned. "Did I mention that I earned a black belt in karate?"

A three eyed giant baby, named Three Eyed Giant Baby, showed up behind Marco and screamed at him. He went flying. Star grinned. "Did I mention I mastered the Narwhal Blast?"

Ludo, the tiny kappa monster, appeared with his usual band of monsters. "Get that wand!"

Star and Marco fell against each other, side to side, ready to rumble. "Marco."

"Yeah Star?"

"I love fighting monsters."

"Ooh yeah."

* * *

25.2 (Leviticus Wilkes): [Star vs. The Forces of Evil]

Star popped into Earth. "Oh Marco?"

The students in Marco's class stared at the magical princess from another dimension who had just walked into the classroom. Marco Diaz was among them. "Yes?"

"I'm a magical princess from another dimension." Star leaned in as the customary flaming rainbow showed up. "Ring any bells?"

Marco ran from the room.

"We got a runner!" Star cried, racing after Marco.

* * *

Marco met up with the principal of Echo Creek High, and Star, who was mystified by the water fountain and trying to attack it. Marco smiled. "Hey Star, want to see a magic trick?"

Star almost flew over to Marco. "Do I?"

Marco held up his hands, wrapped his thumb in a grip, and "pulled" it apart from his hand. "I can remove my thumbs."

"Ooh," the naive Star said.

* * *

25.4 (StormrangerDraconis): [Disney] / [Bar Loop]

As Donald waddled into the House of Mouse, Mickey could instantly tell something was off.

"Donald, were you practicing the 'Dreamworks Face' again?" the Disney mascot said sternly. "You know none of us here had enough time on-"

The named duck suddenly began throwing a fit. "WAK! NONONONONONO!"

Having tired himself out about a minute later, Donald slumped over the bar: "Spent the past dozen Loops over in the Dreamworks Cluster, and I somehow strained my facial muscles."

Mickey dropped the accusatory glare before pulling a shot glass out. "I'm assuming they tried helping?" he asked, conversationally.

"Po and his friends tried. Unfortunately, they had the wrong charts on the nervous system."

* * *

25.5 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_Riley was running as fast as she could, her breath heavy and ragged. The moon-lit forest that she was running through was a reflection of the monster that she ran from: twisted and pulsing with ill intent. So thick was the dread, the feeling of ill intent that even the moonlight seemed to cower from the darkness that pursued her._

_No, it wasn't the darkness._

_Even the darkness feared it._

_It was the void. One that Riley was all too familiar with, and wished to never see again._

_The trees became thicker, their branches weaving across one another and blocking her path. Riley charged ahead, ducking and weaving as she avoided the obstacles ahead. As she ran, she felt her body tire, burning with pain and begging for a single moment of rest it could never have._

_To her surprise, the trees began to clear, what was once thick and insurmountable now thinning out into clear passage away from the horror behind. A dirt road was present, leading her to who knew where, but since it was anywhere but here and here was a pretty bad place to be, Riley started to race down the dirt road._

_Anywhere but here was where she wanted to be._

_Her ragged breath was the only sound she heard as she ran towards her unseen goal, never daring to look behind her. She did not care what lay ahead, only that whatever caused this would end._

_If only it was that easy._

_From out of the darkness came her destination: A cliff. Riley skid to a stop, dust flowing upwards as Riley slowed down. The dust and pebbles that Riley disturbed fell off the cliff, and Riley looked down._

_The cliff stood above a pit that never ended, the ground below so far away that none could see it._

_If there was a ground at the bottom..._

_Riley steeled herself, and turned around, her only option as she had just ran out of road._

_And then the void stared back._

* * *

_-Reality-_

Riley shot up, screaming louder than she ever screamed before. Her pajama was drenched in her sweat, the sensation uncomfortable in more ways than one. Slowly, the darkness in the room became more pronounced yet in a comforting way; familiar objects and trappings in her room became known to her as her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness.

Riley's thoughts then wandered to the visage that haunted her ever since that fateful day in Arcadia.

She violently shuddered, tightening the grip her blankets had on her.

The nightmare had returned.

Again.

Thankfully, even in the deepest darkness, Riley was never alone.

"Riley!" the familiar voice of Disgust echoed across the link between Riley's thoughts and her emotions. "Please tell me you're okay."

"Yea, I think so." returned Riley. "I had another one, didn't I?"

" _Afraid so, girl. Would have hit the Awake button sooner but_ someone _fainted._ "

" _Hey, in my defense it was a scary nightmare! You would have done the same._ "

" _Okay, until Riley stops having these nightmares you are not allowed on dream duty Fear."_

" _Best news I've heard all week._ "

Before Riley could retort, her door opened, and Bill and Jill rushed in, fear on their faces. "Riley!" Jill was the first to reach their daughter, and quickly wrapped her arms around Riley. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Riley paused for a moment before answering with a meek "Yeah. I'm okay."

* * *

_-Headquarters-_

Disgust watched through the Mind's Eye for a moment before walking away from the console. Sadness (the only other emotion Awake besides herself) walked up behind her, gently placing her hands on it and letting her influence drift into Riley. Psycho Joy watched from her spot in the back, straight-jacketed and tied to a dolly. Anger rolled his eyes as he began to free her from her prison just in case she was needed.

If there was ever any time Riley needed Sadness more, now was it.

With a huff, Disgust slumped onto Anger's couch in a most unladylike manner. Before she could properly relax, Fear walked up next to her, more ashamed in his inability to protect Riley from the nightmare than fear of the Slenderman that plagued her dreams. "Alright," Fear slowly began. "I may not understand this whole time loop thing, but I'm guessing that this Slenderman nightmare thing has happened before."

"Afraid so." Disgust huffed. "Riley used to have them every night after..." she shuddered as she struggled to stop remembering that fateful Loop. "... _it_ happened."

Fear nodded in agreement. "At least it's just nightmares."

Anger then joined them, grumpier than usual as Psycho Joy (who had strangely done nothing disruptive towards her perceived image of a happy Riley. Apparently even Psycho Joy knew when was a bad time to be annoying) bounced her way behind the couch, leaning on it's back and dangling her head over Anger's. "Well, everybody," Anger huffed. "I for one wish death to that monster that was in Riley's nightmare."

"You and the rest of the Multiverse," Disgust grumbled back.

"Uh guys?" Psycho Joy announced. "Mom and Dad are leaving."

It was true: The visage of Bill and Jill returning to their rooms graced the Mind's Eye, turning off the lights and returning Riley's room to darkness lit only by glow-in-the-dark stars. Quickly getting off the couch as quickly as she sat down into it, Disgust raced over to join up with Sadness whom was still manning the console, Anger, Fear, and Psycho Joy slowly following her.

Disgust shrugged as she manned the console, Sadness and Riley's short conversation quickly ending as fast at it began as Riley channeled Blue mana for a sleep spell to return to sleep quickly. First thing in the morning she was going to pay a visit to Dream Productions and give them a piece of her mind.

* * *

25.6 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

_-Reality-_

Riley was sitting at the kitchen table, doing her homework of the day, which in and of itself was now mind-numbing tedious given that she had an entire section of her mind that stored the answers to any assignment she would encounter in Baseline and in some cases Variants, when it happened.

One moment, peace and quiet. The next, a headache with the force of a jackhammer.

Jackhammer was probably the most accurate way to describe it because it felt like the headache was starting to echo, compounding the pain.

Riley shook her head, and quickly got out her Mind Machine. She didn't feel comfortable using Blue magic at this point, since the last time she tried to use it to dive into her mind without the machine ended in Eiken.

* * *

_-Headquarters-_

Riley popped into existence, and was shocked at what she saw.

Headquarters was a mess. Memory Orbs, papers, cups... you name it, it was on the floor being a part of a mess that seemed to span all of Headquarters.

"What..." Riley started to ask. She was interrupted by a yellow blur rushing towards her, grabbing her before Riley could process what was happening.

"Oh my gosh Riley, I'm _sooooooooo_ sorry! I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened!"

"Joy... what happened?"

Releasing her most favorite person in the world, Joy smiled one of those awkward 'please don't ground me pretty please' looks you would give your mother. Or at the very least the closest equivalent one would give the human you lived in. "Well, it's one of those really weird stories that don't really sound like it could ever happen, and then you try doing it because it's never going to happen, but then you're really really surprised when it happens."

"Aren't we time travelers?" Riley countered. "We've seen strange stuff already, like when Dad was a pro-wrestler."

"Oh yeah, that was hilarious!" laughed Joy. "I guess that's true. Okay, well... this happened." Joy then held up a small red rubber ball.

Riley was not impressed. "...Really?"

"That's what I thought!" Joy replied. "I didn't even throw it that hard, I threw it gently like this, and." Before Joy could stop herself, she gently threw the ball at the floor (at least, the small part of it that wasn't covered in stuff).

As soon as the ball hit the ground, it shot straight up faster than it ever should have been. It hit the ceiling, ricocheting off of it and into a shelf, knocking out some of the memories that were still on it before flying off in another angle over and over again.

Riley then immediately gripped her head as the ball bounced like a hyperactive rocket all over her mind, the pain returning with a vengeance.

Realizing what she done, Joy gulped. "...ooops."

* * *

25.7 (Hvulpes): [Frozen]

Elsa and Anna were in the Hub on the East Coast of North America, when the news reported: Snowmageddon 2016!

Anna looked at her sister with a smirk. Elsa told her, "It's not my fault... this time. Not like 2013."

"Still... Snowmageddon would make a great supervillain name for you." Anna said before getting pelted by a small snowball.

* * *

25.8 (wildrook): [National Treasure)

When one sets out on a treasure hunt, their excitement tends to vary. For non-Loopers and pirates, it's all about the money one could make. For archaeologists, it's about the amount of history one could learn from what's contained there.

But for Loopers, the location and clues tend to vary from Loop to Loop. So for all Benjamin, Riley, and Abigail would know, the treasure map could be the back of the Constitution and the Location could be either the Pentagon, the White House, or where the World Trade Center used to be.

The set of clues they had this Loop had brought them to Watergate, of all places.

"Of all the places we could be," Riley muttered, "the scandal involving Richard Nixon had to be the location of the next clue."

"I know, Riley," Benjamin replied, "but our only saving grace is that the map this time is more straightforward. Although I seriously doubt Watergate had any significance for my ancestors."

Abigail gave them a look. "Well," she said, "I'm just glad I found you guys before I nearly got kidnapped by Ian again. Which reminds me, if we're looking for the next clue, now would be a good time."

Benjamin gave her a look. "Ian?" She gave out a nod. "Luckily, this room has been empty for a while. Turns out the previous owner had taken care of Leader Dole before the 1993 election. That, and better to find a needle in a haystack."

"Hiding in plain sight," Riley muttered. "But we all know that Ian's going to find your Dad in order to lure you out. That's a bit of a bummer."

Benjamin knew that as he brought out the glasses to look for the next clue. They had to work fast this Loop.

* * *

25.9 (ScyBlade): [Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]

When Eddy Valiant entered her bar, Dolores knew something was up. "Eddy, I know that look. You're planning something."

"Actually, it's not something, but somethings." Eddy proceeded to drop a file folder onto the counter. "That's Judge Doom's records. The ones saying he's human."

Dolores gave him The Stare. It was a pretty good The Stare. It'd rate a .9 on the Fluttershy scale. "Hey, I got those through perfectly legal means. I just need you to keep those safe until after I've done my things." The Stare intensified to a 1 on the scale.

"Don't worry Dolores, when Eddy told me what he was planning, I knew it would work." Roger reassured her. "Besides," Roger leaned in closer to whisper something into her ear, "he's been to 'Space Jam'." The eyes of Dolores widened, knowing what that meant due to being Awake. She then proceeded to pull Roger under the counter. She had heard a noise. One indicating someone entering her establishment.

"Judge Doom, what a... something... to see you," Eddy said with a tone of amusement.

"Don't waste my time Valiant. I have information that the Rabbit is here." Doom sneered. "It would be everyone's benefit if you simply let me do my job." Doom then looked down at the squeaking noise he heard.

While putting on a black rubber glove, Doom began to say, "Since I've had Toontown under my jurisdiction my goal has been to reign in the insanity. And the only way to do that is to make Toons respect..." letting the glove snap back onto his arm to emphasize his point, "the Law." Doom proceeded to pick up the shoe, and take it to the van. Inside is a barrel that Doom violently throws the lid off of, revealing a bubbling green liquid. As he was about to Dip the Shoe, Eddy grabbed Doom's gloved arm.

"Mr. Valiant, kindly unhand me-"

"Yeah, yeah I know normally what I just did would constitute 'Assault and Battery', but not when I'm stopping someone from breaking the Law. And you can't make people, or toons for that matter, respect something you don't respect yourself. I should know." Eddy remarked.

Doom glared. "In what way was I not respecting the Law, Mr. Valiant?"

"Well, I got two words for ya, 'Sucker Punch'." Which he proceeded to do. Valiant got what he expected, Doom's head raising several feet. Which would raised questions about if he was a toon or not, if his mask had stretched with him. Since it didn't everyone saw his very toony neck. Which Valiant proceeded to grab, allowing him easy access to Doom's mask when his head snapped back like a rubber band. Eddy then ripped the mask off. "Nice mask, you dirty brother killer."

"So you found me out, did you now?" Doom's voice was noticeably higher pitched now. "Yes, I did kill your brother, but good luck stopping me from getting away."

With his back turned to Doom, Eddy proceeded to speak. "It's a beautiful day outside. birds are singing, flowers are blooming... on days like these, toons like you..." He turned to Doom, but both of his eyes were shaded hiding them. "should be burning in hell." Valiant's left eye glowed an eerie blue.

* * *

25.10 (HarmonyChaos): [Fablehaven] / [Percy Jackson]

Kendra Woke up staring at a manticore as he snuck up on a kid with a sword.

"Behind you!" she cried in alarm. However, the kid didn't even need her warning as he dodged the stinger, which crashed into a wall, then both the manticore and the boy with the sword began to look around in confusion. But why? She felt Seth grab her arm and then realized that he used his Shadowcharmer abilities. As they ran she took the time to go through her memories and to drag Seth along as they walked away from the two combatants.

Apparently they was taken from a hotel at a young age, sent to stay here, and the manticore's name was Dr. Thorn.

They re-entered the ballroom and closed the door. Only to come across two girls and a boy on crutches. She debated going back but a roar stopped her, and one of the girls pulled them along.

"Come on!" she said as they struggled. "If we don't leave now we're all dead."

"First of all, who are you?" Seth asked. "Second, where are you taking us?"

"We're taking you someplace where people like us live." the girl pulling them said. "My name is Thalia."

"My name's Annabeth," the girl next to her said. "That's Grover." pointing at the other guy. "You've probably met Percy... Where is he anyway?"

"Is he a guy with a sword?" Seth asked.

"Yup." Grover said.

"Last I saw he was in a fight against Dr. Thorn." Kendra said.

"He'll be fine." they said simultaneously.

* * *

**At camp**

Percy walked up to the Hermes cabin as he smiled at the other campers. He really did love it here.

When he opened the door he saw the girl and boy he rescued.

"Hey there, you okay?" he asked.

"Oh. Yeah, totally fine. We just got told that the Greek Gods and Goddess exist. Lucky it's just for however long this loop goes on for."

"Uh, hate to break it to you but they- wait did you just say loop?"

"Kendra!" Seth said fake shock was on his face. "I thought that I would be the one to spill the beans, not you!"

"Look I'm just sick of not having any answers, and what if we're trapped here, never to see our parents, or grandparents-" she was cut off by Percy hugging her.

"Shhh" he said, rubbing her head. "Everything is going to be okay. How many loops have you gone through?"

"200. Not counting this one." she said.

"I've only done 10. Which includes this one."Seth said.

Percy winced. "Here I got something that'll help ease you into all this." He pulled the manual out of his Pocket and gave it to Seth.

"Whoa!" Seth said. "Tell me how you did that!"

"All in due time. First read up on it."

Seth opened the book to find... that nothing made sense. It was all jumbled up letters and words. "Hey! What gives?"

"Whoops gave you the wrong one. That's for mortals. This is the Ancient Greek version." Percy said as he took the book back then gave him the right book. "If that doesn't work I've got a Latin book you can have."

* * *

25.11 (Evilhumour): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [Kantai Collection]

"And _that_ missy, is how I,-" the pirate captain was stopped telling his tale to Will Turner and his feisty wife when a voice called out.

"JACK SPARROW!" a fierce looking woman shouted, storming over the trio. Before any of them could react, the woman did something very familiar and slapped the pirate across the face. She then did something very unusual and pulled the dirty pirate into a tight kiss. She then slapped him again, _glaring_ at him.

"Um, do I know you lass?" Jack asked, rubbing his face and blinking slowly.

"Do you _know_ me!?" She huffed, slapping him again before spitting onto the floor. Turning to the other two loopers, she snapped, "After all the time together and all the times he _lost_ me, he has the _nerve_ to ask who I _AM!_ " She then kicked Jack in the leg, causing the pirate to curse and hop around as he held his knee.

"Wait a tic," Jack paused, tilting his head. "You _do_ seem familiar to me, which is saying something."

"I _better_ ," the woman glared before turning to _glare_ at Elizabeth. "And if you _dare_ try to sink me again, I swear I will knock your pretty head off!"

"By the code, are you..." Jack gulped, "Are you my ship?"

" _Yes!_ " She groaned, showing her rigging to the trio before grabbing Jack's ear. "Now _you_ will tell me _why_ I remember you back in the past and _how_ you three are alive now!" Dragging the cursing pirate away as Black Pearl let out a string of curses, the couple were struggling to keep their amusements to their faces.

* * *

25.12 (kingofsouls): [Inside Out]

Riley ran down the stairs in a hurry like a crashing tide. "Dad! Dad!"

Bill's attention was soon Riley's, her father taking his eyes off the television. "What's up monkey?"

"Dad, you know how we're a movie in the Hub?" Riley asked.

"Yes, why?"

"Look what it got!" Riley then reached into her Pocket, and revealed a golden statue of a man.

_Bill's Headquarters_

Bill's Anger leaned towards the Mind's Eye. "Is that... an Oscar?"

"Oh my God it is an Oscar!" Bill's Disgust exclaimed. "Our movie won an Oscar!"

Bill's Joy wasted no time raising the "elated joy" levels to ten.

* * *

25.13 (TangleKat): [Peter Pan]

Peter Pan, prior to the Loops, had never been one for memory. All experiences were instantly lost to the mire of eternal childhood, opening the way for new things to happen. As such, it had taken a while to adapt to being able to remember things clearly.

There was also the matter of the multiple different "selves" he had been throughout his many... was the term Sub-Branches? If it wasn't, he rather liked the term. Either way, he had experienced many different personalities over the countless years. Some had been familiar and easy to slip into – like that one where he had dark hair and dressed in autumn colours – and others far more confusing – like the many times he had to put up with those silly tights and the stupid hat.

But by far the hardest was always the grown-up loops. The ones where he was a married man with two children; it had certainly been a shock for him, receiving all of those Loop Memories all at once. That wasn't to say that he wasn't fond of Jack or Maggie or Rufio or Don't Ask or Thud-Butt or Pockets or all the rest of his new Lost Boys. It was simply that Peter was an Eternal Child – The Boy Who Never Grew Up. So it was rather disconcerting to find that yes, at one point, he might have become a Grown-Up.

Over time, Peter's own personality had begun to change. It assimilated aspects of all his other selves – the good-natured trickster with the stupid hat, the grown-up... It had happened to some of the other inhabitants of Neverland as well, regardless of whether they were Awake (and none of them ever were) or not. Tinkerbell could speak fluent English, had a Talent for fixing things, and was generally some-what sort of nicer than before – or at least, was capable of retaining more than one emotion at a time.

Hook was sort of a mixed bag; at times he could be as unspeakably cruel as ever, other times cunning and manipulative, and – for whatever reason – he could be a stupid, bumbling idiot. Or a lovable rogue who loved an older, not-Indian Tiger Lily, which was strange. Smee seemed to have gotten a touch Irish and was often infatuated with Hook. Peter didn't really see the point, but simply shrugged his shoulders and went along with it.

Some days Peter wondered if he shouldn't have had his multiple selves in his mind, sort of like that one Pony from the Equestria Loops. Other days he decided that if that was the case, his grown-up self would likely be torn to shreds by the rest of his selves, because he was a grown-up. (Though he had to admit that he did enjoy lawyering, especially after spending a Loop Replacing Apollo Justice.)

And Neverland was always changing, flowing with his imagination. During a Baseline Loop it would take on as many aspects as he had Sub-Branches – the Lost Boys' village would have grown up around Hangman's tree; he could wander around and find the Black Castle a few minutes flight from the Tiki Tree Forest or perhaps he would find the Underground House had relocated to where the other hideout was – that one from the modern times... The Island itself provided more adventures than he could count, adding in some of the new things he had experienced in the Loops. Giant Robots, space adventures, days when every word became a song... The Loops truly did give him endless days of adventure.

Peter wondered if all this constant change didn't put him in a state of Sakura Syndrome. His grown-up sensibilities told him that due to the Island's fluid nature, he couldn't really be blamed for not being used to an unchanging environment. They also told him that he had something to look forward to – once the Loops ended, there would be a boundless reach of possibilities with whatever happened. Perhaps he would die and see what great adventure lay after life, perhaps he would go back and grow up for good, or perhaps his memories would be wiped entirely – he could experience things for the very first time again!

And so Peter carried on in his Eternal Childhood; a boy confident in himself, his skills, and the promise of a new adventure around every bend.

* * *

25.14 (HarmonyChaos): [Percy Jackson] / [Undertale]

"don't you know how to greet a new pal? turn around and shake my hand."

Percy cautiously turned around, Riptide fully out and reached his hand out-pffffft.

Percy stared at the chuckling skeleton, then chuckled.

"heh heh heh, the ol' whoopie cushion in the hand trick, gets them every time." the short skeleton in front of him said. "so. you awake kid?"

"Why? Do you need an Anchor?" Percy asked, he put the cap back on Riptide, grinning. "Percy Jackson son of Poseidon, Anchor of the Percy Jackson, Hero's of Olympus, and the Kane Chronicles. In other words the Riordan Branch."

"wow. that must be tough. name's sans, sans the skeleton, looper of the undertale branch. welcome to the underground. i'll introduce you to my brother, he's a bit of a human hunting fanatic when he's not awake, just remember he has a blue attack. just think of it like a stop sign, only blue, and you'll be fine. welp i'll see you around."

Everything went black for a moment, when it was over Sans was gone.

* * *

25.15 (Luna Gale): [Danny Phantom] / [American Dragon: Jake Long]

**Of Quad-brids, Familial Relationships, and Sleep Deprived Cousins (Part 1 of 3)**

* * *

Danny didn't really know what to think of this Loop.

Unlike many of his other adventures, this Loop had one of his more complicated backstories, to say the least. It gave him a headache trying to think too much into it, especially since in some sense, the background made the weird situation have _logic._

Plus, every memory was disturbingly hard hitting in one way or another.

Emotionally, not physically.

So, at first, everything was simple. Years ago, the Dragon community wanted to finally populate America with its very first natural born American Dragon. This child would eventually become in charge of the protection, guarding, care-taking, and so on of the magical creatures in the area. Lao Shi, the previous Chinese dragon, immigrated to America with his two children to become one with the society, his kids even adopting American names, Susan and Edward, once they adapted to the culture. While, both dragon children didn't develop abilities of their own, they still carried the dragon gene, making it possible to have many dragon children, and to one day have one of them take the mantle of the first American Dragon.

Due to Chinese culture, it was assumed that Edward's child, being of male descent, would be the one to take the title. Many thought it was absolutely guaranteed, as the young strode through life with his sleek black hair, deep brown eyes, and a charming smile that made the ladies practically swoon. Edward was one year older than Susan, graduated a year in advance, and was what many considered to be a genius, ready for a long life of success. Any woman would want him, dragon heritage or not.

It all seemed inevitable.

And then everything turned... complicated.

While Susan married a human named Jonathan after high school, Edward... Edward stayed single throughout his schooling career. And far more alarming, as soon as the youngster graduated, he seemingly disappeared without a trace.

_"I was tired of it, the responsibility."_ he once said, _"Maybe it was immature, of me, but... I'm glad I left, in the end."_

He then looked at his young son with a bright smile at this, making a warm feeling of love fill Danny's Unawake self's heart.

Years passed and no one heard from the older child. The Dragon community grew worried, announcing Edward missing after six months of no contact, and ready to announce him deceased at the two year mark, hopeless that the young man would reappear.

So when Edward finally came home, everyone was ecstatic, angry, yet relieved that he finally appeared... until, of course, they saw the little bundle in his arms, bright blue eyed baby sleeping soundly in the blankets.

The dragon community was even less enthused when they were told who the mother was.

_"Your mother's name was Aquarius," Edward said with this small nostalgic smile, "She was a water nymph, wonderful in every way. She was witty, intelligent, and oh, so beautiful," He sighed, lost in his memories, but after his moment, he looked down at his wide eyed son, "You look like her you know. You have her blue eyes, button nose, and of course, the same imp-like smirk," The eight year old boy giggled when Edward tapped his nose. The single father chuckled and continued, "She picked your name, Daniel. While it's a perfectly American sounding name, Daniel has Greek origins. She said... she said the name meant 'God is my judge,'" Edward trailed off, eyebrows knitting in concentration, "Aqua wasn't religious, most magical creatures aren't, and even they are, they're definitely not Christian, but..._

_"I think, she meant something else. Your mom had the strangest thought process sometimes..." He smiled again, closing his eyes at the memories, "I guess she knew how hard it was going to be for us..." He swallowed, "for_ you _. Maybe... maybe she wanted you to find your own path, to not let others judge you for what you are..." He shook his head, and looked down at his son proudly, "I guess it doesn't matter much in the end, you are who you are, Danny. Names are just a rose, beautiful as they are hurtful."_

_When Danny asked to hear more about the two of them together, the man continued, nostalgic smile reappearing on his face, "We were a strange couple, I guess," The man admitted with a shrug, "Water and fire. Tricksters and order. Our own Romeo and Juliet story," He chuckled dryly, eyes sad, but he brightened when Danny jumped up from his position on the floor to hug him close. As the small family cuddled, Edward ran his fingers through his son's hair, whispering under his breath, "I guess it was inevitable it would end tragically,_

_"But I don't regret any moment with her," he reassured strongly, looking into the little boy's bright blue eyes. Edward smiled again, "I especially don't regret you, my little imp."_

_Danny smiled back._

His father didn't speak much about where he met his mother, nor did she explain why she left him, other than the fact that she needed to go. However, Edward loved her, and in turn, he loved his son. And really, that was all that really mattered.

At least, that was all that mattered to Danny. The Dragon Council... not so much.

There was much round about arguing and debating on Danny's status, if he was legitimate, legal, or even a 'true dragon', _"Boring yet incredibly stupid discussions,"_ his dad would say with a roll of his eyes, _"Something you probably don't want to hear about. I practically knew the outcome as soon as I stepped in front of the Council."_

_So,_ long stupid arguments short, it was decided that while Danny was technically the elder dragon, his hybrid status immediately banned him from being able to take the mantle as the official _American_ Dragon. If that wasn't enough, due to the out of marriage child and the violation of the Interspecies Breeding Clause, Edward either had to renounce Danny as his son, leaving the four month old child to his fate, or leave the Magical Community forever.

That day, Edward looked at the Dragon Council with a dead stare, swept his gaze back to his father, and after a curt nod to the aging man, left the building with baby Danny held safely in his arms, never looking back once.

Danny had surprisingly distinct memories of feeling both touched and sad that his dad gave the Magical Community up for him. His younger self had frowned sadly, saying sorry over and over for making him choose, little pinpricks of tears starting to form in his eyes. However, the man had just smiled warmly, ruffled up Danny's hair, and said with an understanding that the Looper had only ever seen in a few beautiful people.

_"I would make the same decision again and again for you. You're my family too, I would never give you up, no matter what. Besides, adults can take care of themselves, you on the other hand... I couldn't bear to imagine what would happen to you... I love you, Danny. Don't forget that." His father finished his confession with a wink and a smile so bright, it practically shown around the room._

Despite his kind words and reassurances, the aftermath was anything but easy. Armed with only a high school degree, his intelligence, and the miscellaneous skills he picked up throughout the years, Edward moved away from the magical heavy New York, New York to another small town about five hours away, the man not having enough resources to travel any further. There he had to find a way to not only get a stable career, but also find the time to care for baby Danny.

It was tough, with little to no sleep for days on end and various amounts of odd jobs taken just to stay alive. There were times Edward thought he'd never make it, at least, that's what Danny could see in the man's face when he told his stories, reminiscing.

Yet, through time, hard work, and the little bits of kindness from others, the small family eventually worked.

While odd jobs were a nice temporary solution, especially when the people who hired him let him take Danny along, they could only do so much. So, Edward decided to write books, publishing fantasy novels about the strangest stories of the Magical Community. Nothing specific was said, and there were both no names involved, and many things were altered to not reveal too much, but in the end, the stable income from Edward's series of short stories was what kept them alive and kicking.

_"It's ironic, I think. It was the magical community that left us to our fate, yet at the same time, it's what saved us. It just goes to show you, Danny, never let your pride yet in the way of the important things. It's not worth the cost."_

Danny did everything he could to help, learning how to cook, clean, and keep everything in order around the house at a very young age. When he Woke up, the tasks grew easier, having both his memories and other abilities to quicken the pace. Though, Danny was glad his Unawake self learned Chinese, instead of having to learn it naturally. The halfa was never much of a linguist, and with some of their conversations switching rapidly between English, Chinese, and sometimes even Latin, Danny thanked Unawake him for being such an awesome kid, so he could communicate with his dad.

For many years the father and son duo both assumed that Danny would never show either of his heritages. They thought that either the strange opposite genetics of both magical creatures either would cancel each other out or not present themselves at all due to the already impossible combinations.

It was strange though. As Danny grew up, he showed small signs of his hybrid nature. His ears grew pointed and elf-like, his canine teeth sharpened like fangs, and his eyes, while blue before, shone a startling shade of blue that was so bright, they practically glowed. While his father said he didn't inherit his mother's hair color, instead receiving Edward's raven colored locks, Danny did gain Aqua's rough, easily matted hair that Danny swore smelled like water flowers mixed with smoke. Thankfully, his fingers weren't webbed, but when he was about ten years old, the boy had to start filling down his nails to keep them from being too sharp. He also had a strange fixation for fish, seaweed, and steak, but in contrast felt sick trying to eat most vegetables and anything that was partially frozen.

Of course, he already had his signature imp-like smirk.

_"I didn't think that an expression was hereditary until I saw yours," His dad said with utter amazement, "Honestly, your smile has my charm, but your smirk has your mother's mischief. You're an imp, through and through... that... or a siren," He smiled in good humor, "One of the two."_

There were other small things, too minor to really note, and really, they could easily be accountable to the differences between his Awake and Unawake self. However, it wasn't until Danny accidentally shot water out of his nose at tender age of eight that they knew the full implications of his hybrid status. He couldn't transform fully into a dragon, not yet, and maybe not ever, but at the very least, Danny could transform his hands into sharp scaled claws, and with enough concentration, use his Eye of the Dragon ability. They discovered his voice was magically enhanced to the point that their apartment sometimes looked a city version of Snow White, cockroaches and pigeons trying to squirm their way into the building to have a chance to hear the boy sing.

So, that was how Danny became the first water nymph and dragon hybrid, and with this Loop, it became the second time the halfa became a previously thought to be impossible hybrid with impossible to predict abilities.

...Yay?

Unknowingly to the rest of the dragon community (and even to his father), even with his dragon _and_ water nymph heritage, Danny wasn't just a two way hybrid (because that would be too simple). When Danny Awoke on his twelfth birthday, (after getting practically clobbered by his Unawake self's memories), he found that he still had access to all his ghostly abilities, including his ghost form. Granted Phantom had the same new quirks as his human form, and he would suddenly get the really strong, strange urge to eat fish when he transformed, but _still_ , he was _four creatures in one_.

He was a human, ghost, nymph, and a not to mention a freaking _dragon_ all wrapped up in a less than five foot five form of prepubescent male teenager-ness! Not to mention, this made him into a _quadruple hybrid._

_A quad-brid!_

_Geeze,_ it was like the multiverse loved to make him a freak or something...

Oh, wait... It did!

...Stupid ironic Loops.

Despite the weird lifestyle and hard times, Danny actually really enjoyed his childhood memories. He was used to the hiccups in his abilities, even if they were of a different nature, and Looping made him a master at making excuses.

(Though, there was that one time, he accidentally burned his teacher when he sighed boiling steam in their face. That was kind of hard to explain... especially to the medical team.

Whoops?)

Overall, everything was just fine and dandy in this Loop, despite his hybridism, and Danny was actually enjoying himself.

So when Edward Shi died in a car crash when Danny was sixteen, everything felt like it... _stopped._

The Loop didn't crash. That wasn't what Danny meant, though for a small period of time, he kind of wish it did, just to have an excuse to get out and not think.

For the first few days, the world passed him by in a blurry daze, the news not seemingly... real to him. Social workers gathered him up, said their less than enthusiastic grievances, and then promptly called his closest relatives. The only consultation, Danny guessed, was that the death was quick and painless, his father hitting his temple the moment of impact.

Though it was only a minor consolation.

Danny wasn't stupid. He knew how these Loops worked, and how utterly set up some of them were. To the halfa's knowledge, Edward didn't actually exist in Jake's baseline. Danny figured there were only two reasons why the man existed in this Loop: To make Danny a dragon (hybrid?), and to die at the right time, so the boy could live with the Long family right when Jake was starting his American Dragon career.

However, Edward was so much... _more_ than a simple reason for causation. He was the young immigrant trying to find his place in the world, the scared young man who ran away from his responsibility, the mysterious charming human locked dragon who loved an equally mysterious water nymph, the courageous father who stood up to the leaders of the entire Magical Community for the rights to care for his son, but most of all, he was Daniel's dad. Loving but stern, hardworking but playful, and always one to care for his little imp, Edward tried his best, even when he knew that it wasn't enough.

He was a _person._ The Loops created a real live _person,_ which Danny thought was the most beautiful and tragic part of this entire situation.

The halfa hated to admit it, but when a Looper died (even it was one of his friends or family members), he didn't feel sad per se, but more like... like he failed them. Since he knew everyone was going to come back anyway, it wasn't like he mourned them each and every time they died or got seriously injured. That... _that_ would drive him insane, especially considering the amount of Loops he had to fight his alternate future self, only to have Clockwork not save his family in the end. No, he just apologized the next time they were Awake together, and tried to make it up to them in any way he could.

However, Edward was a different type of creature entirely. Unlike Loopers, or even other people within the Loops, when Edward died, that was it. Game over, no redoes, or no other chances. There was probably a one in a million chance for another Edward to be created, and an even less chance that he would have the exact same personality and experiences.

The bottom line was this: After this Loop ended, no one else would remember his temporary father but Danny. His temporary father never would exist again in the multiverse, at least not in the way Danny remembered him, the memories of him lost in the Infinite Loops.

But even so, Danny swore to himself to never forget the man. Even if he wasn't his real father, Danny would never forget the kindness and utter acceptance his dad showed him. He held these memories close to his heart, bookmarking them in his mind, so that he hoped that even after thousands upon thousands of more Loops, he could look back and remember the courageous man that gave up his future to care for his son.

His memories were a promise, and he be damned to not keep this one.

* * *

Three days after Edward Shi's death, Danny met his Aunt Susan for the first time.

Meeting her wasn't much of a surprise, since, hey, the social workers told him they were calling her. He was clueless, not deaf.

As the door creaked open, Danny took a moment to take in her expression. Small dark eyes looked sad, and to his surprise, nervous. As soon as she saw him, the woman smiled brightly, though Danny could see her tightening her grip on her handbag.

"Are you Daniel?" Her voice sounded thick, and looking closer Danny could see dark bags under her eyes. Danny belatedly realized something. While Danny might have lost his father, Susan just lost a brother, part of her family. True, they probably hadn't spoken in years, his dad refusing all contact with the magical world.

But, she never tried to contact with his father either...

"Yeah," He suddenly said, trying to stray away from those thoughts. Suddenly realizing that, hey, this woman is an adult, _his new guardian_ , he tried straightened himself up and make a good first impression, "I mean, Yes ma'am."

"There's no need to be so formal. We're family," She looked nervous, unsure, her stance not as firm as it should have been and eyes brimming with too many emotions to specify. Warily, she continued, "You- you can call me Aunt Susan if you want."

A flash of anger suddenly tried to overtake him at her proposal. He swallowed it down, eying her cautiously.

His Unawake self probably wouldn't have accepted her. Danny knew that for a fact. To be honest, he probably would have yelled out in anger, and given her attitude the moment she walked in, saying something along the lines of "you left us to rot" or something stupidly dramatic like that.

Fortunately, while Unawake memories were important, they didn't control him. If Loops had done one thing for Danny, it was make him more mature... kind of. In certain things. When he wanted to be...

Okay, he was willing to give her a second chance. Points to Clockwork for teaching him that life lesson. Besides, she was here, so it must mean that she at least cared about him somewhat.

Cautiously the hybrid stood up from his chair and with a small smile, he said, "Alright," He mentally winced at the unsure quality in his voice, "Umm... then you can call me Danny, I guess," He finished with a shrug.

Susan smiled softly, "That sounds nice."

The two stood together, Danny shuffling his feet and not looking at his Aunt. He didn't know what to say or do, or really what was going to happen. If this didn't work out, the hybrid could probably become a scavenger on the street, but still what if-

"Danny?" He looked back up to see his aunt biting her lip.

"Yeah?"

Susan hesitated for a moment, as if deciding something. But after a second, to Danny's surprise, thin arms suddenly held him close. He froze, stunned, at the sudden contact and the suppressing warmth of her tiny frame. Her small, soft voice whispered, "Welcome to the family, Danny," She sounded choked, "I-I'm so sorry for your loss."

Danny's heart caught in his throat. Images of his dad smiling brightly at him suddenly bombarding him. Swallowing, he finally held her back, trying to hide the tears starting to sting his eyes, "Thank you," He muttered, he swallowed again, "You-you too."

She only held him tighter in response.

* * *

25.15 continued (Luna Gale): [Danny Phantom] / [American Dragon: Jake Long]

**Of Quad-brids, Familial Relationships, and Sleep Deprived Cousins (Part 2 of 3)**

"So, do you know about your... _heritage_?" Susan asked in the car.

Danny blinked and, turning away from the window, looked to his aunt.

The legalities on the hybrid's guardianship were sorted out rather quickly, suspiciously quickly, Danny had thought. He was pretty sure the Magical Community somehow sped up the adoption process (considering that hey, he was a hybrid of two magical creatures, and they really didn't want him in the human society's system).

It wouldn't surprise him.

So with only his suitcase in the trunk, his father's ashes packed carefully in an urn in a very cushioned box, and some etcetera stuff stuffed in his school backpack, Danny and his Aunt Susan were on their way to New York City. The only other things he took with him were in his subspace pocket, one copy of each of his Dad's short stories and the most sentimental pictures of the two of them...

...You know, just in case the Loop suddenly ended.

His aunt had this semi-nervous energy about her, as if she was unsure of his answer. Judging by the way she said heritage, Danny was pretty sure that the woman was worried whether or not he knew about the magical world.

It would be kind of awkward if Danny didn't know about the whole dragon thing. Especially the part where _he_ was the reason why his father left the magical world in the first place.

Maybe just a bit.

Danny sat back in his seat and arched an eyebrow, "The dragon thing or my mom? Because he explained both to me," He smirked, purposely pointing one of his fangs out, and he pulled back the hair to show his left ear, "Also, it's kind of hard to hide fangs and elf ears, you know?"

Susan smiled lightly, "I suppose not... Was your mother an elf?"

Danny blinked, "Oh, no. She's a water nymph," He frowned, and brushed down his hair over his ear again, suddenly self-conscious, "You... you didn't know?"

"No," She said with a shake of her head, "My father, your grandfather," Susan clarified, with a slight nod of her head, "never told us anything. All I knew is that my brother intermarried with an illegal species, and I never heard from him again," The woman smiled good-naturedly, confusing the hell out of Danny, and asked, "So, a water nymph?"

"Yeah, but I don't know her," he answered warily, confused by her accepting attitude, "If that's what you're asking, and I also don't have a full dragon form either. I'm just me, I guess."

"Do you have anything from her?"

He shook his head, "No, other than my dad's stories, I don't know anything about her."

"Oh, that's a shame. A child should always know their mother," Danny simply let out a short hum of acknowledgement in response, "You said a full dragon form. Does that mean you can partially transform?"

He eyed her sharply, "That depends," Danny finally said slowly, looking, and irritatingly not finding anything on his aunt's face that could give away what the woman was feeling. He shifted in his seat, "How much would you tell the Council?"

"Not a word," She said sternly.

"Why?"

She didn't say anything for a moment, and Danny thought that she might not give an answer at all. Maybe to sidetrack him or something to forget the conversation entirely. His worries were unfounded, however, for Susan started speaking once more.

"Well," She started, her voice had a surprising amount of coyness about it, "despite your parentage, you're technically not a part of the Magical Community, and the Dragon Council has no authority over you. If you so happen to have some less than usual traits," She shrugged nonchalantly, but her small mischievous smirk had Danny's entire formal impression of her suddenly flying out the window, "We'll pass it off as a little... _quirk_ from your mother's side. Does that sound good?"

Danny blinked stupidly at her.

It wasn't like this was the first time he talked to Mrs. Long, having Looped into Jake's universe before. However, they'd never interacted much other than the occasional, 'hello', 'thank you for letting me come over', and 'see you later Mrs. Long'. Saying this, Danny fully expected to Loop in as Jake eventually, (especially with the recent addition of his dragon hybrid status), but so far, he never really got to know Susan as a person, more like a mom friend.

Despite not knowing her that well, Danny thought he had a general feeling about her, very caring and motherly with a dash of strictness thrown in there to keep her little dragon children in line. It wasn't like he expected her to be a super racist psycho wench, but at the very least, he... he didn't expect Susan to be so... _accepting._

Considering Danny was expecting at least _some_ backlash for his hybrid status, for her to brush it off like it was nothing...

Well, score for Aunt Susan on the 'awesome relative' list.

"Yeah," The hybrid's voice cracked a bit, but he was a bit too awed by the woman's attitude to care too much at the moment, "But it's just my hand and a few little things here and there. I think I'm just growing into it a little later. Speaking of dragons," Danny wanted to steer this conversation away from his abilities, thank you very much, "You have kids right? One who is going to be the American Dragon, right?"

"Yes, two kids," Her face suddenly blew up in a bright smile, one that only proud parents could truly make, "Jake and Haley. They're..."

As Susan talked proudly of her children, both Jake taking responsibility as the American dragon, and Haley, the student prodigy, Danny relaxed in the seat beside him, listening, asking questions, and nodding occasionally to keep the conversation going.

* * *

On top of the Empire State building on midnight under a cloudy, New York polluted sky, Danny sat in his ghost form, relaxing in the darkness. He absently scanned the skyline, from each towering skyscraper to the ant-like cars scurrying to their next destination. He smiled lightly at the scene, as his tense muscles slowly unwound themselves with every new interest.

Though, not a New York native and practically a tourist himself, seeing the city sights wasn't the real reason why Danny wasn't in his bedroom, asleep. No, it was the home life itself that had him tense and nearly needing to run the other direction.

Don't get him wrong, living with the Longs was not bad in any way. In fact, he was surprised about how welcoming they were to him. They were nice, letting him in with a welcoming smile, a hug or two, and a semi-reluctant Jake sharing his room. Every day he was slowly integrating in their normal house life with only Haley occasionally pestering him and the slightly wary looks from Jake doing anything to disrupt his life.

Yes the Long family, was practically a normal household, if you discounted the little dragon traits that is.

But it was exactly their normal attitudes that grated on Danny's nerves.

For a house filled with magical secret dragons, _nothing happened._ Sure there was the occasional finger-wagging admonishment from Mr. Long and Haley's almost overwhelming chatter, but other than that, the house was usually quiet. Jake wasn't around often, doing some dragon training who knew where, and by the time the teen was home, he'd usual either go straight to his headache-inducing homework or simply pass out on his bed. Oh sure, Danny caught the few dragon transformations that Haley did, dragon arm here to chop up onions, a little puff of smoke there to annoy Jake. But there wasn't really anything... _big._

Danny had long accepted that his life would be nearly constantly exciting, and most of the time, he embraced this excitement, lest he go insane from the craziness around him. Granted, the teen wanted to fit in just as much as the next guy, but over time he'd learn to balance just enough ghostly shenanigans and normal school life to keep life interesting.

The halfa was not used to this much normal, especially considering he was in a house with dragons in it.

And so, to keep himself sane in the overwhelmingly sane house, the halfa decided to let his ghost half to exercise some excess energy, and maybe scare a few pedestrians here and there if he felt like it. This was his fifth night out and about, and he was already feeling better than he had when he first arrived.

Not that the Long's hospitality wasn't appreciated, but being a Fenton required a certain amount of insanity in his life, in which, somehow, a dragon family did not provide.

Did he mention how jaw droppingly normal a house filled with dragons was? Because it was too normal. As in, he needed to let out some steam on top of the Empire State building to restrain his pent up need to run around a bit because Mr. Long does not want his kids getting hurt by slipping on wood floors type of normal.

It was weird.

As he took his perch, Danny eyed the little magical creatures frolicking around the top of the building, some secretly, others so obviously magical in their appearance that was a wonder they hadn't been caught yet. While the city buildings were a sort of nice sight to look at, the halfa would very much rather see the clear starry sky.

Danny sighed loudly, becoming amused when water vapor instead of carbon dioxide blew from his mouth. An idea popped in his head. He huffed out another wave of air, ears twitching, as he activated his power. Quickly, before the steam-like puff could disappear, he blew out a breath of frost from his mouth. The water vapor started crystallizing midair, steam turning into water droplets transforming into pure ice. They newly formed crystals dropped like rocks, and Danny absently wondered if the crystals would turn back into water by the time they hit the ground.

The halfa smiled, amused.

"Yo, nice trick you did there," Danny paused, blinked, and twisted around midair to look at the source of the noise. To his surprise, he saw a red dragon, not the size of Aragon or Dora, but at least a good seven feet tall. He had a yellow belly and a green and black... mane? Hair? Scales? Whatever. It ran from his head from to all the way to the bottom of his tail. He flapped his wings to keep himself steady in the air, his tail swishing behind him.

What was Jake doing here? The halfa had no clue, but since he was...

Danny, with his pointed ears, and impish smile, smirked, "Hey yourself."

The dragon sighed, "Gotta say, you're really tough to find. Had to spend three nights dragging my tail out of bed just to find you."

Danny arched an eyebrow, "Oh, really?"

"Yeah-" The poor guy started yawning. The dragon shook his head and stared intensely at him, albeit tiredly.

"Maybe you should get a little sleep then," He smirked at the dragon teen, his legs crossing in front of him. He put his hands behind his neck and laid back casually. Danny mused that he looked more like he should be in a chair than defying the laws of gravity.

"Not gonna haaaaapppen daaawwwwwg," Danny bit his lip, fighting the urge to yawn as well, and mentally cursing when his fangs accidently cut the skin.

Lip slightly bleeding green and suddenly tired of arguing, the halfa held his hands up in surrender, "Look, I'm not here to give trouble. I just want to fly around for a bit at night. Is that too much to ask?"

"That's what I said, but Gramps said we need to track the movement of magical creatures, and you apparently just appeared out of nowhere," The dragon crossed his arms over his chest, cocking his head to the side with a frown, "How did you get here? Speaking of which, what are you anyway?"

"To answer both of your questions, I'm a ghost. Beware!" To prove his point, Danny turned invisible then revisable before crossing his arms over his chest, "I flew into to town and decided to stay a bit. So... can you leave me alone now?"

"You're a ghost?"

Danny blinked at the sudden question, "Yep."

The dragon frowned, "Not any type of ghost I've seen."

"I get that a lot."

They flew/floated there for a moment, awkwardly shuffling their feet or looking anywhere but at each other. Danny had the sudden urge to spurt water in the dragon's face, just to see what would happen, but he withhold the urge with what he thought to be great self-control. (Because, come on! Just imagining a sputtering dragon practically had the halfa [quadra?] in a mess of snickers).

After a moment, the American Dragon spoke, "So are you gonna answer my questions or do we have to do this the hard way?"

Danny smirked again, his fangs making the action look positively devilish, "Oh, the hard way huh? Look, I wasn't terrorizing anyone. Not my style. Although..." He gained an evil look in his eyes that would have made the Weasley twins proud, " _You_ might be fun to mess around with."

"Huh?"

Danny nodded to himself, smirk growing and longer ears twitching, as they picked up his glee, "Yeah, that will work. That will be fun..."

"What are you talking about?"

The halfa mostly ignored the dragon, though he did allow his smirk to grow, just to freak the guy out a bit.

Danny and Jake knew each other decently well, having mostly replaced each other's friends at one time or another or even adding to their trio gangs to make quartets. Being the prankster that he was, when Danny made friends with someone his age, nine times out of ten there would be untold amount of pranking chaos involved when they Looped together, or at the very least, an unruly amount of fun with a questionable use of their abilities.

To put it lightly, family or not, American Dragon or nah, there was no chance Danny was giving up this opportunity to have a little fun with an Unawake Jake.

With one final mischievous glinting smirk, the supposed ghost went invisible, laughing at his semi-thought out plans of pranktitude. The halfa's snickers echoed throughout the night, only growing in volume when Jake yelped at his sudden disappearance.

_Oh_ , Danny was going to have so much fun messing with his cousin.

* * *

25.15 continued (Luna Gale): [Danny Phantom] / [American Dragon: Jake Long]

**Of Quad-brids, Familial Relationships, and Sleep Deprived Cousins (Part 3 of 3)**

"That was a pretty good prank you pulled on my big brother."

Danny peered over the newspaper comic he was reading, only to see Haley's way too brightly smiling face. He arched an eyebrow, hiding his inward panicking rather well, before looking back to the Garfield strip.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," He deadpanned.

The halfa felt a small dip in the couch and heard the tell signs of squeaking couch cushions. Realizing that no, this little girl was not letting this go, he sighed and closed the newspaper with a huff, "Do you mind?"

"Not at all," Haley replied with an infuriatingly cheeky grin.

Danny ran his hand through his hair, huffing out another sigh. He put down the newspaper and gave the little girl a stern look, "Look, what do I need to do to keep you quiet?"

"Hey, I'm not snitching!" He merely raised an eyebrow, "But while you're offering..." Of course. "Just as long as you catch it on camera next time, I'll pretend I didn't see anything, Also, I want to know what Looper ability you used to put that pie spring trap in the wall."

"Well, I ..." His mind went over what she said. Going through a reboot before restarting again, he then gaped at her, "Wait, you're a Looper! I thought I was the only one Awake!"

"Well, I wasn't sure you were Awake until now, and honestly, it's a relief, let me tell you. For the longest time, I thought we had a stealth Anchor!" She eyed him sternly, "You _are_ an Anchor, right?"

Danny blinked, suddenly feeling slightly overwhelmed by the turn of events... again, "Umm, yeah. I'm an Anchor. I'm Danny Fenton from the, uh, Amity Park Loops."

"Wait, _you're_ the half dead guy?" She yelled excitedly. Haley started touching and poking and batting at his arm, analytical look on her face, "Jake talked about you once! How does it work? Are you a ghost possessing your own corpse or what? I'm curious!"

"Wait-what? I don't know. How are you a dragon hiding in a human? Hey!" He batted away her hands, "Stop poking me. I am _not_ your third grade prodigy class science experiment."

Haley huffed but didn't move away from him, "I'm in the second grade."

Danny rolled his eyes, "That's even worse then. No scientific analysis until you have your 'Now that You're Ten' speech at school or something."

She pouted, "You're not going to answer my question are you?"

"Well... I..." He huffed and laid back on the couch, pointing at her accusingly, "answer mine first!"

"Fine." Haley huffed to Danny's surprise. She stood up on the couch, threw her shoulders back, and in the most scholarly tone he'd seen in a little kid in years, started her history lesson, "Years ago, in order to adapt to the quickly growing human dominance on Earth, the Magical Community in a cumulative effort never seen since the establishment of the Dragon Council, created a spell that would let powerful magical species gain a human form. Dragons, being the most hunted and limited species, despite their magical prowess, quickly used the spells on themselves. However, due to political tensions and the potential negative side effects of certain, more malicious beings potentially using their human forms for destruction, the spell was quickly destroyed and all magical beings with the knowledge of said spell had their memories erased or at the very least, altered. Any information on how to cast the spell is gone from history, and any magical creature caught trying to replicate its effects are immediately arrested for defying the Human Form Clause of the Magical Community's Secrecy Act. Due to these new human forms, dragons are now seen as myths in Chinese culture, and we can peacefully incorporate ourselves into human society without huge negative consequences."

Haley jumped down from her seat and beamed at him.

"Now that I answered your question, tell me, how are you half dead!?"

As Danny gaped at the seemingly innocent pony-tailed girl bouncing in front of him, he took note to never ever, in any Loop where he was Awake, have Jazz and this little girl in a room together. It would only lead to mass chaos of sisterly proportions and massive headaches from their surprising super intelligence.

* * *

25.16 (Luna Gale): [Danny Phantom] / [American Dragon: Jake Long] / [Marvel] / [DC]

Sam and Tucker knew they were the sidekicks (or according the Sky High Loops, 'hero support'). They didn't have superpowers in baseline, helped only when needed, and really, they were mostly there to make Danny's life easier rather than take on the big bad ghosts. Despite being sidekicks, the two knew their stuff. Whether it be a ghost, tech, or even something as simple as a sleeping schedule, Sam and Tucker usually had the best plans to keep Danny in line and ready. They were proud of their roles, even if it wasn't the most exciting thing in the world.

Being the 'hero support' as they were, they were extremely loyal to Danny and empathetic to the strain superheroing put upon him. The halfa discovered quickly that despite his increased range of powers, even the baseline caused a momentous amount of issues to his schedule, and while there wasn't as much stress, the frustration of random ghost attacks and continued patrols were still very prevalent. Simply put, Danny's job wasn't easy, despite his years of experience.

So when other super hero Anchors Looping in as Danny thought that just protecting one little town, in one little high school, with an unbelievable range of powers would be easy, almost even a _break_ from their own baselines, well, the sidekick duo were more than just a little ticked off. It wasn't like they were arrogant jerks about it. On the contrary, most were more empathetic about Danny's situation than most Loopers could be. However, on paper or word by ear alone... the Amity Parks Loops looked easy, especially considering that none of the ghosts actually tried to kill anyone.

Simply put, it was a common misconception among the teenage heroes that being Amity Park's hero would be a cakewalk.

So knowing this, could you really blame the sidekick duo from being amused at the other Anchor's struggles?

* * *

It was Monday, and after an exhausting weekend of near constant ghost hunting, everyone on the ghostgetter trio was exhausted. As Sam walked in, mascara probably smeared and purple eyes puffy from rubbing them too much, Tucker was leaning against the school's lockers. He looked nearly ready to pass out right then and there, as he shakily held his PDA in his hands and his eyes blinked close for far too long.

And Jake? The halfa of the Loop was nowhere to be seen.

Sam trudged next to the techno geek, and leaned on the locker next to him, "Tucker?" He acknowledged her with a tired hum. Staring at the ceiling, she continued, "Where's Jake?"

He sighed, and using his stylus, pointed next to him.

To a locker.

Sam arched an eyebrow, clearly waiting for more explanation. However, Tucker was being overly unhelpful and continued tapping on his PDA. Shaking her head, Sam went to the locker he pointed to, and after once or twice failing to get the right combination, finally managed to open it.

Only for a clearly snoozing Jake to fall directly out of it.

Sam looked to the locker then back to Jake who didn't even looked phased, as he continued sleeping peacefully on the cold tile, and then back to Tucker. This confused cycle of nodding and headache inducing circular thinking went on for about a minute before Sam managed to keep her gaze on Tucker, who still was tapping on his PDA.

"Tucker."

He hummed again.

"Why was Jake in the locker?"

The techno gave her a tired look, "The dude said he wanted a nap. I told him to try sleeping in a locker. It's not my fault he listened to me," Tucker yawned loudly, and blinking blearily, stuffed his PDA in his pocket, "Though you'd think the guy would be used to sleepless nights," He shrugged, "The more you know."

Jake snorted in his sleep.

* * *

"Peter, you need a little help there?" Sam asked with a suspicious smirk. Tucker capped the thermos that they just captured the Box Ghost (for the seventh time this week), wiping a stray piece of sweat off his forehead afterwards.

The Anchor scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, "No, why do you ask?"

"Well," she started, as she propped herself on one of the warehouse boxes, "You're phasing through the floor."

And sure enough, as Peter looked down, he was slowly sinking through _solid concrete,_ and worse, he couldn't pull himself out _,_ "Not again!" He looked to the Goth in a panic, "Help!"

It was bad enough to have super strength as Spidey. Falling through floors? Yeah, definitely not in his top ten powers he would like to malfunction.

"I don't know," The Goth said coyly. Peter was starting to hate Sam's smirk, "You might look like a good floor ornament. Tucker?" She said with a nod of her head to the techno geek, "What do you think? Would Spidey here make a good floor ornament?"

Peter looked to the techno geek with a pleading look, concrete already up to his knees.

Unfortunately for him, Tucker was not being the nice one today. The techno geek smirked, as well, dashing Peter's hopes, as his voice became laced with mischief, "Maybe. We could even take a picture. Let everyone see the big, bad Peter Parker, betrayed by the very ground that he tried to defy!"

"Ironic that the guy who's known for climbing walls keeps being eaten by them. I guess the floor just wanted to have a taste for once."

"Too true."

Peter groaned, as the concrete reached his armpits. He flashed a glare at them, "Okay, ha ha, Spider-Man's about to be eaten by gravity. Too funny. Now, that you're done laughing, _can you please help me out of the floor?!_ "

The two shared a look, and looked back to him, smiles bright on both of their faces.

**"Nope!"**

"Wha-?" And then Peter fell through the ground. He reached up to grab something, anything to keep him up and sinking from the Earth's core. But he couldn't grip anything, and Peter realized with no small amount of annoyance, that he was going to keep going because of a stupid joke.

Still, not the stupidest may he had died so far.

However, before the tips of his fingers even went below the surface, he felt something pull him out. He gasped unnecessarily, but he couldn't bring himself to care. After a moment, he looked up to the, in his opinion, partially insane duo, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.

"Why..." Peter's face twitched in annoyance at the nonchalant on their faces, "why couldn't you have done that earlier?"

Tucker shrugged, "Dramatic tension," He said simply, "Now come on," Peter didn't like the look on either of their faces. Tucker looked too sincere, and Sam was smirking again, "Now that you're done with your little field trip, let's go fight some more ghosts!"

Peter couldn't stop the groan slipping out even if he wanted to.

* * *

"This doesn't make any sense!"

As Tucker snickered under his breath, Sam shrugged, picking at her salad with a surprising amount of sharpness about her. It was lunch, and after many, many weeks of ghost hunting, the Non-Native Anchor had had enough.

Apparently running out of class the third time that week had finally done it.

The Goth raised an eyebrow at Dick Grayson's outburst, "Welcome to the Amity Park Loops," she deadpanned.

Tucker snorted, "Yeah, where nothing makes sense, and it's best not to think too much about anything."

"But..." Dick muttered, eyebrows scrunching in concentration. He leaned in, hissing under his breath, "It's so obvious!"

Sam's eyebrow merely raised higher, "Yeah, and? So is Superman being Clark Kent, and you don't see us having a mental break down."

"Ahuh, true that."

Grayson frowned, annoyance twitching in his eyes, "But Fenton? Phantom? And the hair color change?" He made a wild gesture of... something with his hands. Tucker looked around, and noted how some of the other students were watching amazed as the usually composed Richard Fenton was seemingly having a mental breakdown of sorts. The temporary Phantom narrowed his eyes in a way that was supposed to look dangerous.

Sam almost snorted.

"Look," The raven haired teen started, "in any other universe, I would have been caught by now. It doesn't take a detective to see the connection. I go to class as a human, leave class on a supposed nurse's note, and seconds later Phantom appears fighting a ghost. I get secret identities, and while Clark Kent's is... obvious, he at least has alibis. Peter Parker when he leaves classes has his journalism technique. I get it. It doesn't mean I have to like how no one else seems to get it," Dick frowned once more, frustration obvious on his face.

Tucker reached over the table and patted the Anchor's arm, "It's okay, dude. Just go with it. That's what we do. Just think of this as a place where common sense takes a vacation. It makes it easier."

Sam mused, as a familiar wisp of blue flew out of the Anchor's mouth, as he gained an utter look of distress on his face, that the teen didn't take much comfort in Tucker's advice.

* * *

25.1: Jack being Jack.

25.2: Another Loop joins in.

25.3 This was what Marco and Star did with each other when the other wasn't Awake. It was wacky.

25.4: Dreamworks Face is a thing - you can find it on TV Tropes.

25.5: Slenderman's actions still haunt Riley. She'll work past it eventually, I promise.

25.6: Joy, you've got to learn to think before acting...

25.7: Yes, it would...

25.8: Their first viewed Loop to be compiled. Or written, period, that I've been able to find.

25.9: No, I don't know what the glowing eyes have to do with Space Jam either. (Okay, so humans could _stretch_ like a Toon there, but there was nothing related to eyes as far as I remember.)

25.10: Texts of this sort are convenient to keep on-hand. Or at least in-Pocket.

25.11: For those unfamiliar, _Kantai Collection_ revolves around ships that have been sunk and revived as anthropomorphic versions of themselves. The _Black Pearl_ had this happen to her this Loop; the process won't stick in the future.

25.12: No, Bill Andersen isn't a Looper yet; Riley just sometimes fills him in on things when she Awakens, and it happened again this Loop.

25.13: Note: "Indian" is what the original work calls Tiger Lily; it is not meant to be an offensive use of the term.

25.14: And two more Loopers meet.

25.15 parts 1-3: That was an interesting one.

25.16: As a separate Loop, we see Jake visiting Amity Park.


	43. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Six

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-01-05. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Six**

26.1 (BIOS-Pherecydes): [Gravity Falls]

**Awakening the Llama Part 1: Setup**

"So bro-bro, what's next on your time looping checklist thingy?" Mabel asked from her bed as she subjected Waddles to a full body sticker makeover.

Dipper rolled his eyes affectionately, glad he had finally figured out a way to get Unawake Mabel to take him seriously when he explained the Loops to her. "It's not a checklist Mabel, it's a schedule. The Loops almost always happen the same way at the same time, but sometimes something goes weird. I keep this schedule to help keep track of all the little details in case they all add up to some huge disaster that could've been prevented if I was paying attention."

Mabel blew him a raspberry and rolled backwards off her bed, rolling repeatedly until she came to rest looking up at Dipper from the side of his own bed. "Chillax Dipper. What's the worst that could happen if," she flipped a few of Dipper's notes randomly, "the Lilliputians have discovered the height altering crystals and are planning to use them to decide once and for all which of them are the best. ...Wait _what_?! That's terrible. Come on we gotta stop them!"

Dipper grabbed Mabel's arm. "Don't worry sis, I took care of it already. I used the Memory Gun to erase the memory of the crystals from their minds and now they're back to normal. I also got Sergei free."

Mabel slumped in relief, wiping her arm across her brow. "Oh phew. I was worried there for a second. But how come they didn't try and use the crystals when Pacifica and me had our competition with each other?"

Dipper shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they didn't know about them yet?"

Mabel narrowed her eyes. "Hmm. Hmmmmmmm! This sounds suspicious. You know what that means?"

"Oh, no. Mabel no. I mean it!"

"Pines Mystery Twins go!" Mabel shouted, a burst of glitter bursting from her sleeves as she threw her arms into the air.

Dipper facepalmed. "I never should have told you I was getting used to that."

* * *

In the end the answer turned out to be Old Man McGucket. The semi-sane ex-scientist had been using one of the crystals as a earwax remover and had lost it at the golf-course which had led to the pirates claiming it as treasure. Between their investigation and discovering the truth, they had dealt with Blandin and Soos' girl problem and to Dipper's dismay once again gotten Tambry and Robbie into a relationship as well. Dipper was more than ready for the end of the Loop by the time it was done... and so it came as more than a little surprise when he awoke the next morning to find that the Loop was getting it's newest expansion.

His first reaction was to have a paranoid freakout over what kind of unexpected insanity he wouldn't see coming. This lasted just about until the moment he realized he finally, _finally_ had the chance to sit down and watch the 48 hour Ghost Harassers marathon he had been looking forward to for the past few hundred years.

After that it was a blur of forcing Stan out of the Shack, distracting Mabel and her friends as much as reasonably possible (he expected to get maybe twenty minutes) and pulling out all the best relaxing tools his Pocket had to offer.

"One Comfy Chair 'borrowed' from the Spanish Inquisitioners; check. One Toriko burger, two karinapples and three bottles of supear juice; check. Four years worth of Hogsmeade candies; check. Cheesy Blasters, Cheesy Poofs, Corncornos, and Chipackerz; check. And of course: popcorn, nachos, pizza. Check, check and double check," He flopped down in the really quite comfortable chair and propped his feet up. "Be strong bladder. We're not gonna move till sunset."

_'We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news.'_

Dipper's eye twitched. "Oh come on! Seriously?"

"It's starting!" Mabel shouted loudly, shoving her way onto Dipper's chair.

Candy duplicated the action from the other side. "Turn it up,"

"Make room for Grenda!" Dipper felt his legs go temporarily numb as the last member of the trio divebombed onto him.

_'Tonight's the night, but I've been out here for days! The Northwest family's annual high society shindig ball soiree is here. And even though common folk aren't let in, that won't stop us from camping out for a peek at the fanciness.'_

The three girls who Dipper had managed to get off of his chair, and were now laying in front of the TV with starstruck gazes, made a chorused sound of awe.

Dipper massaged his head. "Next time I'm bringing my own set. Can someone please explain why everyone is making such a big deal out of this."

Grenda turned to face him incredulously. "Um, it's pretty much the best party of all time."

Dipper scoffed. "Yeah, no. It's no Pinkie party that's for sure," he muttered to himself.

Unconcerned by his comment Grenda continued. "Rich food, richer _boys_."

Mabel continued eagerly. "They say each gift basket has a live _quail_ inside."

Leaning against the television forlornly, Candy ran her hand down the screen. "Give me your life Pacifica."

Dipper rolled his eyes. He wasn't going to fall for that bunk so easily. Except for during some of the crazier Variants, Pacifica was a spoiled, obnoxious brat. _All_ the _time_. "Guys! In case you don't remember, Pacifica is a horrible human being and she can go jump in a lake." There came a knock at the door, and Dipper got up to answer it without turning his attention away from his Unawake sister and her friends.

"And I'm not just being jealous or petty. I would say that to her face," He opened the door to reveal none other than the subject of his current rant, dressed in a overcoat and dark (designer) sunglasses, with a bandanna concealing her hair.

"I need your help."

"Wow, okay. Talk about timing. You're a horrible human being and you can go jump in a lake." He ignored the offended look on her face and turned back to the other girls. "See, right to her face."

Turning back to the glaring girl he continued. "My first instinct is to slam this door shut and walk away. Coincidentally that's also my second _and_ third instinct. But seeing as how this is probably somehow important to the 'plot'" and he emphasized this with the appropriate air quotation marks, "I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. What do you want?"

"You think I wanted to come here? I don't want to be seen in this hovel. But there's something haunting Northwest Manor." She removed her glasses to look him earnestly in the face. "If you don't help me, the party could be ruined."

"And this is my problem again, why? The only thing you've ever done for like _ever_ , has been to humiliate me and Mabel." Dipper demanded, arms crossed and memories of seeing Mabel's brokenhearted face countless times echoing in his mind.

"Look, just name your price okay. I'll give you anything!"

Dipper put on an overly exaggerated expression of joy. "Oh, okay! Erase all the pain and heartache you've caused Mabel, an honest from the depths of your soul apology and a promise to become a productive, worthwhile human being who _doesn't_ put down anyone who's not from an elite socialite family. Can you do that?" He advanced upon Pacifica angrily, until he was right in her face. "Can you!?"

Pacifica looked very small suddenly, in the face of eons of Dipper's pent up wrath. While he knew he was being horribly unfair, it didn't really change the fact that it felt really, _really_ good to finally unload all of this on Pacifica after carrying it around for so many Loops.

Abruptly he felt his arm being yanked and the concerned gaze of Mabel directed into his eyes. She turned to face Pacifica with an expression of patience. "Excuse us for a moment."

Closing the door as he was pulled back into the house, Dipper found himself facing three shocked faces.

"You are my hero," Candy whispered almost worshipfully.

Grenda punched him in the arm excitedly. "You're the man! Yeah!"

Of the three of them, only Mabel didn't look happy about what she'd just seen. "Dipper? What was that?" She pointed wildly with both hands, indicating all of him, the door and the rich girl standing behind it.

Dipper sighed and pulled his hat down sheepishly, sticking his hands in his pockets and kicking at the ground. "You know the whole time thing? Well, Pacifica is almost never a nice person in any of them. I'm just, sick and tired of seeing you get hurt again and again because of some stupid thing she says to you." He turned away from Mabel, his shoulders slumped, as he continued. "And you know the worst part? Sometimes she _can_ be a good person. And when she is, I really think, maybe we could have been friends. But then I start over and she's a stuck up jerk all over. So... I guess I'm just a little... I don't know, angry and sad and junk whenever I talk to her."

Mabel smiled sadly, and pulled him into a hug. Candy and Grenda quickly followed suit. "Grenda! Too, tight! Need, air!" Mabel forced out, before taking a deep breath as they were released.

Putting her hands on her hips determinedly she pointed at Dipper. "Okay! 'Operation: No more angry face' is a go people! Step one: Dipper, you agree to help Pacifica and get all of us invites to that party. Step two: Candy, Grenda and I do some digging around and prove Pacifica isn't as bad as you think she is!" She pulled out her favorite tool of all time. "That's where this baby's gonna come in handy. GRAPPLING HOOK! Step three: Party till the cows come home! Where are the cows? I dunno. But we're gonna make them jealous they missed our mad party skillz. Now let's **do** this!!"

Dipper chuckled as Candy, Grenda and Mabel cheered enthusiastically; jumping up and down excitedly as they embraced each other. "Get in here bro, there's more than enough hugs on this party bus for everyone."

Surrendering to the inevitable, he allowed himself to be pulled into the group hug. Once they had broke away from each other, Dipper re-opened the door.

In the time that it had taken for them to talk things over Pacifica had managed to regain her composure, standing with her arms crossed and an irritated expression on her face. "Finally. I swear, you should be thanking me for even asking for your help. There are people who would kill for the chance to be useful to my family."

Dipper's good humor went up in smoke and he frowned irritably at the blonde girl on their porch. "Whatever Pacifica. So here's the deal. I'll agree to help you with your ghost problem."

Pacifica sighed in relief.

"Ah bup bup. But in return, you have to get my sister and her friends invites to your fancy pants party. Deal?" He held out his hand to shake on the agreement, and after a moment of self-righteous indignation Pacifica sagged.

"Fine, deal. You're lucky I'm desperate," she replied, reaching into her purse and retrieving three gold plated envelopes with a diamond seal which she placed into Dipper's outstretched hand.

"Wooo! Desperate! Desperate! Desperate!" Mabel and her friends cheered energetically. "Grenda, get the glue gun. We're making dresses!"

Smirking at the twitch in Pacifica's eye, Dipper closed the door as she returned to her Rolls Royce to wait away from the 'peasants.'

* * *

Driving through the crowds of Gravity Fall citizens eager to even so much as look at the Northwest's party Dipper glared sullenly out the window. Mabel, Candy and Grenda were clearly enjoying the ride, examining every detail of the luxury car that was taking them to the Northwest's Manor. Pacifica was also glaring out the window, but for entirely different reasons; a fact which brought at least a little enjoyment to Dipper much as he hated to admit it.

Mabel had always been the forgiving one of the two of them, and Dipper had a lot to hold a grudge over. Not that he couldn't forgive, he just didn't want to. At least not without an apology at minimum.

Once they had entered through the main gates and up to the front entrance the chauffeur let them out and they followed Pacifica up the red carpeting to the door. As the staff opened the doors the visiting group got their first look at the inside of the mansion as Pacifica 'invitingly' gestured to the reception hall. "Welcome to Northwest Manor dorks. Try not to touch anything."

As Mabel, Candy and Grenda rushed excitedly in to explore the area Dipper and Pacifica were approached by Mr and Mrs Northwest, both of them wearing their public face. "Ah, if it isn't the man of the hour! Hopefully you can solve our little... situation before the guests arrive in an hour," Preston said encouragingly.

Dipper nodded. "I'll do my best." Turning away he gave the room a once over, picking at a popcorn kernel that was lodged in his teeth.

"Splendid! Pacifica, take our guest to the _problem room,_ and uh... he's not wearing that is he?" He asked, giving Dipper a sense of apprehension. That only deepened at Pacifica's response.

"I'm on it."

* * *

Dipper threw open the curtain of the changing area with a scowl. He had better clothes than this in his Pocket, but he knew from experience that even the citizens of Gravity Falls had trouble ignoring items appearing from thin air on command. So he was forced to wear the stuffy, overly tight tuxedo Pacifica had picked out for him.

Pulling at the collar of his shirt, he loosened it enough to be almost comfortable. "Don't you guys have anything that isn't ridiculously pretentious. Seriously, who do you think you're impressing?"

Pacifica quickly tied off his bow before he could stop her with a scoff. "Um, Everyone? _You_ wouldn't understand. High-standards are what make the Northwest family great."

Dipper couldn't resist the golden opportunity to make a comeback as he flicked at one of the tassels on the wall-paintings. Hah, golden. "Funny. I thought it was lying about founding the town, cheating at popularity contests and bad-mouthing anyone you think is less important than you."

"Don't touch that!"

Rolling his eyes he followed Pacifica down the halls of her house to a pair of large wooden doors. Opening it he stepped into a room out of an animal rights activist's nightmares. On every available inch of wall-space a stuffed hunting trophy was mounted, a bear skin rug lay on the floor beneath a fur lined chair and a full sized stuffed bear stood in the corner over a pool table. Above the lit fireplace hung the picture of a large lumberjack with a wide grin.

"This is the main room where it's been happening," Pacifica said from behind him.

"I'm not surprised. Look at all this stuff. If this room isn't haunted, I don't know what room would be. I doubt it's anything to worry about though." He pulled out the Journal and flipped to the appropriate page. For Pacifica's benefit of course, since he had long since memorized all the main consistent details from his copy(s). "Gravity Falls ghosts typically fall into about ten categories, floating plates sounds like your basic category one poltergeist."

"So what? Are you going to bore him back into the afterlife by reading from this book?" Pacifica mocked.

Dipper reached into one of his rucksack's pockets. "Just gotta splash this sucker with some anointed water, and he should be out of your — probably fake — blonde hair."

_"What was that about my hair?!"_

A beep from the ecto-geiger counter he had in his bag prompted him to quiet Pacifica's outrage as he followed the pointer to the fireplace. Looking up he was again presented with the painting of the grinning lumberjack, whose expression seemed darker than before as lightning briefly flashed from outside. Abruptly his detector died and he gave it a smack, starting it back up good as new. Looking up again, his eyes widened as he realized the portrait had gone empty. "Uhh... Pacifica?"

"AHH!"

Turning to his erstwhile ally he saw her recoil in disgust as a not-water liquid dripped onto the wood floors. She gave a gasp as she turned her gaze to the source, a rapidly increasing tide of similar liquid rushing from the mouth of a stuffed bear's head. Suddenly the fire flared brightly, reaching out of the fireplace in a burst of heat.

_**-Ancient sins. Ancient sins. Ancient sins. Ancient sins-** _

As one the mounted heads began speaking in a distorted baritone voice, and any loose items in the room began to rapidly float into the air where a moose antler chandelier had recently gained a localized thunderstorm.

"Dipper, what is this?!" Pacifica yelled over the chanting, wind and lightning.

Gulping nervously, Dipper quickly ran through his mental copy of the Journal. He found exactly what he expected to find. "It's a category ten." The bottle of anointed water shattered in his hand. Pacifica screamed in terror, Dipper barely managing not to follow suit. He had been through worse, he was sure of it. He just couldn't recall any of them just that moment was all.

**_-Ancient blood and blackened skies, the forest dark shall once more rise-_ **

Pacifica grabbed Dipper by the collar and began shaking him frantically. "What do we do, what do we do!?"

Dipper dug through his Pocket mentally, trying to find something to answer the question with. _'What I wouldn't give to have had a Ghostbusters Loop.'_

"Calm down! Just don't panic, it can't get any worse than this so just—"

A massive flaming skeletal hand burst free from the fireplace, followed by a second. Working together in defiance of natural law they pulled the upper torso of a burning human skeleton out of the flames, an axe buried in its skull. Screaming in shock and fright, the two watched in horror as muscle and skin grew over the bones before diving under the nearby pool table. The now fleshed figure generated clothes and stood with eyes closed. "I smell a _Northwest"_ In time to his shout a blue corona of fire in the shape of wild hair growing into an equally wild beard and a mustache burst into existence, and he opened angry eyes on the living world.

Throwing his hand into the air, a ghostly glowing double-sided axe forced itself into being in his grip and he slammed it into the floor of the room. "Come out. Come out wherever you are."

From beneath the specter's line of sight Pacifica turned angry, fearful eyes on Dipper. "Hurry, read from your dumb book already."

He shook his head, trying to recall what he could of the pages on ghosts but having more than a bit of difficulty; what with the blinding fear. "This dumb book is gonna save our lives." Giving his memory up for a lost cause right now, he pulled out the actual Journal and began flipping through the pages. Skipping past the advice section, which he _did_ recall as being _extremely less than helpful_ , he tried to find something else that had a chance of saving their lives. Sure, he would just Awaken next Loop none the worse for the wear excepting a bit of existential horror, but Pacifica didn't deserve to get killed by an angry ghost.

He didn't like her sure; that didn't mean he wanted her _dead_.

Before he could find anything however, the table overhead was forced to the side; leaving them unconcealed from the ghost's furious gaze. Grabbing his hand, Pacifica dragged him out of the room rapidly. "This way, hurry!"

Running down the hallway, Dipper finally managed to jumpstart his brain and recalled the information he needed. "Quick, Pacifica, we need to find a silver mirror."

"Right, okay. Silver mirror. Quick, through the garden! Watch out for peacocks." Lifting her dress as they ran through the muddy grounds, they took a right turn as the mad laughter of the spirit followed after them.

Dipper gave a leap of speed as he sighted exactly what they needed, pointing directly ahead towards a small sitting parlor. "Look, there's a silver mirror right there!"

Pacifica gasped and grabbed his arm forcefully, dragging him to a stop. "Wait! Don't go in there! This room has my parents favorite carpet pattern. They'll lost it if we track mud in there."

Dipper actually paused at that, the sheer inanity of the words refusing to make rational sense in his head. He turned disbelieving eyes on Pacifica and pulled his arm free. "Are you serious?"

Pacifica placed herself in front of him with her arms outstretched to block him. "We'll find another way!"

Warning bells went off in Dipper's head at this. This... this was not normal behavior. Even for snooty, rich people. The look of desperation on Pacifica's face was nagging at him. It was almost like—

The sound of the ghost's haunting laughter snapped Dipper back into the present and he shook off the question in his head for later. "Pacifica! We don't have time for this, let me through!" Pushing forward he attempted to force Pacifica out of the way.

Rather than avoid the fight however, she fought back; struggling with him as she did her best to keep him out of the room that contained the one thing that could save their lives. "What is _wrong_ with you? Are you really gonna risk _dying_ to save some stupid carpets!? Why are you so afraid of your parents?!"

_"You wouldn't understand!"_ Pacifica shouted, shoving him roughly. By reflex Dipper grabbed her as he lost his balance, falling backwards against the wall... and then through the thin layer of wallpaper covering a secret opening.

As the sound of the ghost's dark laughter came and went, Dipper pulled his arm out from under Pacifica and looked around. "Where are we?"

Lifting her hair out of her face Pacifica gave the room a confused look. "That's weird. I don't even know where this room is."

"Good, then maybe we can hide out here for a minute until the ghost is out of the way. In the meantime, you can answer my question from earlier. Why are you so obsessed with not making your parents angry?" Dipper asked, prodding at the objects in the room curiously.

From behind him Pacifica was silent, and he turned back around to ask more directly; only to catch sight of the ghost looming over Pacifica covered by an old sheet. There was no time to warn her and so he reacted on instinct, closing the distance and tackling her into a nearby llama painting in a clatter of dishes and boxes just as the ghost lunged forward with a triumphant cry. **_"Your fate is sealed!"_**

Sitting dazedly on the ground where she had fallen from Dipper's shove, Pacifica screamed as the ghost turned around and moved in again. **_"Prepare to die, NORTHWEST!"_**

Dipper lunged forward, blocking the ghost's axe with a candle holder. "Stay back. Pacifica, you get out. I'll hold him off."

Pacifica gaped disbelievingly. "But what about you?"

"I'll be fine. Go!"

Pacifica nodded and ran for the exit, only for the furniture to shift places and block her way. **_"You're not going anywhere Northwest!"_**

Dipper rolled under the ghost and stood protectively in front of Pacifica. As a Looper he could take a lot more than a normal human. Pacifica on the other hand was defenseless, even more than a regular person due to her spoiled upbringing. He could afford to take risks, but — enemy or not — if Pacifica got hurt when he could do something to help then he would never be able to forgive himself. He brandished his makeshift weapon threateningly. "Get back!"

**_"Why do you defend her boy? The Northwest must pay, and if you intend to help her then you can share her fate!"_** With a roar he lunged forward. _**"What good do you think you can do with a candlestick?!"**_

As Pacifica screamed, Dipper stood; scared but resolute. "Not much actually," he replied, before reaching behind him and pulling his trump card from his cumberbund. "This on the other hand!"

Catching sight of the silver hand mirror in Dipper's outstretched grip, the ghost's eyes widened but he was moving too quickly to stop himself. **_"Noooooooo!"_**

In a crash of dust and boxes, Dipper and Pacifica went tumbling from the momentum of the ghost's impact; rolling to a stop against the wall. "Did we get him?" Pacifica asked frantically.

Pulling the mirror up, the captured ghost slammed his fists on the glass from the inside. **_"Free me! FREE ME!"_**

Staring at each other with relieved gazes, they gave a simultaneous cheer. "YES!"

Pacifica threw her arms around Dipper gratefully. "You saved me."

Dipper froze in shock, and moments later Pacifica followed suit. Pulling back awkwardly she pulled out a hundred dollar bill. "Can I pay you to pretend that never happened?"

Dipper shook his head. "Don't worry about it." Looking around he found a footstool and propped the mirror up on it. "Now then, let's find out what this whole mess was all about shall we?"

Out of Dipper's line of sight, Pacifica tensed. "Uh, shouldn't we get out of this room first? You know, go let my parents know we caught the ghost."

Dipper waved her off. "Don't worry about it. We can let them know later. I wanna know why this guy," he gestured at the mirror for emphasis, "was so hung up on your family. Aren't you even a little bit curious?"

The ghost's mocking laughter echoed from his prison. **_"You've been had, boy."_**

Pacifica put her hand on Dipper's shoulder and tried to push him towards the exit. "Dipper, come on. We should really get out of here."

Dipper gently jerked his arm free. "Hold up Pacifica." He turned back to the ghost. "What do you mean 'I've been had?'"

The ghost laughed again. "Why not ask her? Ask her what her family did to me and the people of this town one hundred and fifty years ago."

Turning, Dipper faced Pacifica uncertainly. "...What is he talking about?"

Pacifica averted her gaze, biting at her glossed lip, and said nothing.

"Pacifica, _what is he talking about_? What did your family do?"

Turning away completely, Pacifica wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm sorry, I should have told you, but my parents wouldn't let me."

The wheels in Dipper's mind quickly put two and two together. "You knew. You knew what this was all about, and you got me to do your dirty work for you anyway. You tricked me."

The ghost's laughter echoed loudly. **_"Now you see her for what she truly is; a liar and a trust-breaker. Just like her ancestors. One hundred and fifty years ago this day, the Northwests asked us lumber-folk to build them a mansion atop the hill. We were told t'would be a service to the town, that once a year they would throw a grand party, and all would share in the bounty. It took years of backbreaking labor and sacrifice, but when it was time for the grand party they promised the common folk of the town, they refused to let us in."_**

Dipper snorted and turned an angry look on Pacifica, who shrank under his gaze. "Yeah, that sounds familiar."

**_"With the trees gone, the mudslides began. While they partied and laughed, I was swept away by the storm! And so I said with final breath,'One-fifty years I'll return from death, and if the gate's still closed to town, wealthy blood will stain the ground!' A curse passed down until this day."_ **

"So I was right. They knew this was coming." He turned angrily to face Pacifica. "And you made me do all this to avoid ghostly justice."

Pacifica huddled in on herself and said nothing.

Dipper grunted. "And here I was thinking maybe I had been misjudging you this whole time and you weren't as bad as I thought you were. But you really are just as terrible as your parents. Another link in the world's worst chain."

Reaching down he grabbed the mirror and shoved it into his cumberbund. "Whatever, I'm out of here. Enjoy your stupid party."

"Dipper wait!"

Whirling on her he glared with all the pent up fury of thousands of Loops, and Pacifica backed down with a whimper. He shoved the anger back down and ducked back through the torn wallpaper.

* * *

Preston greeted Dipper as he entered the hallway with a genial expression. "Dipper my boy! Have you managed to take care of the... problem we spoke about?"

Giving him a sullen look, he nodded wordlessly.

Preston beamed. "Splendid! Well then, I should be off to greet the other guests. As per our agreement, you and your other urchin friends are free to enjoy the rest of the party. Do try not to break anything." Directing his gaze past Dipper, he straightened and moved past him. "Ah, Mister Mayor! I see you've noticed our newest tapestry."

Staring after him, Dipper considered grabbing something from his Pocket to destroy the party; but quickly changed his mind as he saw Mabel waving him over. She wanted to go to this party so badly, he'd feel even worse if he ruined it for her.

"Hey Dip-Dip. How'd the ghost hunt go?"

Dipper grinned and pulled out his prize. Disregarding the reasoning, he was still proud of his accomplishment. "Went off like clockwork."

Mabel grabbed the mirror eagerly, making an impressed sound. She handed it back and punched his shoulder happily. "Good going bro," she looked around suspiciously and then leaned in to whisper, " but we _kinda_ hit a snag on the secret mission part. See Grenda, Candy and I got distracted by the guestbook, and then we ended up flirting with this boy, and now we're sorta not talking to each other."

Dipper shook his head. "Don't worry about it Mabel. I already found all the evidence I need. Just go ahead and make up with your friends."

Mabel gave him a worried look. "You sure?"

He nodded. "Positive. It's a party, sort of. Just, go and have fun."

"Alright, I guess so. But if you need me just call okay?"

Dipper nodded and Mabel headed back into the crowd. Moving to the side of the room, he watched as the guests talked and joked for a few minutes before a slight shaking from his side drew his attention. Grabbing the mirror he moved into one of the halls. "What?"

**_"Dipper. Please let me get my vengeance against the Northwests. You hate them as much as I."_ **

"Oh no. I'm not falling for that line. If I let you out, you'll pull some kind of crazy stunt that'll get me and my sister dragged into it. You're staying safe in there until Mabel's done partying and then I'm taking you back to the Mystery Shack and performing an exorcism."

The ghost glared. **_"Fine. So be it."_**

Abruptly the blue flame of his hair flared outward into a blazing corona of orange flame and the handle of the mirror turned red hot in Dipper's hand. With a yelp, his reflexes kicked in and he dropped the burning metal, the silvered glass shattering as it hit the ground.

With a booming laugh of victory the spectre rose from his prison, taking form once again. **_"Yes! Vengeance! You had your chance boy. Now you will suffer as they do. NORTHWEST!"_**

Accompanied by a flash of lightning, the angry spirit tore into the main hall of the party where Preston was calling for a toast to his family's name. Dipper rushed in immediately after, just as the martini glasses exploded in the guests hands. Flying into the air above the large hall the ghost raised his hands above his head and cackled madly.

**_"Generations locked away, my revenge shall have its day!"_** Throwing his hand out, a blast of spectral energy surged forward like a bolt of lightning. Striking the Mayor, the wizened leader of the town screamed out as he was transformed into wood from the ground up; wheelchair and all.

Backing away in horror, Dipper watched as the rest of the guests quickly began meeting the same fate; all the while the ghost bellowed vengeful laughter overhead. The many stuffed animals placed around the room became possessed with an otherworldly power, an ethereal glow emitting from their eyes as they returned to life and attempted to attack the partygoers. Wild vines grew rapidly up the walls, the forest retaking the manor which had been built from its wood.

The basketball player attempted to fight off a group of stuffed squirrels, before being struck by the ghost's power; quickly becoming a wooden statue frozen in fear. Dipper jumped back in shock. "Whoa! That is _messed_ up."

Running into the chaos he attempted to find his sister and her friends. He succeeded. Standing in a group, three female preteen wooden carvings stood arguing with each other. He fell to his knees. "no..."

Balling up his fist, he slammed it into the floor repeatedly before glaring up at the ghost. "No. Screw this. SCREW THIS!"

Reaching into himself he tapped into his short list of out-of Loop skills, drawing on the only one he had which he was certain would let him fight the ghost on even terms.

He had had the bad luck to Awaken during Aizen's rebellion, so his time in the Shin'ō Academy had been cut short; but even though he hadn't gotten to bond with a Zanpakuto, that didn't mean he hadn't gained anything from his short stint as a Shinigami trainee. He had always been a good student, and one class in particular was focused on study and practical application. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hadō Number Thirty-One: Shakkahō!"

A mid-sized ball of Spiritual Energy tore from his hand, catching the ghost by surprise and exploding against him. However when the light cleared, the ghost was still mostly intact; and the missing half of his torso and left arm quickly regenerated.

**_"Impressive boy. I was unaware such power existed that could harm me even in death. But it isn't enough. There's only one way to change your fates, a Northwest must open the party-gates!"_** Throwing out his hands, he sent a doubled wave of power at Dipper.

Dipper gathered all his remaining Spiritual Energy and forced it into his hands. "Bakudō Number Eight: Seki!" An orb of glowing light appeared in front of him just in time to intercept the ghost's attack, deflecting it away into the room and striking several of the remaining party guests. Dipper had no time to feel regret however, instead using the distraction to run out of the room in search of Pacifica. If getting a Northwest to open the gate would save his sister, then that's what he would make happen. One way or another. Fortunately he found her back where he had left her, sitting dejectedly in the hidden room where they had captured the ghost and flicking a flashlight on and off repeatedly.

He grabbed her arm. "Pacifica. The ghost got free, and now he's turning everyone into wood. We can fix this, but you need to open the gates and let the townsfolk—"

Pacifica yanked her arm away, and turned to look at him despondently. "You wanna know why this room was locked up?" She turned the flashlight's beam up, illuminating a set of paintings. "This is what I found in here. A painted record of every horrible thing that my family's ever done. Lying, cheating... and then there's me." She turned the flashlight back on herself. "I lied to you just because I'm too afraid to talk back to my stupid! Parents!" She emphasized the last two words by throwing her earrings at a painting of the two heads of Northwest household.

She turned to face Dipper with wavering eyes. "You were right about me. I am a horrible human being. I _am_ just as bad as my parents, just another link in the world's worst chain."

...and there was the guilt. Dipper swallowed a dozen responses as he tried to come up with something that could make up for the things he had said to Pacifica; repeatedly. After so many years, it had gotten hard to remember that Pacifica was only a kid; like he had been. Like he still was. He took a deep breath, and let out the leftover anger against all the Pacificas he had known over his lifetimes. It wasn't really gone, but now he could start fighting against it. And he would start here.

Placing his hand on Pacifica's shoulder, he gave her an encouraging smile. "I was wrong. You aren't like your parents. You're better. I'm sorry about what I said, that was just me being angry and spiteful. You aren't just another link in the world's worst chain, you can be so much more. You can _choose_ to be the first link on a better chain of Northwest." He held out his hand. "Just help me fix this. It's not too late—"

**_"It's too late! You are all wood!"_ **

Dipper looked up sharply. "Oh no, c'mon hurry!" Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed Pacifica's hand and pulled her after him; dragging her back towards the main hall where, true to the ghost's words, all the guests had become wooden statues locked in positions of fear and torment. Floating almost peacefully in front of the fireplace, arms behind his back, the ghost faced away from them. The clock chimed midnight.

**_"The forest of death, a lesson learned; and now the Northwest manor will BURN!"_** Throwing his arms out as he spoke, a raging flame tore loose from the hearth; spreading rapidly across the walls.

"Mabel! NO! Hadō Number One: Shō!" Charging the ghost he pointed his index finger forward and used what little regained Spiritual Energy he had to target the flames, the force of the technique temporarily dispersing the ghost empowered fire. "Pacifica, hurry! I can't do this too many more times. Hadō Number One: Shō! "

Staring wide-eyed at him, she gaped at his sudden display of power. "What is—"

"It's something from the journal, just hurry!" He yelled, dodging a literal burst of return-fire from the ghost.

Nodding rapidly, she ran toward the front door; before turning to address the ghost, buying Dipper time to fight off the fires. "Hey, Ugly! Over here."

Breaking off from his pursuit of Dipper, the ghost turned a furious glare at the young blonde. Matching his glare with an imperious fury of her own, Pacifica continued. "You want me to let in the townsfolk. Cause I'll do it, just change everyone back."

**_"You wish to prove yourself? Pull that lever and open the gate to the town. Fulfill your ancestor's promise!"_ **

Unwilling to take her eyes of the ghost, Pacifica reached behind her to grab the gate lever; only to be brought up short by her parent's emerging from the hidden Panic Room beneath the floor. "Pacifica Elise Northwest; Stop this _instant_. We can't let the town see us like _this_ , we have a reputation to uphold." He waved her forward. "Come into the Panic Room. There's enough mini-sandwiches and oxygen to last you, me and the butler for a week." He covered his mouth and and lowered his voice to a whisper as he gestured towards the servant. "We'll eat the butler."

Pacifica turned her gaze back to where Dipper had now been reduced to beating at the flames with his tuxedo jacket. Gritting her teeth, she reached for the lever.

Preston's gaze sharpened. "You dare disobey us?!" He pulled out a small bell and began ringing it harshly.

Caught off guard by the out of place sound Dipper turned his gaze to the sight of Pacifica flinching at the sound of the ringing bell. Instantly his mind made the connection between her reaction and the animal behavior modification research methods. A horrified weight dropped into his gut, but before he could react he was forced to return to the fire as his jacket erupted in flames.

Preston glared at the bell in his hands as he rang it harder. "Dingly-dingly! Is this bell broken?!"

Pacifica stomped furiously on the ground, directing a hard gaze at the man who called himself her father. "Our family name is broken! And I'm gonna fix it!" With a strong yank, she pulled the gate lever down; opening the way for the ecstatically cheering citizens. The ghost gasped in shock as the townsfolk charged into the manor to take part in the festivities they had watched from afar for so many years.

**_"Yes. Yes. It's happening. My heart, once as hard as oak, now grows soft, like more of a birch or something."_ **

Dipper gave a sharp victory call as the flames disappeared and the wooden statues reverted to people as the forest retreated once more.

Staring down at Pacifica, the ghost gave a kind smile; which she returned happily. **_"Pacifica, you are not like the other Northwests."_** Raising his arms in vindication, he floated upwards; dissolving in the moonlight. **_"I feel lumber-justice."_** As his spectral form faded away, the axe which had split his head fell to the ground; tearing a gash in the floor as Pacifica watched in satisfaction.

And then there was chaos as the townsfolk of Gravity Falls invaded the Northwest Manor. As Preston frantically ran around trying to control the 'riff-raff,' Mabel and her friends came to dazedly. "Oh man, what happened?"

"Mabel!" Dipper tackled his sister in a tight hug. "I was so worried, I thought I lost you."

Patting her brother awkwardly on the back, Mabel turned a confused glance on Candy and Grenda; both of who temporarily forgot their feud to share in her puzzlement. "Uh... there, there bro?"

Pulling back, Dipper smiled. "Sorry, sorry. I'll just let you three talk. Don't mind me, I'm just being weird again."

Getting up he did as promised, heading over to where Pacifica stood watching while his sister and her friends made up. "See, told you you could do it. First link on a new chain."

Pacifica smiled, before drawing in on herself. "Yeah, but it's not like it'll last. Next year they'll probably just lock everyone out again."

Dipper chuckled. "Yeah, maybe. But _you_ saved everybody _this_ year. And they can't ever take that away from you. Plus, look where we're standing."

Pacifica looked down and saw the carpet pattern she had risked their lives over earlier that night. Their muddy shoes caking the material in filth, she gave a little gasp; before giving a vindictive smile and grinding her platform heel into it roughly. She and Dipper laughed with one another as they knocked food and drinks onto the carpeting for the next several moments.

Smiling appreciatively, she chuckled. "But seriously, I better go find somebody to clean this up."

Dipper let her leave, pondering the positive change in her. He hadn't expected anything like this from her except as a Variant. To learn that she could actually be a good person even in Baseline was actually a major relief. Now he could honestly encourage Mabel's efforts to befriend the blonde girl without hiding a grudge. A grudge which he had actually managed to mostly remove the bite from thanks to this Expansion. Not that it was completely gone, but at least now he could direct it to where it actually belonged.

Seriously, who brainwashes their kids?!

Turning around he was suddenly dragged out of his thought by the appearance of Old Man McGucket in front of him, 'dancing' and making random words.

"Hey, what's up McGucket?" In response the town kook grabbed him and dragged him off to a side hall. "Hey!"

Putting a busted pair of spectacles on his face, McGucket turned to face the Looper. "Dipper, I've been lookin' for ya. I fixed the laptop. I've been doing calculations, and I think something terrible is coming. The apocalypse! The end times!"

Dipper gaped, before shaking his head tiredly. "Okay, I just kinda had a part of the world turned on its head. How about we hold off on this until the next time okay? It's a party, let's have some fun for once."

Walking back out onto the floor, he made it back to the table and reached out to get something to eat.

Waking Up on the bus to Gravity Falls, Dipper gaped. "Aw, what?"

* * *

26.1 continued (BIOS-Pherecydes): [Gravity Falls]

**Awakening the Llama Part 2: Reverse**

Mabel sat up and gave her brother a frown. "C'mon Dipper, what's so special about Pacifica Northwest's fancy-shmancy party? For the past like hundred Loops you've been even more super obsessive about this than usual."

Dipper straightened his bowtie in the mirror, preparing himself for the trip to the Northwest Manor himself; rather than suffering through another fitting that somehow still never seemed to fit right. Turning he met Mabel's gaze, the neon lights of her sweater of the day causing him to squint. "You don't understand Mabel, you keep refusing to go to the party so you haven't seen what it's like. If you'd just try following the script for this one, just this one time, you'd see."

"Yeah, well maybe I don't want to 'follow the script' Dipper. Pacifica has been the biggest pain in our butts since like _forever_."

Dipper ran his hands through his hair with a sigh. "Okay, yes, admittedly Pacifica's been a bit of a tool ever since we started Looping; but now I finally understand _why_. Her parents are horrible people, I mean like really horrible. And alright sure we already knew that, but they're even worse than we thought; maybe not Gendo level, but at least as bad as the worst Variants we've seen. Pacifica's dealing with a really lousy situation, and even despite that she keeps rising above it to become an actually kinda decent human being."

Mabel huffed and crossed her arms. "You just want to go because you've got a crush on her now that you're over Wendy."

Dipper gaped. "Wha-are you-you can't be-WHAT?!"

With a snort, Mabel broke; collapsing as she gave into laughter and taking a quick picture of her brother's face to add to her 'Scrapbook!'. "Y-you should-hahahaha-see the look-haha-the look on your-hahaha-face! I got you, admit it, I totally got you Dipper."

Dipper sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with a chuckle. "Okay, yeah, you got me. But you have to trust me on this one alright? Candy and Grenda really want to go too, you know. It's not the same there for them without you."

Mabel gave a dramatic sigh. "Fiiine, I'll go; but only to show Pacifica how to throw a _real_ party!"

Dipper smiled. "Thanks Mabel. Hurry and get changed though, if we don't go soon the party'll start before we can take care of the ghost."

"Yeah, yeah. Keep your hat on bro." In a flash of light, Mabel summoned a swirl of glitter which surrounded her for a moment before disappearing; leaving her dressed in an elaborate ball gown.

Dipper rolled his eyes. "Are you ever going to tell me where you got that glitter power from?"

Giving a cheeky grin as she lifted the hem of her dress to leave she shook her head. "Nope!"

* * *

"Say it."

"I don't wanna."

"Say it."

"No."

"Say—"

"Fine! Okay, you were right Dipper."' Mabel slumped good-naturedly. "Pacifica's not all that bad after all. And her parents are major butts. What kind of jerk treats their _daughter_ like a _pet_?"

Dipper scowled. "The worst kind. But you see what I mean about Pacifica being better than that now, right?"

Mabel nodded. "Yeah, I guess. I'm still not going to forgive her unless she starts Looping and apologizes, but I won't hold it against her either."

"You think she could? Start Looping, I mean."

Staring at where the heiress was gleefully stomping mud into her parents carpeting, Mabel shrugged. "It's possible isn't it?"

Dipper chuckled. "Yeah, I guess it is." Noticing the look on Mabel's face, Dipper frowned. "What? Do I have something on my face."

"Oh nothing~"

"Oh, no. I know that look. What are you planning?" Dipper demanded worriedly.

Mabel grinned, before running out into the crowd. Stopping in the middle of the floor she took a deep breath and shouted at the top of her lungs. "DIPPER LOVES PACIFICA, DIPPER LOVES—"

Dipper cut her off as he charged after her. "I DO NOT! MABEL! GET BACK HERE!"

"CATCH ME IF YOU CAN BRO-BRO! OR WOULD YOU RATHER BE K-I-S-S-I-N-G PACIFICA!" With that she took off down the halls, laughing loudly. The Loop would be ending any moment now, but her brother's embarrassment would last forever. Especially since she had taken another picture for her 'Scrapbook!' to remind him.

"MABEL!!!"

* * *

Pacifica Southeast awoke to the familiar sounds of her mom's singing downstairs as she made breakfast. Her dad's snoring echoed from the next room over and Pacifica made sure not to wake him as she tiptoed to their bathroom. School may have let out for the summer, but she still had to get up early to deliver the newspaper to the town. How else was she going to save up the extra money she needed to buy those awesome new hoop earrings she had been eyeing at the Gravity Malls thrift store after all?

Abruptly she felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, and a simultaneous feeling of confusion. Looking around at the simple halls of her family's two story home she was left with a dual sense of familiarity and disorientation. Something seemed off, as if things weren't the way they were supposed to be. A brief image of a shining foyer in a massive room appeared in her mind, overlaid atop the familiar sight of the hallway she had grown up in. However unlike the warm glow of her modest home, the mental picture seemed cold and harsh. With a shudder she pushed it away and hurried into the bathroom. If she didn't hurry she'd be late.

Once she had washed and dressed herself she ran down the stairs into the kitchen. Humming peaceably to herself, Priscilla Southeast, or Scylla as she preferred to be called, caught sight of her and checked the clock. "You better hurry Paz honey. You know how stressed Tobias gets if all his employees aren't on time."

"I know, mom. Mister Determined won't fire me though, I'm his best delivery girl."

Scylla frowned. "Now, Paz, what have I told you about getting too full of yourself?"

Pacifica rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "I know mom, geez. Don't worry, I'm not gonna get a big head over a _newspaper job_."

Preston walked in behind her and ruffled her hair affectionately. "See that you don't young lady. The Southeasts are destined for great things. Work hard and you may even become _mayor_ of our fine town someday."

Giving a half-serious grumble as she fixed her hair, she cringed as her dad gave her mom a kiss. "Eww, gross. Okay, I'm leaving now. See you guys later."

"Work hard, sweetie!" Scylla called out, before giving a giggle at her husband.

Repressing the memory of the last few seconds from her mind, Pacifica headed out to the garage and grabbed her bike with a frown. Throughout that entire conversation, the nagging feeling had been blaring at her. Everything about her parents was the way it had always been since as long as she could remember, but even so there was some part of her that kept saying they weren't acting normal at all. How exactly they were acting wrong she couldn't say, however, although given the vague jealousy she was feeling for... herself? ...she resolved that it was probably better if she didn't dwell on it.

With that in mind she quickly kicked her bike into gear and rushed off into town.

* * *

Dipper Awoke to the smell of old paper and dust. Sending out a quick Ping, he looked around. A dusty room, full of books and old projectors; as well as countless spiderwebs. So Pioneer Day then. Not receiving any responses to his Ping, he took a brief check through his Loop Memories to look for any inconsistencies... and froze. _'No, no, no, no, nononononononono! Please not this, any Variant but this. Genderswapped, monsters, human Bill, even that one where I'm stuck as a ghost while Bill keeps my body, just not—'_

"Well brother? Did it work? I don't feel any more powerful."

Turning slowly, Dipper found himself facing his sister; but not the sister he knew. This Mabel wore a magician's leotard under a blue blazer, and a matching hairband with a familiar amulet. Gulping quietly to himself, he quickly reviewed the last few minutes of his Loop Memories. He and Mabel had found information within the journal their great uncle Stan had attempted to hide from them that had led them to believe there were significant government secrets concealed beneath the town. As political leverage was a worthwhile currency in its own right they had made haste to track down the information.

To that end they had drafted the local idiot to follow the nonsensical clues they had been stymied by after his own spatial reasoning had allowed him to decipher the moronically arranged map. McGuckett had also made for an acceptable meatshield from the tranquilizer darts and was sleeping fitfully near the entrance. Once within the cache of hidden material, he and Mabel had quickly made short work of sorting out what was or was not useful. The fact that some hick lumberjack had been chosen as the patsy mayor of the fledgling town was worthless to them, however the information on the 8 1/2 President was going to open a lot of doors in their future. Especially as his body was so conveniently located nearby, ripe for the taking. Blackmailing the government had never been so easy!

However it was a single line of text near the end of the file that had most caught their attention. If true it would speed up their plans by decades at the least. Once he had written out the Pledge of Allegiance in phonetically correct reverse, he and Mabel had wasted no time reading the supposed wizardly empowering spell.

Which all led back to the current situation.

This quick recall had taken only a moment and so controlling his features as best as possible, despite feeling sick at his counterpart's thoughts, he adopted a disdainful expression. "There's only one way to find out, wouldn't you agree dear sister? As we agreed, the Amulet."

Mabel made a sour face, and grudgingly placed the Mystic Amulet atop the table. Holding her hand above it, she closed her eyes and focused.

_'Please don't work, please don't work, please don't work, please... it worked.'_

Sitting on the table where there had once been only one Amulet, there now lay two. Moving by autopilot, Dipper reached out and took the original, affixing it to the bolo he wore around his neck. "Well sister, it would appear we were successful. We now possess the power of magic."

Mabel grinned darkly; perfect teeth set beneath harsh eyes, and expertly styled hair. Dipper suppressed a shudder.

* * *

Pacifica sat by herself in her booth at the local café. The owner, Miss Susan kept sending her suspicious glances out of the corner of her eyes, but as long as Pacifica bought another drink every now and then she allowed her to stay. At best she could afford another glass of chocolate milk before she hit her spending limit for the day, but somehow she just didn't feel like moving just yet. Everything was wrong. And yet it wasn't. But it was! All day long she had been getting hit with flashes of _something_ , almost déjà vu but not quite. Déjà vu at least meant things were familiar, whatever was going on right now was more along the lines of everything being unfamiliar. And. Yet. Not.

It was driving her mad. Or perhaps she already was.

She had gone to work just like normal, where as usual her boss Tobias Determined had been running his staff ragged making sure they met their deadlines. And yet she was certain that he was supposed to be some no-spine hack reporter with no real readership. Things had only gotten worse from there. And to top it all off, once her route was done she had gone into the thrift shop to check on her earrings; only to find herself hit with a brief flash of repulsion just looking at them. That had really been too much. She loved those earrings, it was the whole reason she had gotten her paper route in the first place; to suddenly find herself acting like some... some... snob! was the straw that broke the camel's back.

So she was sitting in the café, drinking her chocolate milk, and trying to sort out exactly what was wrong with her head. Which had somehow led her to recalling a different life she had never lived; one in which she was rich, and popular, and completely, utterly alone. Where her parents were the kind of people who cared more about appearances than people, even family. Where she was dressed up like some kind of doll, ordered around out of ingrained fear of a stupid bell, and treated everyone around her like scum. Even her supposed friends, who likely only stuck around her because she had money. A lot of money.

All things considered, she preferred to let that life go back and rot in her nightmares where it had come from. Even if the clothes had been _amazing_.

Looking out the window blankly, she blinked at the sight of a familiar figure moving hurriedly from across the street. She scowled at the sight. There was _one_ thing about that other Gravity Falls she had liked. She would have gladly traded a certain pair of twins for the version from her dream-world any day. Mabel and Tyrone 'Dipper' Gleeful, owners and star performers of the 'Telepathy Twins House of Mystery.' The two had run her best friend Gideon and his family out of town last year, after moving in with their great uncle following their parent's unexplained disappearance. Gideon's family just couldn't compete with the twin's act and they had been forced to move to find a better place to set up.

Only a year older than she was, they already had the entire town practically eating out of their hands. The girls were always talking about Tyrone's aloof personality, and the boys were to a tee wrapped around Mabel's fingers. Even the police made special exceptions for their great uncle ever since the twins had moved in; and Deputy Blurbs and Durland were usually incredibly professional, despite being forced to work with a partner they hated. It just didn't make any sense. It was practically magic. Although...

A brief flash of not-memory passed through her mind for a moment, involving a ghost and a book. The same kind of book Gideon had been reading all the time... and which had somehow fallen into Tyrone's hands after Gideon's move. Pacifica's eyes narrowed. Maybe it was nothing, just some weird connection her brain had made while creating that dream world, but still...

Getting up she quickly paid the perpetually scowling Miss Susan and hurried off after the performer.

* * *

Dipper moved quickly down the streets of the Variant Gravity Falls, doing his best to ignore the reversed nature of everyone he knew. Taking a turn into the back alleys to avoid attention he picked up speed. In his hands he was quickly rifling through the pages of the Journal in his hands. While he had memorized his own, this one was almost nothing like the one he was used to. Where the Baseline Journals were more focused on documenting and categorizing the types and dangers of the creatures and phenomena of the town, this version was almost exclusively focused on methods to exploit, manipulate and experiment upon Gravity Falls' natural weirdness. While he wanted nothing more than to meet the author of _his_ Journal, if he never met the author of _this one_ it would be too soon.

However the important part of this was that although horribly unethical in his practices, the author had made several discoveries about the nature of Gravity Falls. And hopefully somewhere within the metaphorically blood-soaked pages of the book in his hands, he would find something that could save the town from Mabel. Because if she summoned Bill like she intended, and he was as easily defeated as he was the last time Dipper had dealt with this Variant, there would be nothing to stop her from doing whatever she pleased. And unlike the Mabel he knew and loved, this version of his sister didn't understand restraint or kindness.

Neither had he for that matter prior to Awakening. The closest thing either of them had ever felt to affection had been towards each other. Although at least this Loop he was spared the memories of harming his parents; if only this time, their disappearances had been entirely unrelated to him or his sister. Unlike last time... and that was as far as he was willing to go with that line of thought. Okay, thank you, _moving on!_

The sound of a trashcan falling over followed by a muffled curse echoed from behind him and by pure in-Loop reflexes he drew on the power of the Mystic Amulet as he spun around.

"Who's there?!" he called out, before realizing he had accidentally grabbed his follower in the glow of the Amulet's telekinetic field. Sighing, he figured there was no point avoiding it now and pulled the struggling figure towards him with a mental command.

"Eyuh, hey, put me down! How are you doing this?"

His eyes widened as he recognized the voice, and moments later a familiar person came into view. The Pacifica he knew would have never been caught dead in the eighties fashion getup this Variant's Pacifica wore; but he had to admit, he preferred seeing her in normal clothes than the ones approved of by her parents.

Catching sight of him, she sent him a fierce glare. "It really is magic. That's how you've been getting away with everything. I bet these visions I've been dealing with all day are your fault too, aren't they! What, not good enough you managed to force my best friend to move; you have to torture me with some made up world where my parents are rich jerks and everyone I know is totally different?"

Dipper's eyes widened. "You-oh man this can't be happening. Of all the Loops for you to Awaken in, this one? Screw you Yggdrasil, that's just not fair."

"What are you babbling about? What the heck's an igdruhsill?" Pacifica demanded, clearly freaked out but hiding it with anger.

Dipper groaned. "Okay, look, I know you don't have any reason to trust me right now but I'm going to need you to try. Please?"

* * *

Whatever Pacifica had expected to hear after somehow being picked up magically and brought to face Tyrone 'Dipper' Pines, that was not it. Not even close. As a matter of fact, until this moment she hadn't been sure he even _knew_ the word please. Against her better judgement she nodded, and was lowered to the ground in a surprisingly gentle manner.

"Okay, spill. What's going on?"

Dipper ran his hands through his hair with a sigh. "Alright, I realize that considering you've seen me do magic just now and you think I'm putting images in your head this probably isn't going to be as convincing as I'd like; but I need you to bear with me here."

Well, that was a _great_ way to build up her confidence. She gave a suspicious nod.

"I know this is going to sound crazy, but there isn't any way to say it that doesn't sound crazy so whatever. Imagine there's a tree,; except it's not really a tree, it's actually a supercomputer that just so happens to be best described as a tree. You with me so far?"

She mentally began considering her escape routes, but gave him the signal to continue.

"Now imagine this supercomputer tree is so big that entire universes are no bigger than the leaves on its branches. And one of those leaves is our Universe, our main Universe. That's where I'm from, that leaf. This," he gestured around him, "is a different leaf, one similar to but different from the the original leaf where I'm from. That leaf is also where you're from, which is why you're remembering a different life. The reason you and I are here is because a really, really, _really_ long time ago something happened to the supercomputer tree — which is called Yggdrasil by the way — and now Reality is broken."

Pacifica nodded understandingly, giving Dipper a calm smile. "Of course, that makes perfect sense. Now that you've explained that, I'm not confused anymore. So, since we're all clear now, I'm just going to go home and leave you to whatever it is you're doing. Okay? Bye."

Turning she tried to move quickly away from the obviously deranged boy, but found herself suspended mid-air again. She groaned. "Can you put me down please?"

Dipper turned her around to face him again. "Just as soon as I'm done explaining."

"There's more?!"

* * *

Really Dipper hadn't expected this to be easy, especially with the situation the way it was. But he also hadn't expected it to take several hours to answer all of Pacifica's questions, and show her enough evidence to make her accept the possibility he was telling the truth. Even pulling things out of his Pocket had just been dismissed as another secret he had been hiding from normal people. Luckily one of Hermione's supplemental books for stubborn new Loopers had managed to get through to her, and she had agreed to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"So what now? You just play along with this 'Loop' until it ends, and then you go home?"

Dipper shook his head. "Sometimes I can, but not in this Loop. That's part of what I was so upset when you first told me you were Looping."

" _Supposedly_ Looping," She corrected him.

Dipper grimaced. "Whatever. Look, Looping or not we really can't let things go the way they're heading. Mabel is getting ready to summon a dream Demon, and if she does then we can probably kiss any chance of peace goodbye. With our new wizard powers, the Mystic Amulet and all of Bill's abilities she'll be able to control the entire world however she feels like. I'm technically still a pretty new Looper, I don't have nearly enough abilities to handle that kind of trouble; and this Loop's Mabel is super paranoid about stuff. Plus she's the creative one, which in this case is bad. Very, very bad."

Pacifica quirked an eyebrow, placing her hands on her hips in a way that was more like the Pacifica he knew than the one from this Variant. "So what, you're gonna try and stop her? How?"

"That's what I was trying to figure out before all this. I was hoping the Journal would have some kind of clue I could use, but so far no go."

"Yeah, because it worked so well when you were fighting the ghost," Pacifica retorted, before her eyes widened and she slapped her hands over her mouth.

"Hah! I knew you were Looping! So which time was it? The time with the Proton Pack, or maybe the time I captured him with a Pokéball? Oh, I bet it was the time I used the Spirit Gun to take him out wasn't it." He grinned proudly. "I've been getting pretty good at beating the ghost since the first time."

Pacifica snorted, which had it been a Baseline Loop Dipper would have choked to death out of shock from hearing, and smirked. "Guess what buster, I'm pretty sure it _was_ the first time. That Hado thingy was from the journal huh?"

Dipper groaned. "Oh man. Of all the times it could have been, it totally had to be the time where I was least awesome didn't it."

Pacifica shrugged. "Eh, I don't know. I thought it was pretty awesome."

Rubbing the back of his head with a pleased blush he focused on a specific detail. "So you believe me now?"

"Not even a little. But as long as I'm stuck with these memories in my head, I figure I might as well play along. Right?"

Dipper just gave an irritated moan.

* * *

Despite what she had said, Pacifica was finding it harder to ignore the other set of memories now that she was focusing on them. And the more she remembered, the less she wanted to. With the exception of the Gleeful twins, everything about the life she had now was better than the one she apparently lived in that other 'leaf.' Here she was just Pacifica, happy-go-lucky preteen with a flair for eighties fashion. Daughter of a mildly successful business owner and his work at home wife, who both loved her unconditionally; best friend of the not at all obsessively deranged Gideon Pines; and all around easygoing normal girl.

If being one of these 'Loopers' meant having to give that up, then she didn't want anything to do with it.

Even so, she had to admit there was a certain appeal in talking to Dipper about his plans. It wasn't everyday you had the chance to save your hometown, and possibly even the whole world, from a supervillainess in the making. With help from her twin brother no less. It was like a video game almost, complete with a standard tutorial infodump. Not that the other her would have ever been caught dead holding so much as a Gameboy.

Her loss.

"You said your sister's planning on summoning some demon guy, right? So, what's the plan?" She asked curiously.

Dipper hesitated. "Promise not to freak out."

She didn't even have to think. "No."

He gave a combined groan/sigh. "Okay, fair enough. Mabel's planning on summoning Bill at midnight. Witching hour and everything. I — and by I, I mean we — are going to summon him first."

Pacifica froze. Not just physically, but also mentally as she tried to process that sentence and came up blank. "I'm sorry, what? Unless my ears are just as crazy as you obviously are, you just said you intend to summon a literal Demon. And you _wonder_ why I think you're evil!"

"No, nononono, wait, just listen. Bill is a really incredibly powerful Demon, I'm not denying that; but he's also Loop Aware — I don't need to explain what that means right? Self-explanatory and all that. — plus , at least in this Variant, he's kiiinnd of a push-over. Or at least more bound to his deals. As long as you can word it right, he's stuck following whatever promises he makes. Last time I Looped in here... well let's just say that the Bill I'm used to would have never gotten tricked like that."

"And you're planning on summoning this guy?"

Dipper nodded. "I was going to try and figure out something else, but that was before I found out you were Awake. With you to help distract Mabel, I'll have time to set up the summoning ritual — with a few additional precautions — and make a deal with him. Then I can help you adjust to being a Looper."

She crossed her arms with a skeptical look. "And what if I say no, huh? You gonna blast me with your magic?"

"What? No!"

Pacifica had to hand it to him, he actually looked genuinely shocked at her accusation. If this wasn't some trick then she'd apologize later, but at this point she wasn't taking any chances.

* * *

Running his hand through his stupidly slicked back hair, Dipper groaned "Listen, I know you think I'm the bad guy here — and to be perfectly honest, I would too if I were in your situation — but I really am just trying to avoid anyone getting hurt. And the best shot we have of that right now, is making sure Mabel doesn't get ahold of Bill's powers. So please, just for now, trust me?"

He wasn't sure if it was because he had finally gotten through to her, or if she was just humoring him but she eventually gave a nod. "Fine. But I'm warning you, don't try anything funny got it?"

For the sake of agreement, Dipper didn't explain that by this point he had learned enough fighting techniques to wrestle the Multibear and Leaderaur at the same time. Instead he just nodded and stuck out his hand. "Deal. Partners?"

Pacifica hesitated, but grudgingly accepted his handshake. "For now anyway."

"Good enough for me. Alright, like I said, Mabel's getting ready to summon Bill back at the House of Mysteries. What I need you to do is...

* * *

Pacifica gulped as she approached the twin's home. Despite the name it was a rather unassuming building located to the side of the town. At first glance it appeared nothing more than a regular cottage and an inviting, well-maintained yard. The Gleefuls used the building as their basic living area, with the front dedicated to souvenirs and knickknacks. The real attraction however was in the back, where an enormous circus tent was set up; easily twice the size of the actual house. It was here that the twins performed their acts, capitalizing on the oddities of the town.

Gremloblin taming, pictures with celebrities or imaginary characters using an enslaved shapeshifter, living wax figures, live mermaids, mini-golf using live golf-ball people as caddies, unicorn rides for the kids; if it could be found in Gravity Falls, the Gleefuls had found a way to use it for their acts. Pacifica remembered once upon a time when she had actually thought her town was normal, then the twins had moved in and suddenly it was a tourist hotspot and she learned how unusual it was to live in a place where mythical creatures hiding just out of site weren't silly stories.

And of course the pièce de résistance was the twin's act itself. Acrobatics and telekinetic stunts, mind-reading, hypnotism, magic tricks — which were probably actual magic now that she thought about it — and an all gnome circus clown routine in between each act. All held under the creepily watchful gaze of the Gleeful widower, Stan Gleeful né Pines. Gideon had been horrified to find that through a weird chain of intermarriage between their families, the twins were actually his cousins. Which made their pushing his family out of Gravity Falls all the more bitter.

Swallowing her own anger at the injustice against her friend, and _especially_ ignoring the alternate set of memories of a twisted version of the kind boy she had known, Pacifica approached the house. It was starting to get dark out, which meant that even the gift shop was closed by now; which meant that when she knocked on the door, she was interrupting them during their off hours.

The door opened with a sharp pull, and a clean-shaven man in a tuxedo covered with a trenchcoat answered the door. "Yes, what do you want?"

Hating herself just a little more with every word, Pacifica forced a professional smile onto her face. "Hello, I'm here as a member of the Gravity Falls Newspaper. I was hoping I could get an interview with the twins?"

The man narrowed his gaze, before shrugging. "Tyrone isn't back from whatever experiment he's probably conducting right now."

Pacifica slumped in feigned disappointment, and nodded acceptingly. "Well, could I maybe talk to his sister alone then?"

Giving another shrug, he turned back into the house; cupping his hand around his mouth as he called out for the girl in question. As always, though she tried not to stare, Pacifica couldn't help notice the extra digit on the man's hand. One of these days she knew she was going to get caught staring, but luckily it didn't seem like it was going to be today as she managed to turn her attention away just in time.

"She should be down shortly. If you want to-I guess you can come inside?"

She shook her head politely. "That's fine, I can wait out here."

With a indifferent tilt of his head, he turned back into the house leaving Pacifica alone again. _'This is so stupid, why the heck am I doing this in the first place, it's not like I actually believe him, and even if I did what does he expect me to ask her? I'm no reporter, I'm just a freaking newspaper delivery gi—'_

The door shot open and Pacifica found herself staring at the dismissive glare of Mabel Gleeful. "Great uncle Stan informed me you were looking for an interview. Unfortunately I don't have time to deal with this today, even for one of Tobias' people. Tell him to have one of his staff reschedule." With that she turned to close the door.

Pacifica panicked. "Wait, um, the thing is, Mister Determined doesn't know I'm here right now. I've been trying to get him to promote me to actual reporting, but he's always so busy he never has time to look at any of my reports."

Mabel turned around with a cruelly amused look. "And this is my problem, why?"

Cursing Dipper mentally, Pacifica swallowed her pride and continued. "I was-hoping if I could get a meeting with the famous Gleeful twins he'd have no choice but to give me a chance. You're so important, he'd have to read my report if I could get an interview with you."

Mabel smirked at the praise. "Yes, I am important aren't I. And of course, for someone like you, getting a chance to speak with someone like me could make or break your hopes and dreams couldn't it? The poor little newspaper delivery girl, looking to get her foot in the door."

Pacifica nearly choked. "You-you know who I am?"

Mabel grinned darkly. "I know everything about everyone in this town. Everything. For instance, did you know... why aren't you writing?"

"Oh, sorry!" Fumbling with the pencil in her hand, she prepared to note down Mabel's words.

Leaning against the doorframe, Mabel smirked. "Much better. There may be hope for you yet. As I was saying, were you aware that the Corduroy family are not actually related to the Town Founder as they're so proud of? In fact their great-great-grandfather was nothing more than a simple-minded lumberjack. I won't say who the real town founder was, as that's a secret I'm keeping for the right time, but I'm sure your readers would be more than interested in what I've already told you."

Pacifica nodded frantically, writing hurriedly — in truth a list of ways she intended to wring Dipper's neck for forcing her to do this — as Mabel spoke. "They certainly would. Do you by chance happen to have anything else you're willing to share."

The moonlight glinted eerily off of Mabel's eyes as she grinned. "Oh, you have no idea..."

* * *

Dipper double checked his preparations. An Alchemical Array connecting the five fundamental elements lay surrounding a second Array using Alkahestry to draw upon the Earth's chi and separate it from the Heavens. At each point of the array a candle was placed. Within the center of the design was a pair of circles made of unicorn hair. Inside the outer circle, Dipper sat in front of the open Journal preparing to summon Bill. Inside the inner circle he had drawn the All-Seeing Eye to steer the dream Demon's essence inward. The entire arrangement took nearly the entire clearing he had used to draw it; unfortunately the same as the one Gideon typically used to summon Bill.

He had wanted to try somewhere else, but the strongest nearby connection to the Dragon's Pulse had been this particular clearing; and so despite his preferences, here he was. The problem with that was that the House of Mystery was located barely a dozen feet away, which meant there was a very real possibility of his being discovered if he wasn't careful. Nevertheless, he had come this far; he couldn't stop now.

Lighting the candles, he closed his eyes and began the summoning. "Triangulum, entangulum. Meteforis dominus ventium. Meteforis venetisarium! Gjsim ssduroochkgab, gjsim ssduroochkgab, gjsim ssduroochkgab, _gjsim ssduroochkgab_ , _**gjsim ssduroochkgab!!!**_ "

In a flash of non-light, the world went greyscaled as time seemed to slow down to a crawl. In a schism of light a triangular opening pasted itself into existence, growing larger and then emitting small bursts of blue flames around the edges as the empty white space within took on the image of the recesses of deep space. From within the depths of the cosmic breach an eye opened from nothingness and the familiar mad cackling laughter of Bill echoed from the void. With a pop, the hole into beyond solidified into a bright blue pyramidal figure wearing a tophat and bowtie.

Looking around with interest, the dream Demon floated forward before abruptly bumping into the unicorn hair barrier and collapsing to the ground with an audible wheeze. "H-hey! What's the-sniff-what's the big idea?!"

Dipper was again reminded of the difference between this Bill and the one he was used to. At least the normal Bill didn't break into tears at the slightest provocation.

Floating up again, Bill placed his hands against the barrier and began struggling to get out. "Who put this wall here?!"

Standing from his seat, Dipper faced Bill. "I did."

Narrowing his eye, Bill gave Dipper a once over, before giving an eye smile. "Interesting. _Very_ interesting. So you're the source of that weird temporal loop thing. I thought it was the Time Baby having one of his tantrums. So how many times have we met? Twice, a dozen, a hundred?"

Dipper shrugged. "Yes."

Bill snorted. "Oh a wiseguy, huh. _I like that._ So what's the problem kid, you got a enemy you need to reduce to a mental cripple? Or no, you look like one of those sciencey types. How's about a little infinite knowledge? What's it gonna take to get _you_ to let _me_ outta this circle?"

"Yes _Dear Brother_ , what is it you want so badly that you'd summon our Demon without me? And using magic to time-travel. _Without me?_ If I didn't know better, I'd think you _didn't want me around_!" Mabel said, stalking with contained fury from the trees separating the House of Mysteries and the clearing.

Dipper whirled around in shock."Mabel! How did you—"

Mabel took a calming breath walking forward, intentionally scuffing over the lines of his arrays as she moved closer; never blinking as she locked eyes with him. "You know, I always suspected this day would come. The thing about twins, dear brother, is they tend to think alike. Almost like a psychic connection. Of course, add an _actual_ psychic connection and things become much less circumstantial. I knew ever since this morning that something was different, something had changed; I could no longer hear your thoughts.

"That's why when I duplicated the Amulet, I added a little failsafe; something to make sure that if you tried anything suspicious I'd be able to be able to tell. A feedback loop of sorts, When your little puppet came knocking, I felt your betrayal. You can have her _back_!"

With a loud scream Pacifica, enveloped in the tell-tale glow of the Mystic Amulet's power, was thrown at him like a blonde missile. Despite trying to use his own Amulet to catch her, Dipper was still sent flying out of the summoning circles. With a grunt at the impact he landed harshly, Pacifica collapsing atop him in a heap.

"Okay, I think I'm starting to believe you now; at least about Mabel being really, really dangerous."

"Ow."

Bill collapsed in the air in laughter. "AH-HAHAHAHA! Oh, you guys are _hilarious_! Man am I glad I came back here." Wiping a tear from his eye, he turned to the rampaging psychic.

"Mabel was it? The name's Bill. How'd you like to make a deal? You find me a body to inhabit full-time, and I don't know maybe toss in letting me take a look at that little bauble you got there, and I'll do you a solid; heck make it two. You seem like the kinda girl who appreciates a good party, how about one that covers the entire Universe! Just think, phenomenal cosmic powers and a favor from your's truly. And all it'll cost you is some random nobody, let's say blondie over there, and some jewelry." His hand lit up with golden flames. "So what'dya say? Deal?"

With an evil smirk Mabel unhesitatingly reached forward and grabbed his hand. "Deal."

Mabel smirked as Bill levitated the terrified Pacifica into the air, her mouth wide in a soundless scream, before pushing her out of her body. "AH-HAHAHAHA! It's finally happening, the day foreto— owowowowow!" Grabbing her head as Mabel beaned him with her Mystic Amulet, she turned watery eyes on his new partner. "G-geez-sniff-you're just a big jerk!"

"That's Queen Jerk from now on." Mabel corrected as she looked curiously at the panicking spectral form of Pacifica. Glancing over to where Dipper was struggling to his feet, her gaze turned as dark as the sky which had begun to fill with ominous clouds and golden-blue flashes of lightning. "Now for the fun part. If I recall correctly, you promised me a favor."

Preoccupied with the makeup of the Amulet he was examining, Billcifica shrugged. "Yeah sure, no problem. Anything you want; money, fame, your own galaxy."

Mabel's grin returned at full force. "Kill them. Both of them."

Dipper jerked. "No, wait! Mabel, you don't want to do that. Trust me."

Mabel gave him a condescending smile. "I used to. Bill, do it."

With a gasp, Dipper clutched at his chest as his heart stopped. At his side, Pacifica did the same before vanishing like a staticy television image. Grasping at the earth under him with a pained grip Dipper let the tears fall as his sight faded. At least he was going back to _his_ Mabel, and not the monster in front of him. Damnit, he _hated_ the Reverse Falls Variant.

Bill blinked, diverting his attention from the interesting bit of mental magic in his clutches, as he noticed the Universe beginning to collapse. "Oh come on!"

Turning an angry gaze on Dipper, his vision went red as he caught sight of the smug grin on the boy's face. Overcome with rage, he used the half-dismantled stone to launch a psychic attack at him; using the Amulet's already present connection to Dipper's mind to stri42*&3d30d!@#%(=+-

* * *

Pacifica Awoke with a strangled scream of terror to the familiar sights of her bedroom. The lace curtains surrounding her bed shaded the room a soft azure. Grasping at her frantically beating heart, she recalled the nightmare which had frightened her nearly to death.

Tch! Mabel Pines? Yeah, whatever. Like that loser would ever hurt a fly, let alone kill her _and_ her brother. Still... that had been one of, if not the, most vivid dreams she had ever had. Staring around at her room, she pulled her knees up to her chest. Up until Dipper's crazy had ruined it, it had actually been kinda nice. Granted she had been stuck doing _menial labor_ and shopping at a _thrift store_ for uggo earrings, but... was it so wrong to want her parents to love her the way non-rich people did?

Sighing, she slipped out of her bed and headed to the bathroom to get ready for the day. She was going to have to face the music for what had happened at the party eventually; she might as well be dressed properly when it happened. Upon exiting her room, a nearby maid started and gave a hasty curtsy. Pacifica nodded politely and left the woman to do her job, unaware of the dumbstruck expression on her face at the simple gesture.

* * *

Approximately an hour later, Pacifica was holed up in her room. She had barred the door with her dresser and was rocking back and forth on her bed repeating a single phrase over and over in between pinching herself. "This isn't happening, it's just a dream. This isn't happening, it's just a dream. This isn't happening, it's just a dream."

It had to be. There was no way she was really back in the past, it had to be another nightmare. A dream, within a dream, within a dream. Like that one stupid movie. To prove it to herself, she pinched her bruised arm again.

"Why can't I WAKE UP!"

* * *

Mabel loved her brother. Really, who wouldn't? He was awesome and nerdy and important enough to stop the whole Universe from going kersplat like that one time she had stuck a bazillion packets of Smile Dip in the microwave at the Dusk 2 Dawn. But seriously, enough was enough!

"Okay Bro, I get that your last Loop was really bad; but unless you wanna tell me what happened, I can't help. And besides, tonight's Grunkle Stan's party and I need to get ready to meet Candy and Grenda for the first time again. But I can't do that if you won't let me have five minutes by myself!"

Dipper grinned sheepishly. "Sorry Mabel. Yeah, I'll let you get ready for the party. I think I'm probably just gonna have Dipper #2 deal with everything tonight, though."

Mabel held up her hands. "Whoa, whoa,whoa. Hold up. Dipper #2? Since when is it Dipper #2? What happened to Tyrone?"

Dipper shuddered. "I don't think I'm gonna be using that name again for a long time."

Mabel's eyes widened. "Dipper... your last Loop... was it? You know... that one?"

Dipper turned away with frown, pulling his hat down over his face and shoving his hands into his pockets. "I don't want to talk about it."

Mabel hesitated, before giving an uncertain nod. "Alright, if you're sure. Just, you know, let me know when you're ready. Okay?"

Giving a grateful smile, Dipper nodded. "Yeah, no problem. I promise."

* * *

After printing a clone to handle the tickets, Dipper headed out into the town. All the lights were off, the parents taking the opportunity to relax while their kids were being watched by a 'responsible' adult. Dipper chuckled. If they knew, they'd be forming an angry mob. Luckily with both Soos and Wendy there they were about as safe as the parents expected Stan to keep them. Idly kicking a rock down the street, he thought back over the last Loop. It had been bad for him, really bad.

But ironically, the person he was most worried about was Pacifica. That had been her first ever Loop after Awakening. Looking up he chuckled at the sight of the imposing gates in front of him. It seemed his feet had had a mind of their own. Staring at the Northwest Manor, he frowned. He hadn't gotten the chance to teach Pacifica how to use the Ping, without that there was no way of knowing when the next time she was Awake would be. He'd just have to stay alert and look for signs. Like that light flashing on and off from one of the upstairs windows.

Wait, what?

Squinting his eyes he verified that, yes, there was a light flashing off and on in a very familiar way from the Northwest Manor. Was it definitive proof? Not even close. But he would rather live with one Loop where Pacifica hated him more than normal than leave now when there was a chance she was up there and Awake. He still hadn't had a proper Bleach Loop yet, so his abilities with Flash Step weren't all that impressive; but it was enough to get him over the gates of the Northwest Manor and across the courtyard to where the light was flickering.

Having enough foresight to recall the horror stories from older Loopers involving accidental perversion, he turned around before knocking on the window. Immediately the light snapped on, shining out toward where he was just visible as a silhouette. There was a scramble for a moment, before the window flew open and Pacifica stuck her arm out warningly; a taser gripped in her hand. "Who's there?! I'm warning you, I'm armed."

"Uh, hey Pacifica."

The flashlight the Northwest heiress was holding flashed over to where he was standing, causing him to shield his eyes briefly. Once his eyes adjusted, he met Pacifica's gaze.

"How-how are you-you're standing on the air! How are you doing that?"

Looking down, Dipper chuckled embarrassedly before hopping over to the rooftop. "Sorry, I kinda forgot. So, look, um... this is probably gonna sound really weird if I'm wrong but, are you time-traveling?"

Pacifica's eyes widened and her jaw worked soundlessly, before with a small squeak she fell over in a dead faint.

Dipper reacted immediately, grabbing her arm to prevent her from falling out of her open window and pushing her safely back into her room. Pulling off his hat to scratch at his head, he looked around awkwardly. "That... doesn't really answer my question."

* * *

Pacifica hugged one of her pillows to her chest as she stared at the boy standing uncomfortably in her room. "So it's true. All of it. The ghost, and that other Gravity Falls. The Southeasts. I died, Dipper! Your stupid sister told some Demon to kill me, and he _did_. I remember all of it. Every. Last. Second."

Dipper nodded bitterly. "Yeah. That happens sometimes. But that wasn't the real Mabel. That was some Variant version of her that's nothing like her. At all. The real Mabel, the one who's Looping like us, is down at the Mystery Shack partying for a gold colored crown Grunkle Stan spent fifty cents on. The same way she does every time she's Awake; because it's the first time she gets to see her friends, and she'll do whatever she has to to make sure they have fun. Even when you're Unawake self is doing everything she can to make them feel like freaks."

Pacifica grimaced and buried her face in her pillow. Abruptly she pulled back and punched it, then again, and again; until it was nothing but a bunch of really expensive feathers and fabric. Blowing her hair out of her face, she turned a confused look at him. "So what am I supposed to do now? When is this gonna be over?"

Dipper made a face and averted his gaze. "No one's really sure. It could be a few more hundred years, or a few million. Or more."

_"M-milion?!?_ You're kidding right? There's no way they can expect us to keep repeating our lives for that long. _Right?_ "

Dipper didn't answer.

_"RIGHT?!"_

Giving a sigh, he turned and met Pacifica's eyes dead on. "It'll probably be longer. Most of the older Loopers don't even remember how long they've been Looping. And all the Loopers ever, combined, aren't as old as the Original 7 — the guys who got stuck doing this whole thing first. A lot of Loopers tend to just call it the Infinite Loops, or just the Loops for short, since for all we know it might as well be."

Pacifica just stared, and Dipper kept quiet while she tried to deal with the revelation. Finally she moved, turning horrified eyes towards him. "How do you stand it?" she whispered in shock.

Dipper shrugged uncomfortably. "Mostly I just look forward to when somebody else is Awake. As the Anchor, I'm pretty much the only one guaranteed to always be Awake. Which means there are a lot of Loops where I'm all by myself. It gets pretty boring, but luckily there's a lot of things that aren't completely defined about the forest. Pretty much anything that isn't in the Journals is completely random; I usually go out searching for things that are different from the Baseline.

"Mabel's planning on making a sweater for everyone in the Loops, Looping or not, and then planning the Multiverse's biggest Bad Sweater party. Loopers just spend their time finding ways to occupy themselves. Find a long-term goal; the longer, the better. Try new things, learn something different, do stuff you'd never normally do. The Loops might not really be infinite, but the Multiverse is; there's always something to see, even if it's not much."

"And that's it? You just try to cope with it?"

Dipper nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."

"Well that sucks."

He couldn't help it, he laughed at that. "Yeah, it kinda does. But it's what there is." A treasonous part of his mind volunteered an idea and he just had to share. "Hey, I have an idea. Why don't you pick up where you left off when you're first Loop ended. I have a bunch of water guns made for shooting ink, how about we give your house a new paint job? Cover up the past, or something."

Pacifica stared in disbelief. "You can't be serious. My parents would totally flip if I did that."

"And you care what they think?"

Pacifica was ready to agree immediately, before a flash of memory pushed its way into her head. Her mom, Scylla, giving her a hug while her dad ruffled her hair. Then another memory of the worst sound in existence, the hated bell that had haunted her for thirteen years. She made up her mind right then which one she preferred.

"You know what? You're right. Let's do it."

Dipper grinned and pulled out a pair of Splattershots. "The one who covers more of the Manor in their color wins. One, two, three, go!"

Pacifica gaped as Dipper ran out of her room and immediately opened fire. "Hey, no fair! Cheater!"

Grabbing her own weapon, she chased after him with a laugh. She'd show him; Southeast's were destined for great things after all.

* * *

Bill grabbed his head with an anguished scream, geometrically impossible flames erupting from his eye as his body shattered and reformed and shattered again. The mindscape shuddered in a paroxysm of incomprehensible instability, threatening to fall apart at the seams as it's current occupant roared in unimaginable agony. His mind split and splintered, merged and collided with itself; only to repeat the process. Across time and space humans, animals and other beings shuddered in instinctive terror as their dreams turned against them.

For eternity, and yet simultaneously only a moment, Bill suffered.

Finally however, panting in exhaustion he hadn't known he could feel, he gathered the fragmented parts of his being together again and turned his eye inward to examine the cause of his episode. A string of extra-dimensional proportions had formed within him, stretching outwards into everywhere and connected to an infinitely vast _otherness_ that made even him feel uncomfortable when he looked at it. Stitched into every fiber of his existence, it permeated the in-between spaces of reality and twined around a single individual human; before branching off an unidentifiable tangent towards two other humans.

And Bill remembered.

* * *

26.1-26.1 continued: Okay. That was interesting.

Consequence #1: Pacifica Northwest is Looping. Not a bad thing. Consequence #2: Per word of BIOS-Pherecydes, and approved by GMBlackjack, this is the origin point for the TriNet that Bill Cipher was using in _Gravity Falls: Friendship Is Magic_. He is NOT Looping, just getting extra memories from the TriNet - itself a low-key, self-propagating soul-bond - now.

(And yet another example of Loops sometimes being written out of the order in which they take place.)


	44. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Seven

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-01-05. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Seven**

27.1 (kingofsouls): [Danny Phantom] / [Inside Out]

Riley blinked. "Planeswalking?"

"Yea, I was a little curious about it." the half-ghost replied. He was sitting on his bed in his room, Riley in a chair opposite of him. " I mean, how cool would it be to do that?"

"Oh, it's really cool." Riley smiled. "I mean, I haven't really done it, so I'm not actually a Planeswalker, but I sort of am?"

"Not exactly sure what you mean by that."

"Well, five planeswalkers replaced my emotions for a Loop. That's how they taught me their magic. But... without the Spark I can't Planeswalk." Riley explained. "At least I don't think I can. But I've been practicing with making bonds with the land and using the magic"

Danny thought on that more a moment. "Can you teach me?"

"How to use Dominarian magic? One second."

_-Headquarters-_

_"What do you guys think?"_

"I think it's a bad idea." Fear quickly answered.

"Aw, don't be such a killjoy Fear," urged Joy. "It'd be fun!"

_"It does sound like fun to me."_

"You got me there," Fear slowly admitted, "But have we ever taught someone how to do that magic stuff?"

Joy blinked. Riley did as well. " _Well... not really._ "

"Well, there's no time like the present in my opinion!" Joy rebounded. "Maybe we'd learn a thing or two ourselves?"

"I like that idea." Sadness spoke up (who was unAwake, but still around as she wanted to be moral support). "But Fear is right. What if we mess up?"

"Then we mess up." Joy reassured her fellow emotions. "And then Danny waits until that Sorin guy loops in here or Danny loops into Sorin's loop."

Fear didn't seem to be convinced. "I dunno..."

"Pleeeeeeeeeeeaseeeeeeeeee?"

"Okay, Joy, I'm in." Fear relented. "But if we can't get this teaching thing down, then we just tell Danny to wait, deal?"

"Deal!' Joy shouted, grasping Fears hand and shaking it vigorously.

_"Sounds good with me!"_

-Reality-

"Well?" asked Danny

To that, Riley cracked a playful grin. "I've never actually taught someone how to use magic, but I can always try."

Danny whooped in joy. "So, where do we start."

"I guess the first thing is to explain how the magic works." continued Riley. "Magic comes in five colors: White, Blue, Black, Red, and Green, and these colors..."

* * *

27.2 (Mirror Mage): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] (not compiled in MLP Time Loops)

**Gravity Foals**

Apple Bloom looked at the object, suspiciously. It was an ordinary-looking copier machine--granted, a bit battered and looking like it could sputter out at a moment's notice... But it was a special copier--given what she'd seen from it before. If it could make accidentally-copied hooves come to life... She carefully lay down on top of it and pressed the copy button. Several seconds later, Apple Bloom and her copy were scrutinizing each other, in near-perfect synchronization.

"Is mah bow really that large?" Asked the clone.

"Mah flank looks awfully bare..." Muttered the original.

"Well, there's always goin' out ta ta search for Cutie Marks..."

"It's Zap Apple season, though, an' mah family needs all the help it kin' get. Ah want to go out with the others, but a can't be in two places at... wait..." Bloom Prime paused, looking at the clone.

"You have all mah memories, right?"

"Eeyup."

"You won't try some sorta clone uprisin', will ya?"

"Nope. If'n ah do, yah kin' always use some sorta liquid tah dissolve me--like that conveniently placed apple juice when ya first found this thing!"

"Oh, right..." If'n it worked on that disembodied hoof... "Well, Double Bloom," she said, facing her copy, let's get tah work!"

* * *

"And when I finally get a look at the statue of Discord, well... Is he supposed to be a chaos-causing super-entity? 'Cause, well... It sorta looked like a dorito to me."

"I don't know, Dash..." Twilight replied to her Unawake friend. "Dorito or not, he still has the potential to cause some prob..." What the...? "...Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"The gathering mob of Apple Blooms? Definitely."

Twilight sighed. Great, another Mirror Pool or Mikasa Gli--wait a minute. "And are they going after a solitary Apple Bloom?"

"Eeyup."

"Let's fix this before it gets out of hoof."

* * *

27.3 (GMBlackjack): [Numenera] / [Gravity Falls]

The Aeon Priest grabbed the lever obviously designed for a being at least twice as tall as a human, or at least a creature with a truly absurd arm length. He pulled with all his might, straining his body, trying to activate the machine. He quickly found that his nimble figure, while good for running and avoiding dangerous weapons, was not good for pulling giant levers.

He panted. He had come too far to stop now! He had braved a tribe of murden, narrowly avoided death by a travonis ul, discovered many secrets of large numenera, assisted the people of the previous town in their horrid disease, and braved the Iron Wind itself! He was not going to go this far to have a simple _lever_ stop him!

He took out a small object out of his cloak. It appeared to be an injector patterned with the designs of some cute, but obviously millions of years extinct, bear. He held the cypher in front of him, secretly cursing himself that he had to use the ancient relic now and not at a more useful moment, say, when something was trying to eat his thoughts. He pushed the needle into his skin, and got an instant boost to his strength. He roared, grabbing the lever, and yanking it down with ease.

The numenera device before him lit up, the central hole glowing a white color with a ring of rainbow lights around it. Columns of light shot up into the ceiling, flowing through the makeshift power conduits he had been crafting for weeks, just for this moment.

Everything was functioning flawlessly. He would finally figure out what the purpose of this device was, the strange circle in a triangle...

Through the circle he saw stars. His face lit up. A portal to other worlds! He had heard rumors that the previous eight worlds had such devices, but he had never seen one! Just wait till the Order of Truth got wind of this! He would no longer be mocked! He would... He would maybe even become a high Aeon Priest! He would become-

Was that a figure coming out of the hole?

The Aeon Priest quickly flipped through the ancient book he had found in the ancient ruin. There were a few diagrams of people being used next to the machine, but he couldn't read the language so they remained elusive to him. The images could either suggest people going in or leaving...

...or being torn apart by forces beyond his comprehension...

The figure walked out of the portal, slowly approaching the Aeon Priest. The Aeon Priest stood, transfixed at the tall humanoid figure before him, completely wrapped up in dark cloaks. It held out its hand, as if asking for something.

The Aeon Priest noticed the hand had six fingers. He slowly turned to look at the ancient boo in his hand, realizing the symbol on the front not only had six fingers, but it matched the size of the hand before him. He slowly handed the book to the figure.

The figure grasped the red tome, taking some of the cloaks off his face. The Priest noticed a surprisingly... human face, though its seemed a bit different from most people's.

Then the man spoke. "Well, this is new. You wouldn't happen to be named Stan would you?"

The Aeon Priest blinked. "You can speak the Truth?"

"Of course I speak the- oh that's the name of your language isn't it? Gosh that must be annoying. I have a mental effect occurring within my brain that translates anything outgoing and incoming automatically, and I doubt you could understand the physics behind it."

"I would be very interested in learning about this translation esotery." The priest said. "I am Falavil, Aeon Priest of the Order of Truth. Welcome to the Ninth World. Who are you?"

"Stanford Pines, though you can call me Ford. I've been trapped in a temporal knot for quite some time apparently." Falavil cocked his head. He sensed that the man - Ford - was speaking of more than one event. "Evidentially you have just saved me from that temporal knot by... Using a type of cheese as a power conduit?"

"We all have to work with what we can." Falavil said. "How did you come to be stuck within this ancient device?"

Ford laughed. "Why, I built it!"

Falavil's jaw dropped. "You build it?"

"Yeah. Though it used to be under my house and not in a cave... And usually it's still there..." He blinked. "You called this the Ninth World?"

"Yes...?"

Ford nodded, pondering. He pulled out a strange artifact from his cloak, also engraved with the six-fingered hand design. "Temporal readings... well i'm about a billion years in the future. Imagine that. It's a wonder this portal still exists. Most interesting..." He examined the various things Falavil had used to repair the portal. "These all appear to be from different eras and designs... Vastly different..." He turned to Falavil, grinning.

"I have a feeling this place is going to be most interesting. So, my dear Falavil, what do scientists like us do here?"

"We examine the ancient numenera left behind by the prior worlds in order to benefit humanity. Though we are called Aeon Priests and not scientists..."

"I do suppose interesting things do occur when science and religion combine. You'd be surprised at how effective it could be."

"What? Sur-"

"Nevermind, forgot who i was talking to." He grinned. "How about you show me around this... Ninth World?"

"Of course, ancient."

"I'm Ford. Call me Ford."

"Of course, Ancient Ford."

Ford let out a sound that was a combination of a groan and a chuckle.

* * *

27.4 (Masterweaver): [Zootopia] / [Watership Down]

"Okay. _Okay_. Let's go over this."

Judy Hopps pressed her paws against the dirt wall, curling and uncurling her claws.

"I am... apparently... a member of a nudist colony. A _primitive_ nudist colony. With some bizarre religion that implies I'm in the savage era, except there are actually cars and we're too stupid to know what they are."

She stared at the dirt for a moment.

"...and my little brother is literally named _Five_ and has just had some sort of doom vision."

Her claws clenched.

"What in the actual _frick._ "

Judy Hopps, or Stormpelt as she was locally known, rapped her knuckles against the wall. She'd known ever since she found herself in this strange world that it would be different--waking up naked, with some odd muscular differences, had tipped her off before the Local Life Memories kicked in. But finding that she and her kind were basically brainless...

She'd freaked out a little.

More than a little.

Okay, she'd torn a tree root out of a wall and ripped it to shreds in sheer frustration.

"Right. Right. Just... okay, even if the world is completely crazy, it's only for one repeat. Right?" Judy nodded to herself. "Right. Just work with what you've got. So, doom vision. Obviously I've got to handle that somehow."

With a deep breath, she cracked her knuckles. She'd taken the weirdest and the worst criminals that Zootopia could throw at her; saving a single savage colony should be a breeze.

* * *

27.5 (Masterweaver): [Sailor Moon] / [Zootopia]

Luna nodded to herself as she peered through the window, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a cat-sized cell phone.

"Hello, Makoto? Yes, it's me. I was hoping you could handle Naru this time round. ...Well, the others are usually busy handling early-loop things--no, no, I'm not saying that. Look, I think we have a replacement anchor. No, I know she didn't ping, but does Usagi have silver hair and a push-up regimen--? Yes, actually, I _do_. ...Well, I figure the whole 'talking cat' angle will make her listen. Yes, yes, I know... yes. Thank you. Love you too. Bye."

She flipped the phone shut, rolling her eyes with a smile. "That girl, honestly... Right, time for a dramatic entry." Her entire body coiled tightly, and then, like a spring, the tension was released and she jumped into the bedroom.

"Eighty seven, eighty eight, oh hello." The silver-haired girl gave her a brief smile. "You're that cat, from this morning. Ninety two, ninety three, you must have, been following me, all day long. Ninety seven, ninety eight, ninety nine, one _hundred!_ "

She collapsed to the ground, breathing heavily. "Okay, got... got that done." One hand raised in a vague wave. "Woooo. Ow."

Luna walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, clapping her forepaws. "Well done miss! A hundred push-ups on day one? With that body? I know what she usually eats, it really is impressive."

After a moment, the girl rolled her her head to look at her. "...you just talked."

"I did, yes."

"...you're a talking cat."

"For the most part."

The girl broke into a relieved grin. "Finally, something _normal!_ "

Luna rose a brow as she watched the girl push herself off the ground. "Talking cats are normal for you?"

"Well, they're usually bigger. And wear clothes..."

"Ah." Luna smiled. "You're not usually human, are you?"

"No! And it's so weird, not having fur, and these tiny ears, and these random bundles of fat--" The girl's violet eyes snapped to the smiling feline and narrowed. "Wait. How did you know that?"

"Just an educated guess. Here's another one: Time is repeating for you, and maybe a couple of your friends, and there are times when things are slightly different or, like now, very different."

"You know what's going on?! Oh thank _God_." The girl let herself fall against the bed. "Me and Nick thought we were going crazy or something."

"No, you're not crazy. Well, not completely." Luna waggled a paw. "A little stir-craziness is inevitable, don't get me wrong. But the Loops themselves, well, they have an entirely rational explanation."

"Really?"

"Mmhmm. Reality is broken and all the pantheons have put us into the loops while they debug code."

The girl stared at her.

Luna's shoulders sagged. "Do you not have computers where you come from? I'm sorry, let me try again: There's this tree--"

"No, I... we have computers, I just... what do you mean, reality is broken?"

"Basically just that. The magical world-tree computer that underlines the multiverse has, for reasons unknown, suffered incredible damage. And to keep things running while they patch stuff, the admins set up the loops."

After a moment, the girl sighed and sagged against the bed. "Sweet cheese and crackers..."

"Yes, well, things _are_ getting better... Oh, I'm sorry, I forgot to introduce myself." The cat cleared her throat, straightening up. "I am Luna, Guide and Guardian of the Silver Millennium, servant to the Sailor Senshi, eldest felinoid looper and third-eldest of this loop, general-in-command of the transdimensional moon army, member of the Original Seven Entourage, and part-time housepet." She chuckled, shaking her head. "And who might you be, dear?"

The purple eyes narrowed. "...Lieutenant Judy Hopps, Zootopia Police Department, Valedictorian, first looper of my loop, formerly high matriarch Stormpelt, and general all around bringer of justice."

"Zootopia, hmm. Not heard of that one before," Luna mused. "Hopps, Hopps... are you, perchance, a rabbit of some sort?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that explains it. The young girl you're replacing, Usagi... her name literally means bunny."

"Huh. Where is she, by the way?"

Luna shrugged. "It's a big multiverse. She could be anywhere."

* * *

"...You just knocked out a charging jaguar by throwing a crown at him."

"Tiara," Usagi corrected. "It's a tiara."

"That's not the point!" the fox protested. "Where did you learn to _do_ that?!"

"Every girl has a princess phase. I just wanted to be the princess of police." Usagi twirled the tiara on one ear, grinning maniacally. "And now I am. Living the dream, baby!"

* * *

27.6 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] (previously compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 179.12)

Twilight was rudely awakened by Lyra and Ford bashing down the door to her bedroom.

"We know what you're up to!" Lyra yelled, holding up a corkboard with images Twilight recognized as being taken from many different Loops. Most of the images were accompanied by pins connected together with color-coded string, as well as many handwritten notes, half of which were in Ford's penmanship.

Twilight yawned, blinking. "What on earth are you talking about."

Ford took out a holographic projector. "We first discovered something was up during the last Loop in Gravity Falls. We discovered you sniffing a patch of cottage cheese flowers that you'd seen a dozen times before. We thought nothing of it at the time..."

"...but I saw you sniffing strange and unusual cheeses at the Star Wars market, drawing an unusual connection. You were also inquiring about Kyubey at that time, for an unknown reason. It was a minor coincidence until..."

"...I spotted Kyubey himself sniffing cheeses in the Ninth World, complaining about how his back had been hurting lately. He had found a large collection of back-pain healing cyphers, though we wondered why on earth he needed them..."

"...and we also noticed the exact same cyphers in the Minecraft Loop for some reason, a Loop where we found an image of you and Applejack building a town in ancient times. The cyphers were also located in the arrangement of a perfect triangle..."

"...which led us to Bill, who after much questioning did halfway mention that he had provided you with information about the structure of the Gurren Lagann Loop in exchange for allowing him to turn an entire planet into a playground for one day..."

"...On the said playground, the dream-construct known as Littlepip came into existence and mentioned something about how she felt the world was about to suddenly turn pink without warning..."

"...and with the spiral information form Gurren Lagann we were led to Pinkie, who we discover has been talking about a great cheesy party for an exceptional long amount of time."

The two of them pointed directly at Twilight. "YOU ARE PLANNING A MASSIVE PRANK ON PINKIE!"

Twilight was silent. Outside, an owl hooted. She blinked.

"How...?"

"Do not question the conspiracy theorist team of grandpa and granddaughter." Lyra said.

"But you aren't really-"

"DO NOT QUESTION!"

Twilight sighed. "Well, I've been found out. What exactly is your plan?"

Lyra grinned like a madwoman. "We want in. It's not easy to prank Pinkie."

Ford cracked his knuckles. "I've been working on many inventions to keep her attention away from her pinkie senses..."

Twilight shrugged. She didn't see why not.

Though she did wonder how they came to this conclusion from the Minecraft world... that had nothing to do with it...

* * *

27.7 (lord Martiya): [Winx Club] / [W.I.T.C.H.] (previously compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as Loop 20.7)

It had looked like a normal Loop to Flora. One with everyone Awake (meaning that Rachel and someone else would likely pick up the hunt for the Dragon's Flame and likely hire a mercenary army when they failed, Tritannus was dead or worse by Darcy's hand, and neither Lucy nor Aisha wouldn't take part to Miss Magix), but still normal. Then Miss Magix had come, and this time the one with the number 13 was a blonde with an uncanny resemblance to Stella, only blue eyed and taller. Who was dodging the Trix' attempts at tripping her while using a dance she had adapted from Earthbending, and had just started juggling with the lamps Icy had tried to throw on her head.

"Not her... Not now..."

And knowing exactly what was going to happen, Flora started panicking. If only had she found out earlier...

Well, if nothing else the Awake Trix wouldn't use hellfire.

* * *

As expected, Stella had lost to the newcomer, and was ranting as usual when the newcomer showed up.

"Hi, Flora. How is my favourite rival doing?" she said. In Icy's presence. Flora slapped her own forehead, as she and the others took a step back and put up a barrier.

"Rival?!" the witch shouted, not amused in the least.

"Well, we a-"

"Outside, now. I'll teach you not to claim my job."

Perfect: Icy was in perfect Cloud Tower-style posturing to check if she was a worthy co-rival, that to anyone who had not been at that school looked remarkably like bullying. The one thing the blonde wouldn't stand.

"As you wish."

After the witch and the blonde left, Tecna asked her girlfriend: "I take that's the infamous Cornelia Hale?"

"Her in person." Flora admitted.

"You know her?" Darcy asked.

"Yes, I-"

Icy's torso suddenly emerged from the wall, with the witch shouting in pain with a rhythm making clear she was being spanked. Literally. Then she was finally allowed to fall down, and Cornelia entered from a newly-formed hole in the wall-hole that closed itself immediately thereafter.

"As Flora was likely explaining, I am Cornelia Hale, from the W.I.T.C.H. Loops, that's an acronym by the way, there are enough similarities between our groups, our powers and even the reason I was the second choice as Anchor after the Heart that we've been JOKING about being rivals since she introduced me to the Loops, and I'm allergic to bullies." Cornelia said to the thoroughly humiliated witch. Then she looked at Bloom and continued: "By the way... I'm apparently replacing Diaspro, could you help me with some way for me to get out of her engagement without causing a diplomatic accident?"

"Sure."

As Cornelia and Bloom left to discuss that, Icy declared: "She's going down. Next time-

"She's SO going down." Stella said. Then noticed the looks from everyone but Flora: "What? She won Miss Magix, I can't let her get away with that!"

"Well, this went better than expected." Flora commented. "At least she didn't do too much collateral damage."

"Please, she only won because she caught me by surprise, what can she do?!" Icy protested.

* * *

A few months had passed since the fateful pageant, Bloom and Cornelia were on their way to switch the engagement peacefully, Rachel and her accomplices had been expelled from Cloud Tower, and their mercenary army was charging at Red Fountain. Then a fissure opened and swallowed the entire force, courtesy of Cornelia.

"THAT is what she can do." Flora said to Icy. "And trust me, that's more merciful than what happens when she uses the plants."

* * *

27.8 (Masterweaver): [Zootopia]

"Three hundred! Yes!" Judy Hopps pumped her fist in the air, taking a moment to glance at her watch. "And five minutes to spare. New record. Woo!"

She shook her head, quickly slipping a quarter into the meter next to her tiny, tiny cart--having to ticket herself was a little embarrassing, so she tried to avoid it. Actually, having the cart at all was embarrassing but, realistically, there wasn't any way she could avoid it. Still, this was around the time she first met Nick... or usually met Nick the first time, whatever. These repeats were messing with her head. And she still didn't have any idea why they were happening, which was frustrating beyond belief. But at least she could nip the whole Night Howler debacle in the bud with a simple anecdote told to a certain lion during her graduation ceremony.

"Okay, so... we have the hippo there, and the rhino, and... there you are, Nick." Judy smiled to herself, leaning against a street-side potted plant. "Look at you, glancing around... wait."

The fox was still kind of shifty looking, like he usually was at this time. But it wasn't the confident shiftiness she had grown used to. Nick looked... distracted. Not enough to avoid his usual thing, but it was clear that he was focused on something else.

Their eyes met for a moment. His widened, briefly. Then he shook his head and looked away.

Judy's own eyes narrowed. She'd dealt with a few strange repeats, but...

He actually glanced back at her as he entered the ice cream store.

"...Sweet cheese and crackers."

Judy grabbed her ears as the door swung shut. "He recognized me. He _recognized_ me. He's--he's repeating too?! Why didn't he--no, no, he was confused. So this is his first time, maybe." She took a deep breath, holding her paws down. "Okay. Okay. I can handle this. I don't know how, but... what do I do? How do I signal him, got to signal him--wait."

A grin spread across her face.

"Oh. Oh my god. This is going to be hilarious."

* * *

Faking being conned was easy after all this time. She had the whole script memorized--the angry elephant owner, the warm-hearted 'father,' the health-code violation threat, oh whoops Nick left his wallet at home, here's a twenty keep the change. She'd kept her eyes on the two foxes--Finnick had played his role with the usual skill, but she couldn't help but notice how Nick kept looking at her in confusion. Still, she waited until he had hefted the jumbo pop and walked out the door.

"Thank you again, officer," Nick gushed, "I can't tell you how much we appreciate this. It means a lot."

"Well, I can't possibly break the heart of such a loving family," Judy replied. "You know, for a fox you're pretty handsome."

Nick blinked, clearly thrown off by her sudden script change. "Well, you're... not bad looking yourself." he rallied, quickly enough that she almost didn't notice.

"Toot- _toot!_ " Finnick added.

Judy rose an eyebrow as Nick managed a pretty convincing blush. "Uh, I... I swear I don't know where he learned that--"

"Ahuh." She smiled and nodded. "It's so nice to see somebody willing to adopt outside their species."

"...Yeah, I get some weird looks sometimes," the larger fox replied, glancing between his partner and the rabbit.

"Well, it is a little surprising that a fully grown fennec fox goes around wearing diapers," Judy pointed out, "but I guess he's just a child at heart, right?"

She continued smiling as she visibly saw the pair's brains crash. Honestly, she was having the hardest time keeping herself from laughing.

"...well, uh..." Nick managed, "I don't like to mention it, but he actually has a severe mental disability--"

"Oh, I see." Judy replied, quite deliberately not noticing the glare that Finnick shot him. "Well, technically speaking, I can't really do anything about that. And, technically speaking, I guess you didn't actually do anything illegal. So, technically speaking, I can't possibly arrest you."

Nick narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "And... technically speaking, if you were to discover that somebody was faking a mental disability?"

"Well, technically speaking, that's only illegal if they attempted to obtain legal benefits or compensation. Which, technically speaking, you have yet to do." The rabbit's grin was wide and toothy. "Unless there's something you're not telling me?"

"...how did you know he was an adult?"

"You told me," Judy replied. "It's called a _hustle_ , sweetheart."

Nick's eyes widened.

Judy, very dramatically, rose an eyebrow.

"...You," he said probingly, "are one _sly bunny_."

"And you," she replied with a small nod, "are one _dumb fox_."

Finnick pulled down his hood in frustration. "Okay, what the hell is going on?"

Nick and Judy shared a look.

"We dated once," Nick offered.

"When we were six," Judy countered.

"It was a dare," Nick explained. "Triple dog dare, you know how it is."

"Of course, I couldn't turn down a dare," Judy laughed. "So I went over to his place."

"You should have seen how she complained about all the mud puddles."

"They weren't nearly deep enough for proper mud pies!"

"Well, I didn't know you aspired to be a master chef at the time."

"It would have put me close to a lot of knives. And fire."

"I have got to say, I'm glad you grew out of your 'burn the world' phase."

"Yeah, I kinda figured that I liked beating up bad guys a lot better."

"Look, as much fun as it is watching you two bullshit up this shared past," Finnick deadpanned, "we've got places to be. So unless you're actually going to arrest us, can you get back to being a meter maid?"

Nick narrowed his eyes. "Hey, look--"

"It's fine," Judy assured him. "It's fine, really. I _am_ still on duty. I'll call you later and we can catch up, okay Nick?"

He turned back to her, raising an eyebrow. "You sure?"

"We have... _a lot_ to talk about."

After a moment, Nick nodded. "Yeah, sure thing Judy. Oh! I, uh, changed my number--"

"Yeah, that happens. I'll write it down."

* * *

27.9 (katfairy): [Doctor Who] / [Phineas and Ferb]

This... was not Gallifrey. So why was he a child?

The Doctor looked at his reflection in the window. He knew the face, but not like this: strong chin, delicate eyebrows, all in all rather rectangular. But that face had looked young enough as it was; it really was unnecessary to have made it even younger. He wasn't sure just how young, but it had to be under fifteen. Why had that ridiculous tree thought it was a good idea to make him a child? With one heart?

The Loop memories hit before he had a chance to work up a proper sulk. All right, so he was human for a Loop. Could be worse; at least he wasn't Sontaran. Or Vorlon; that had been a tiresome Loop. And he was Scottish, which was good for a laugh; he could just imagine what Amy would say about that. The name was a dead loss, though; he'd stick to the Doctor. Parents were decent enough sorts, which was nice. Over all, a decided lack of drama in his history; the biggest issue was his parents accepting jobs in the States, which led to his Waking up on his first day in his new home in Danville. That name was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. Well, it would come to him. Or not. Either way, he had a new place to explore in a world he knew very little about; he couldn't wait to start.

He tried to skip breakfast, but his parents caught him trying to slip out the door. They were sympathetic, however, and didn't insist on his eating a huge meal; a quick bowl of porridge and some toast and marmalade, and he was free. Yelling a goodbye, he darted out the front door to get his first good look at his new neighbourhood.

It was very suburb-ish. The houses were all similar in size, style, and age, but not quite as cookie-cutter as some later developments would be. Not a lot of traffic on the street. All in all, while he couldn't say it was the most attractive place he'd Looped into, it wasn't too bad, either. Now he just had to—remember to Ping. He'd gotten distracted again; he really had to be better about that. He got a number of responses, and from the hesitation of the man stepping out the door of the next house over, he'd just found one of them.

"Hello, lad; good day to be Awake this early." The man had an English accent; a bit odd in such a stereotypically American locale.

"Best way to Anchor the day, sir," the Doctor replied; the man nodded.

"Right-o; you'll want to talk to my boys. They can give you the full story. You'll find them in the backyard; just pop right in. Cheerie-bye. Oh, I'm never saying that again..." And the man got into a car and drove off, shaking his head. The Doctor grinned and did as instructed, now suspecting he'd finally found a relatively quiet Loop. He hoped so; it would be good to spend some time not dealing with death and destruction.

"Hey, Ferb, did we keep any self-sealing stem bolts? I think they'd work better here. Oh, hey, hi! You must be the new kid from next door. I'm Phineas, and this is my brother Ferb, and... oh, they're not here yet. Never mind; I'll introduce them when they show up. We're building a giant mini-golf course; we did that once before, but that was more disco-themed and we didn't have access to good anti-gravity technology then. This time, we're adding that, going for a strathspey vibe, and adding some fifth-dimensional aspects just for fun. Wanna help?" The speaker was a boy about his own current age, small, skinny, with a shock of scarlet hair on top of a triangular head and bright blue eyes; his welcoming grin was contagious even to someone as practiced at avoiding that as the Doctor. The other boy, Ferb, just nodded, long face solemn under his own thatch of green hair. The Doctor recognized a natural stoic when he saw one and his own grin grew even wider; stoics tended to be a lot more fun than they let on. But before he had a chance to respond, Phineas continued. "I think Dad mentioned your name last night. You're Raibert Colquhoun-Farquharson, right?"

"Not if I can help it," the Doctor grimaced. Phineas just grinned wider.

"Hey, you're talking to a guy named Phineas; I know from weird names. I guess you've got a nickname, though."

"Yes. Most people just call me Doctor. It's a bit of a long story."

Phineas froze. Ferb, who had been taking a drink in accordance with the laws of slapstick, did an epic spit-take. The Doctor was a bit taken aback by their responses, but then his memory kicked in. A bit late, but at least now he knew why the name Danville sounded familiar. He'd heard of this Loop before, and these two boys were always mentioned when people got talking about the best Looping inventors. Of course they'd have heard about him; they'd probably been him at some point, although he hoped not. He'd hate to think that these two boys would have had to survive even a fraction of what he'd seen.

"Wow. I mean... wow. You're really Looping? You're not Chrysalis trying to punk us again, are you?" Phineas held up a hand before the Doctor could say anything. "Sorry. It's just that your Loop was locked down so long that we all just figured it would never activate properly. I'm kinda glad it did, though, 'cause it means it's stabilizing. Have you been given The Talk yet? You know what's going on?"

"Long since. I take it you and your father are Looping; he sent me back here. I'm not that familiar with this Loop, though; anything I should watch out for? Oh, and no, I'm still the only one Looping from my corner of the tree." He shrugged at Phineas' and Ferb's raised eyebrows. "Everyone asks, if they know my Loop. I expect Sarah Jane or the Brigadier will start first, from what I know about what allows people to Loop."

"Makes sense," Ferb said. Phineas nodded.

"What he said. But this Loop's kinda quiet compared to some of the others out there. Well, there's that thing with Big Mitch, but both times are pretty easy to deal with, especially with Isabella around. And we usually let the cross-dimensional invasion happen, because nobody gets hurt here unless it's a dark-and-edgy Variant and it means that other world gets freed from a pretty nasty guy. We've got a group of Evil Scientists, but... well, they call themselves the League Of Villainous Evildoers Maniacally United For Frightening Investments in Naughtiness, so you can guess how much of a threat they are."

"That's quite the long—oh. Oh, no. They do _not_ call themselves LOVEMUFFIN."

"Yeah, they do."

The Doctor started to laugh, getting the feeling he was going to enjoy this Loop. If that was the caliber of evil here, he could relax. Not too much, of course, in case the tree threw something unexpected at them, but for the most part, he was considering this his first Vacation Loop. He was about to ask about fifth-dimensional mini-golf when Phineas' phone rang. Phineas glanced at it, then hit a button, causing a small hologram of a lanky, slouching figure of a man in a lab coat to appear.

"Hey, Doctor D? Oh, man, that could get confusing. We've got a guest this Loop, and you're not gonna believe it—it's the Doctor! The one with the TARDIS!"

" _Really?_ " The man had been looking a bit weary, but perked up at that; the Doctor gave himself a firm reminder to keep his ego under control. Well, more control than usual, anyway. " _Oh, hello, Doctor. You look a lot younger than that one time we met. You weren't Awake then, and don't ask me who the Anchor was 'cause I never saw them, but I spent that Loop working with UNIT; started as an unpaid intern, which is usually more of Karl's line but whatever, but by the time you showed up with the more grown-up version of that face, I was one of the senior scientists. Then I got killed by a Zygon, which was just embarrassing. I mean, seriously? It couldn't have been a Dalek? But no, I get taken out by a clumsy starfish! And it wasn't even on purpose! It tripped and—_ "

"Uh, Doctor D?" Phineas interrupted, pretty clearly trying not to laugh. The other Doctor looked a little sheepish.

" _Sorry. Got a bit carried away on that tangent; it wasn't even a traumatic backstory. Anyway, I'm Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz, and I'm usually the main Evil Scientist. Which is kinda why I'm calling. See, Perry doesn't answer his phone, and Major Monobrow and Karl aren't Awake this Loop._ "

"Is there a problem?" Phineas asked, now serious. But Doofenshmirtz just shook his head.

" _Just a couple of annoying Loops. First I was in Sunnydale; that Xander makes a pretty decent nemesis. Took care of that nasty brat Warren, who's just an embarrassment to Evil Scientists everywhere. Dr. Walsh was a bit better—at least she knows how to make a proper lair, but she had no sense of humor, and no idea about proper care and handling of her nemesis. I mean, what kind of death trap is lying about a demon and giving someone a faulty weapon? No finesse, I'm telling you. But as if that wasn't bad enough, last Loop was here, and I was the only one Awake with a Stealth Anchor, only I ended up in that other dimension instead. And when I got here, this world's me had become a mime! A **mime**_!!!"

His audience winced; that was just uncalled for.

"Taking the Loop off?" Ferb asked, a note of sympathy in his voice.

" _Yeah. I mean, if Rodney gets out of hand I'll step up, and I'll make sure we get to the other dimension so we can smack down other-me, but I think I just want to spend most of this Loop tinkering with some –inators and embarrassing Vanessa. It's getting harder to do now that she's not as interested in what that **boy** thinks, so I've gotta put some real effort into it._"

"Have you tried traditional Druselsteinian garb yet?" Phineas asked, grin back in place. "Better yet, go back a few centuries and insist on doing it authentically."

 _"Oooo, I hadn't thought of that. I could even get her a full 17th Century court dress for her birthday... Thanks, Phineas; I owe you one_!" The hologram winked out, and Phineas shook his head with a laugh.

"Well, you just met the founder of LOVEMUFFIN. Vanessa's his daughter, and he thinks he isn't doing his job right if he doesn't embarrass her."

"She's a teenager?" the Doctor guessed; at Phineas' nod, he continued, "Well, I guess he has a point. But that's really your biggest threat?"

"Oh, not even close. Even in baseline, he was a pretty decent guy at heart. No, our biggest threat is boredom. A day without trying something new, or at least seeing how we can take something and make it better. Oh, and that other-dimensional invasion. The zombie apocalypse only happens if Doctor D isn't Awake."

"...Do I want to know?"

"Long story. We've gotta get you up to speed, so why don't we start at the beginning, with the Rollercoaster. It was the first day of summer vacation..."

* * *

27.9 continued (katfairy): [Doctor Who] / [Phineas and Ferb]

By the end of the week, the Doctor knew he'd found his favorite Loop so far. Geniuses to work with who weren't likely to destroy the world, even by accident; genuinely nice people surrounding him; laughably evil bad guys; a teal platypus who led a double life as a secret agent. Even the invasion had been fun, as the Local Loopers treated it as a chance to cut loose. Nobody died and while there were some injuries, they were all fairly minor. The singing took some getting used to, but the tunes were so ridiculously catchy that he didn't mind. Well, maybe a little, but only because he was going to have a few of them stuck in his head for the next several Loops. On the other hand, he might use a few of them; he couldn't wait to see how Lethbridge-Stewart reacted to hearing the Quirky Worky Song as the Doctor fiddled with the TARDIS console during his third life. Liz and Sarah Jane would be exasperated, but Jo would probably join in, and he knew Benton would be whistling it within a week of hearing it. Yes, if nothing else, this Loop had given him several good ideas for pranks and a little good-natured trolling.

Better still, he'd made friends in this Loop. Being the sole Looper back home got a bit lonely, and his handful of outside Loops had been educational, but he couldn't really describe most of them as fun. The Looping friendships he'd made were mostly based on shared experience and hardship, and some of them he honestly wasn't sure would last. Danville was different. After the initial shock of learning he was Looping, they'd all just accepted him. Not as a Great and Powerful Time Lord, not as The Oncoming Storm or any of his other titles. Just as himself. They genuinely liked him as an individual, and the baggage of being a Time Lord simply didn't exist to them. Well, Doofenshmirtz had invited him to be an Evil Scientist if he ever Looped back in as an adult, pointing out that he had enough traumatic backstories to use as excuses for as many impractical and doomed Instruments of Evil as he cared to build, but beyond that, nothing. It was a good feeling, and a memory he'd treasure when the Loops got nasty again. He liked being treated as just another person—

"Hey! Bowtie!"

All right, some bits he could do without.

"Yes, Buford."

"So you gonna take up Doctor D on that whole Evil Scientist thing next time you're here or what?"

"..." The Doctor turned to glare at the other boy, who remained unimpressed. As usual, Baljeet reacted before anyone else had a chance to.

"Buford! Are you seriously suggesting the Doctor turn evil?"

"Nah, man, I'm talking Evil Scientist. You know, like Doofenshmirtz."

"Oh. Well, that is different, I suppose. But who would be his nemesis?"

"Probably one of the OWCA agents we met during the invasion," Isabella said. "Although if we had another animal Looper here at the same time, Major Monogram would probably recruit them for the job. Well, if he's Awake."

"That could be fun to watch," Phineas grinned. "Can you imagine the Doctor facing off against Scooby? Or Pikachu?"

"Or Big Mac?" Ferb offered, mischievous glint just barely visible in his eyes. There was a moment of silence, then:

"Dibs on the film rights," Buford said. Baljeet protested, and one of their frequent arguments started. The Doctor just laughed, shaking his head and going back to calibrating the flux capacitor. The rest of the group, with the obvious exception of the bickering pair, also got back to work. After a few minutes, Isabella spoke up.

"Actually, Buford had a point. The Evil Scientist thing can be a lot of fun; I've done it a few times. The trick is to look dangerous while never actually doing anything that is. It's really just epic trolling."

"How can you be sure I'll Loop back here?" the Doctor asked. "From what I've been told, Looping outside of your own universe is incredibly rare, and there's a lot of other Loops out there. What are the odds that I'll be back here at all?"

"Pretty good, actually," Ferb said, and the others nodded. Isabella continued the explanation.

"Some Loops get repeat visitors more than others, and we're one of them. I guess it's because we're pretty low-key, so it's a good place to send someone who needs a break. Not that we get the ones with serious issues—okay, not usually; we have had Bruce Wayne here. But even he lightened up a bit once he met Doctor D, and after Ferb had a talk with him, I think he actually started to have some fun. We aren't a Sanctuary Loop, but, well, this entire Loop is summer vacation. We're pretty much a vacation Loop by definition. So if Yggdrasil throws someone at us once and they really enjoy themselves, we tend to see them again. They get a chance to just kick back and relax, and maybe get in on some shenanigans if they want to. They get a chance to _play_. And the Loopers we tend to see a lot of don't get much of a chance to do that in their home Loops. Like you. I think I'm the only other one from Danville who's been there; I replaced Sarah Jane one Loop. Oh, that reminds me—"

She nipped around the giant animatronic axolotl and smacked the Doctor upside the head. He yelped, and the others stared.

"Isabella!" Phineas exclaimed, shocked.

"I promised I'd do that to him if I ever met him when he was Awake and I keep forgetting to do it," she shrugged. "I told you guys about Davros, right? Well, that jerk had the nerve to accuse the Doctor of basically being the same as him— _and this idiot listened!_ "

"Hey, was that the whole Children of Time thing?" Phineas asked, a frown starting to develop. "I've watched the series in a couple of Hub Loops, and I always wondered why you'd take his word for anything."

"Well, why would he lie to me?" Even as he said it, the Doctor realized how stupid he sounded. Having an entire yard full of young geniuses staring at him like he was wearing his pants on his head didn't help. Even Phineas looked exasperated, and turned to Isabella.

"Okay, I'll give you that one."

"Yeah, some guys just need to get hit with a clue-by-four," Buford sighed, facepalming. "Dude, seriously. This Davros guy thinks it would be cool to destroy all of reality; what part of 'this guy is a full-bore loony' makes you think he's got a good point about _anything_?"

"But I am dangerous."

"So am I," Phineas snapped. "Any one of us could destroy this planet without breaking a sweat. But we wouldn't. Well, not without a good reason, which has happened. And even in baseline, we had the capability to build machines that could have. And we didn't. Being dangerous doesn't make you bad, it just means you have to be careful. And you are until someone doesn't give a choice in the matter; not one you could live with, anyway. You blame yourself for all this stuff that happens around you, but almost every single time that I know of it was already going on before you got there. People just blame you so they don't have to admit they could have tried to do something and didn't, or that they didn't even know something needed to be done even though it was staring them in the face. Or because they know it was their fault and want to bring you down too."

"How can you be sure?" the Doctor asked.

"What you see in Hub Loops is usually an accurate representation of a Loop," Baljeet said. "And the formula for that show was quite obvious: you go somewhere and you find something wrong. People die while you try to fix it, but you do fix it. And then people yell at you for not preventing those deaths, even if you hadn't even arrived when they happened, or the deaths happened because somebody did something stupid that you'd already warned them not to do. And you go off accepting the blame."

"And for all your fondness for humans, you never seemed to get one fundamental aspect of our nature," Ferb said. All eyes turned to him, including the Doctor's; when Ferb gave a speech, it was best to pay attention. "You often decried our violent tendencies, and then you'd be shocked when your companions took up arms to defend others. Davros claimed you turned them into weapons, and you believed that. You were wrong. Humans aren't necessarily violent by nature, but if they see a threat, they will move to counter it. With violence, if necessary. You never traveled with anybody who would be willing to simply sit back and let evil have its way; why are you always surprised when they reach a point when they feel they have to take a more active role? I know I've done things I've regretted because I knew the consequences of not doing them would be worse, and most Loopers can tell you the same. Ask Martha Jones why she was willing to blow up the Earth rather than let the Daleks have it. Ask Rory why he kept his training as a Roman soldier. For that matter, ask Jo Grant why she married that environmentalist chap and joined his expeditions. I'll tell you what they'll answer: because you showed them that simply being a good person wasn't enough to prevent evil. That you had to act, even if it broke your heart. You didn't turn them into weapons, Doctor. You just showed them how to act instead of standing around wringing their hands."

"But..." The Doctor trailed off. They had good points, all of them. But they couldn't be right. It had to be his fault. Because... well, he couldn't think of a good reason, but he was sure there was one. He was just about to ask them why they were so convinced he was wrong besides everything else they'd said when a gigantic robot archaeopteryx kicked down the fence.

"We are not done with this conversation," Phineas said, rolling his eyes. "Okay, guys, I think this one's the Skitacook Gambit. Shouldn't take too long, but don't get cocky!"

* * *

They never did get back to the conversation. They were too tired after that fight, and after that, the rest of LOVEMUFFIN decided they had to one-up Doctor Diminutive's android anachronism; every day for the rest of the Loop they had to deal with a different extinct species. On the last day of the Loop, they all gathered in Phineas' back yard for a final party.

"Okay, we're not going to dogpile you at this point, but I just want to ask you: do you try to do the right thing, even if it hurts?" Phineas gave him a look rather like the ones Donna gave him when she thought he'd been unusually thick.

"Yes."

"And when you mess up, do you try to make it right, or at least apologise?"

"Yes."

"Then you're a good guy. And you're our friend. Now let's party."

They did. One moment the Doctor was playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Llama ("Llamas don't have tails!" "And your point?"), the next he was back in his own Loop. The conversation had given him a lot to think about, but above it all, one thought stood clear.

Next Danville Loop, he was _totally_ doing the Evil Scientist thing.

* * *

27.10 (Masterweaver): [Zootopia]

Judy let out one last, final, annoyed breath. "...and that," she managed, "was my last repeat. Loop. I mean, at least I know what's going on now, but it was just... weird."

She turned to look at Nick, who was... rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"...What?"

"So," he said slowly. "This Luna."

"What about her?"

"She was a cougar. About as big as you are now. And she spent the whole loop naked."

The rabbit blinked.

"And she lived in. Your. Bedroom."

Judy sputtered, suddenly very glad she had fur again. "Oh, grow _up_ Nick! It wasn't like that--I, I was like the size of a regular cougar, and I didn't have any fur and she was like a trillion years old--STOP SMILING. STOP IT NOW."

* * *

27.11 (wildrook): [Zootopia] / [Naruto] / [Robin Hood]

"I take it this Kurama guy didn't come up with the name?" Nick asked Naruto, who represented the Bijuu's position in VIXENS.

"The fact that it's mistaken as a Charlie's Angels super-squad might have been our first clue," he replied. "But no one's complained. Either way, we have meetings, and today's a bit... well... weird."

Nick then sat down. "What's it about?" he asked him.

"Turns out Robin Hood had found something on his person, and we're trying to figure out what the heck it is." Naruto turned to Robin who brought up a green eye-like capsule and tossed it over to Naruto.

* * *

27.12 (Luna Gale): [American Dragon: Jake Long]

"Jonathan, you're sure you're not mad that I hid this from you?" Susan looked to her husband worriedly, convinced that any second he would snap, yell, or do something other than smile with such an accepting expression. Both Jake and Haley looked to their mother, both having identical expression of horror, as they shook their heads furiously at her. Haley waved her hands in front of her frantically, mouthing 'stop! no! no! please!' while Jake kept muttering 'just drop it!' under his breath in a very disgruntled fashion.

Clearly, the siblings didn't want Susan tempting fate.

"Well," Jonathan started. The other three Longs froze in dreaded anticipation, "I know I should be mad, but I have my own confession to make."

Haley smiled up at her dad, but even the sugary sweetness of her perfected little girl smile, couldn't hide her nervousness. She fluttered her eyelashes 'innocently', "What is it, Daddy? Did you have a secret stamp collection you've always wanted to show us? Because I would love to see it!"

"Oh, Sweetie," He said, ruffling his daughter's hair with a smile, "It's nothing like that, though that is a good idea," Jonathan looked thoughtful for a moment, but then shook his head, "Anyway, Sugar Booger, it's something much more important than any stamp collection."

"Don't leave us hanging, Dad," Jake said, as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, "What's the big surprise?"

Jonathan smiled widely at the lot of them, "Well, family, you may be dragons, but I have a super secret life of my own!" He said, surprising Susan and Haley. Jake just thought to himself that of course this wasn't just a baseline Loop. That would be too simple.

The family man continued with a waggle of his finger, "Now, this may come as a shock, but don't blink twice, or you might miss it."

And suddenly, to everyone's surprise, Jonathan started glowed softly. Slowly, he started to lower himself to the ground, back straightening, as hair started growing rapidly all around his body. He fell to floor, but when he landed, his hands had transformed into deep brown, heavy paws., claws stretching over the rug in scratches. His body grew brighter and brighter until, the three couldn't even see fur started and human ended in this sudden, and very surprising realization that, yes, Jonathon Long was not entirely human, he was... something else as well.

As quickly, as it started, the glow gently died down until there was nothing left to see.

Well, nothing left to see, but a humongous, brown haired wolf, at least, the creature shaking his head with powerful whirls of his head.

It was silent for a moment. The now, wolf, looked up at them, Jonathan's eyes staring up where blank animal like ones should be. He had an impressive set of teeth, with sharp canine, and an even sharper nose that Jake heard could smell fear off their prey. The three prepared for the worse,

...Only for their father barked happily, and pad up to Susan to rub his head lovingly against her leg.

"A wolf..." Susan finally muttered numbly. She scratched behind her now wolf-husband's ears, her brain partially short-circuiting at the news, "My husband is a wolf. Of course, why not? It's not like we're normal... right?"

"Actually, he's a werewolf," Haley corrected, she too going to pet her wolf dad. Jonathan whined happily when she started scratching under his maw, "Once werewolves are old enough, they are able to control their transformations, so it isn't entirely surprising that Dad could hide it from us."

Jake couldn't bring himself to speak. He simply followed their lead, and started rubbing his father's fluffy back.

The three silently petted their wolf father, as the canine cooed at their touches. It was odd to think that _this_ was their father. Though, it was probably not the weirdest thing they had ever done (in this Loop, was left unsaid in Jake's mind), but it was definitely in the top ten. Arguably. Probably.

Suddenly, Haley stopped petting him, eye widening almost comically.

Jake frowned at her, "What's up? What's with the bug eyes?"

Haley pulled Jake away from the... family time, the two being ignored, as Susan studied her husband's wolf form with a small smile. After a few grumbles and protests on Jake's part, Haley hissed under breath, "Think about it, doofus, if Mom is a dragon..."

"Yeah..."

"And if Dad's a werewolf..."

"Aww man, I don't like where this is going," Jake groaned, "Just stop, please."

"Does-"

"Stop it."

"-Does this make us werewolf-dragon hybrids?"

Jake groaned loud enough for Jonathon's ears to flicker, "Think about that later! Now! Go pet Dad or something before my brain explodes!"

Haley, the little imp, started snickering, "It's just simple biology, Jackie. No need to get so worked up about it."

"Go away. I don't need yet another complication in my life. Well deal with this later, so go away! Shoo!" He couldn't help but shudder in slightly disgust, as he saw his wolf dad _lick_ his mom's face like some puppy.

"Alright, big brother. I'll leave you to wallow," She finished with one last quip, turning around on the tips of her toes. As Haley practically skipped back to their father, the American Dragon sighed heavily and rubbed his hands over his face,, just to calm himself down. Just a little bit.

Once he felt like he could breath without screaming, Jake removed his hands from his face, one of his eyes twitching, as the saw the too long, too thick black hair, he'd never taken notice before growing on his fingers, "Danny is so never going to let me live this down..." He muttered under his breath, stuffing his hands back into his pocket with a huff.

His other eye started twitching when he looked up, only to see Haley and his mom rubbing their father's wolf belly, the girls making cooing noises at their dad.

Nope, Jake definitely did not want to overthink this. He liked his brain intact, thank you very much.

* * *

27.13 (Harry Leferts): [Zootopia] / [Welkin Weasels - not looping]

Walking beside Judy in the fog enshrouded dusk, Nick raised an eyebrow as he looked her over. "I have to admit, Carrots, you don't look too bad in that uniform of yours."

There was a slight smirk on Judy's face as she twirled the baton in her paws. "Thanks..." Then the helmet she was wearing tilted a bit and she had to adjust it with a scowl. "Except for this damn helmet."

As he slightly laughed, Nick shook his head as he looked over his own clothing, which were something well off men from the Victorian Era might wear, except made for animals much like how Judy's uniform belonged to the same era. "I got to admit, this Loop is really odd, but I do like the clothes. Preeetty snazzy."

Snorting, Judy nodded a bit as she tried to peer through the fog, ignoring the various animals lighting the gaslights on the side of the road. "Yeah, I've been putting some in my Pocket. If nothing else, they'll make for good costumes." The rabbit then waved a hand in front of her face with a scowl. "I just wish that this fog would go away. Carrot sticks, it makes it hard to see and we're trying to catch a murderer."

His paws in his pockets, Nick nodded as his ears rotated in every direction. Neither would say it, but both of them were rather nervous. So much so that Judy didn't comment when Nick joined her on her patrols. In fact, Judy took a little comfort from the fact that he had her back, even if the other officers didn't know why she let him join her. Grunting, Nick just nodded. "Yeah, it takes one sick freak to prey on people and drain their blood."

With a frown, Judy nodded a bit, once more swinging her baton around. "No argument from me. I just hope we catch him soon and before anyone else gets killed."

At that moment, both of them stopped and stiffened as they heard two sets of paws running toward them. Sharing a look, Judy and Nick got ready for a possible fight when two weasels came into view. When the weasels spotted them, the male of the two smiled and tipped his hat a bit. "Ah! Good evening Jis Judy, Jal Nick. It's a good thing that we've found you, we could use some help you see..."

Nick just raised an eyebrow as he recognized who he was talking to, the great weasel detective Montegru Sylver and the doctor Bryony Bludd. "Don't tell me... Spindrick is up to his usual tricks then? Hopefully not involving enough explosives to destroy the city."

However, Sylver shook his head with a grimace. "If only, dear chap. No... the city has bigger problems then my dear anarchist cousin."

After a moment, Judy narrowed her eyes as it clicked. "Something about the murders then."

Slowly, Bryony nodded. "Unfortunately so. And..." A sound caused everyone to turn and look in the direction that the two weasels had come from. "And here they come."

While the shadows began to materialize out of the gloom, Nick glanced at Judy before twisting the top of his cane, some steel showing that it was in fact a sword. "So, what are we dealing with then?"

One of the shadows came out with blood red eyes and hissed as it showed two massive fangs at the same time Sylver got into a stance. "It seems that Muggidrear is being threatened by swarms of vampire voles..."

That only caused Judy and Nick to look at each other and sigh before they spoke at the same time. "Of course..."

* * *

27.14 (wildrook): [Zootopia]

Nick had no idea that he'd be involved in a Government Conspiracy involving predators being involved in racial cleansing. Then again, he had no idea that Judy stocked the Meter Maid with excessive firepower... and blueberries.

She then walked out in front of the rams of Bellweather and said the one thing that broke the tension:

"Morning."

That's when the guns started firing. Nick had to ask her where she got that many guns at once as soon as this was over.

* * *

27.15 (Evilhumour): [Danny Phantom] / [American Dragon: Jake Long]

"So Jake..." Danny Fenton asked as he sat on the bed of his friend and fellow Anchor. "You know that I got dragons powers here, right?"

"Ya," Jake frowned as he tried to focus on repairing the wheel to his skateboard. "And?"

"Well... I've found myself kinda... _hoarding_ stuff," Danny blushed, scratching the back of his head. "I once made a nest of Nasty Burger boxes before I realized what I was doing...So does that happen to you?"

Jake blinked and slowly turned his head towards to his friend. "Promise not to tell anyone?"

"I made a nest out of _greasy_ hamburger containers," Danny narrowed his eyes at his friend. "You've got dirt on me, so share."

Jake narrowed his eyes back before hitting the wall. With that, there was a crash as hundreds of skateboards started to fall from the ceiling onto the ground, Danny going intangible out of reflex.

Danny stared at his friend, mouth open wide at the sight in front of him.

"Yeah, hoarding is a thing," Jake grumbled as he would need to fix his nest up now.

* * *

27.16 (Hvulpes): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] (not compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ )

Twilight was curious why the two visiting unicorn loopers were seeking her help.

"So Twilight, we don't mean to be rude, but we were wondering if we could get help collecting unicorn and alicorn hair samples for an experiment." said the pine hat wearing unicorn with the unfortunate name of Dippy Fresh Pines.

"What kind of experiment?" The Princess of friendship was curious as expanding knowledge was a one of her favourite things.

"As you know, Bill invades our loop. As such, I use a magic spell to put up a barrier around the Mystery Shack. One which uses things like moonstones... and unicorn hair. But the unicorns in our world just have the magic to light up their horns and such. Nothing like true magic..." continued Strange Minds Pines, the only two horned unicorn Twilight or anyone had seen.

"Which is why you want to see if Unicorn hair from Equestria could change the spell's power and/or nature. The same with Alicorn hair which has to be more powerful with four different types of magic. I hadn't thought of the mystical possibilities such a change could make." Twilight's mind went spinning, as her experience with magic and the experimentation of magic were feeding her hunger to know. To know how this spell would change with the ingredients.

"I'll help," continued the purple Alicorn, "Even see if I can get the other Ascended Alicorns to help... but only if you can give me a copy of the results of the various results for my own records."

"Of course, nothing makes me happier than sharing knowledge with a respected intellectual mind. Now, Dipper and I should check on my brother. He was trying to con the Flim Flam brothers and it's giving me a bad feeling have the three of them together." continued the bi-corn.

* * *

27.1: Riley's actually a good teacher when it comes to this kind of magic.

27.2: Eeyeah.

27.3: Not being familiar with Numenora, I really don't know what to say.

27.4: Little does she know, _Watership Down_ is actually Looping...

27.5: And Judy gets the speech.

27.6: I don't know how their train of logic led to that conclusion; I don't _want_ to know.

27.7: Inter-loop rivalries ca be interesting.

27.8: This actually takes place before 27.5. And welcome to the Loops, Nick.

27.9-27.9 continued: Danville is one of those _fun_ places to Loop into.

27.10: Apparently a continuation of Nick's introduction to the Loops.

27.11: The item found was the Robin Hood Ghost Eyecon from _Kamen Rider Ghost_.

27.12: There can be... _interesting_ hybrids in the Loops.

27.13: One of their odder Loops.

27.14: Rabbits with superior firepower.

27.15: Yes. Yes, it is.

27.16: And another chaos entity manifests in Equestria.


	45. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Eight

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-01-20. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Eight**

28.1 (Harry Leferts): [Kantai Collection] / [Frozen]

The Special Destroyer Fubuki sat up in her bed with a gasp. After a moment, she blinked as she looked around. 'I... What? This isn't my room...' Suddenly she groaned a bit as she felt a bunch of memories in her head. 'I'm Princess Rebecca? Bucky?' Getting up, Fubuki walked over to a mirror and looked at the girl in it. 'Is this some sort of dream? Or... Was what happened before a dream?'

Gently, she touched her fingers to the mirror and hissed as ice formed before it began to crawl across the surface. Quickly, she yanked her fingers back before looking at them. 'That... Didn't feel like it was a dream...' Reaching up, Fubuki took a deep breath as she rubbed at her brow. 'The last thing I remember was greeting the Admiral and then... I woke up here? But I also remember going to sleep in this bed last night... I...' Sliding down, Fubuki groaned as she held her head in her hands. "What is going on here...?"

* * *

Anna frowned as she watched her "Sister" walk around. Things had gone _mostly_ according to baseline. Except the queen wasn't Elsa, but someone else. Worse, sometimes the person was distracted. Resolving herself, Anna walked up to the girl replacing Elsa and tapped her on the shoulder. "Can I talk to you in private, Rebecca?"

Blinking, the girl nodded a bit. "Of course, Omou... I mean, sister."

And that was another thing that gave Anna some clues, sometimes her sister spoke Japanese before correcting herself. Once they were in a locked room, Anna turned toward her sister with a frown. "Can I ask if you've experienced anything... Odd?"

Her voice slightly strangled, the other girl stared at her. "O-odd? How do?"

Crossing she arms across her chest, Anna raised an eyebrow. "Like time repeating?" At the confused blink, she frowned a bit more. "You know, as if events happened that you remember but haven't?"

Now she had the other girl's attention. "There was this one odd dream, or I thought that it was a dream until I was able to do it... But you'll think it's silly..."

Feeling like she was getting somewhere, Anna took a step forward. "What sort of dream, Becky? And what are you able to do?"

Almost a minute passed before Becky took a deep breath and began to pace. "I had the oddest dream a few years ago, which has stuck with me ever since. In it, I was a Destroyer, the _Fubuki_. But decades after I was sunk, I returned after being called to help against these beings known as Abyssals..."

While she continued, Anna's eyes widened. 'Okay... This I didn't expect...' Anna waited until she was done, but was further surprised when it seemed like metal parts of a ship manifested themselves around the young woman in front of her. "Oh wow..."

Reaching out, Anna touched it as the person who had replaced Elsa frowned. "You're not freaked out?"

With a chuckle, Anna shook her head. "Nope! In fact, I can tell you that wasn't a dream... And neither is this." Seeing the confusion, she shook her head. "See, it begins with this giant tree..."

* * *

28.2 (katfairy): [My Little Pony] / [Sleeping Beauty] (also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 180.10)

The naming ceremony was underway, and everything was going smoothly. Which is why not a single Awake Looper was surprised when a gout of black and green flames erupted in the center of the room. Cadance and Shining Armor sighed and stood ready to protect their daughter, Twilight Sparkle readied a spell, and everyone went through their usual preparations for dealing with shenanigans. They were a little surprised when the flames died down to reveal a tall human woman dressed in black, carrying a staff with a crow/raven perched on top of it.

Maleficent.

She started to speak, blinked, looked around. With a frown, she reached into a dagged-edged sleeve and pulled out a paper.

"Oh, 'swirl, _then_ thump.' Well, that explains it." She turned to face the Royal Couple, bowing. "Do forgive me; I seem to have gotten my directions a bit confused. I've ended up at the wrong christening. Since I'm here, though, and since this is clearly a special child-- heir to the throne?-- yes, I thought as much-- I could curse her instead if you like? After all, she has to grow up with some overwhelming obstacle in her way. The curse I've got prepared is hardly appropriate in this setting, but I'm sure I could come up with something that would do."

There was a moment of stunned silence, the Twilight stepped forward.

"That's very kind of you, but we've already got an ancient prophecy, and--" She would have continued, but Maleficent held up a slim hand.

"Say no more; I understand perfectly. Tiresome things, prophecies; you hardly need a curse on top of that. In that case, I really must get going. Again, I do apologize for interrupting."

And she was gone. Shining backed down, shooting his sister a look.

"We'd been going along just fine, and suddenly we're in one of _those_ Loops."

"'Fraid so."

"Any reason why you didn't stop her?"

"I knew we were in a Fused Loop early on and checked; Aurora's been replaced."

"Oh?"

"Ramoth."

" _Oh._ " Shining grinned with more and seemingly pointier teeth than a pony should have, then turned to the crowd. "Okay, where were we?"

* * *

28.3 (GMBlackjack): [Gravity Falls]

Yggdrasil rather often decide to take the symbols of the zodiac literally, and that ended up giving the Gravity Falls Loopers... unusual powers.

Dipper could actually grow pine trees at will at this point, summoning them like spiky weapons.

Mabel shot stars. She also shot kitten fists and rainbows. Dipper still wasn't sure if the kitten fists are part of the symbol or just her being her.

Wendy, the elusive ice bag, had been bestowed with ice powers, able to control the cold around her.

Robbie was given the twofold ability to completely destroy any love in the area (which he rarely used) and summon vast seas of blood to conquer his opponents.

"TREMBLE BEFORE ME FOR I HAVE COVERED YOU IN BLOOD TIDAL WAVES! AHAHAHAHAHHA!"

He took it a little too far sometimes.

Pacifica, to her initial annoyance, became good with animals (particularly llamas). She could, with a snap of her fingers, get any animal to listen to her and do what she wanted. Warrior princess riding a llama had happened more than one time. Warrior princess trying to teach a llama to drive had only happened once.

Gideon simply became an actual psychic, able to know things that he shouldn't be able to, able to levitate certain things, and even able to see out of some of Bill's "eyes," though the eldritch triangle objected to this.

Soos could confuse people just by pointing at them. Usually this was only enhanced by what he said normally.

McGucket had learned to use his eyes to see any kind of force, magic, light, or even things that shouldn't exist. He could see _everything_ through his magic lenses. It actually made him seem more crazy.

"I SEE A TOOTIN BANJO RIGHT THERE!" Nobody else saw anything, but the banjo really was there. It was a mental afterimage from McGucket playing it two days ago.

Ford's symbol had represented itself in a few ways. First off, Ford was able to generate giant hands to manipulate things of almost any size, able to make as many six-fingered hands as he wanted out of any material. It also gave him an astounding capability to remember and record information in his mind, making the jPad simply something he kept for his own pleasure and for the benefit of others.

And Stan...

"Grunkle Stan?"

"Yes Pumpkin?"

"What does your symbol do? What even is it?"

"Well, Mabel, you see it gave me a really powerful ability."

"What's that?"

"The ability to keep eating snacks for eternity without getting any fatter."

And like a fish eating food, Stan threw another piece of popcorn in his mouth. "See?"

Mabel nodded seriously.

* * *

28.4 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Prototype]

Roxas stared at the hooded figure who had been stalking him for the past few days.

"Axel?" he hazarded.

"Alex, actually," the figure replied.

"Are you part of the Organization? A Nobody?"

"That...is a pretty good question, actually. You see, I'm technically a sentient supervirus who took on the face of the man who created me. So, in some way, I guess I'm a Nobody."

"What was the name of your... uh... creator?"

"Alex Mercer."

"So you took his face and name."

"And body and mind. Well... kinda. He was a crazy sociopath who wanted people dead."

"You're making my head hurt."

"Believe me, trying to make sense of your world isn't a walk in the park either."

* * *

28.5 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Prototype]

"So you're Axel?"

"Yup. And you're Alex?"

"Yup."

"...Normally, when you become a member of the Organization, we rearrange the letters in your name and add an X in it. Xigbar the Freeshooter was Braig, Xaldin the Whirlwind Lancer was Dilan, Vexen the Chilly Academic was Even, Lexaeus the Taciturn Stalwart was Aeleus, Zexion the Cloaked Schemer was Ienzo, Saïx, the Luna Diviner was Isa, yours truly the Flurry of Dancing Flames was Lea. Demyx, Luxord, Marluxia and Larxene are currently unknown, but we can make a few guesses as to what their names used to be."

Alex blinked and shook his head. "What's with the fancy titles?"

Axel pouted. "What? Don't you have some way of introducing yourself? Or do you simply call yourself Alex Mercer?"

"I'm the Blacklight Virus given human form and memories."

"So you're Laxer Creme, the Blacklight Virus."

" **No**."

"Well, there's "Mr. Cereal" but that kinda ruins the naming scheme."

"Screw you."

"Take me to dinner first."

* * *

28.6 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Warhammer 40K] / [Gravity Falls] (also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of the _MLP Loops - Gravity Falls_ chapter)

"I call this meeting of Chaos Gods anonymous to order!" Pinkie yelled clapping her hooves. Slaanesh, Tzeentch, and Nurgle joined in. Khorne just grunted, obviously a tad bored. Bill did nothing aside from looking like he _really_ didn't want to be here. The chair reserved for Discord was empty, with only an kumquat in it. Nobody questioned this.

"Now Bill..." Pinkie said, turning to Bill. "How have you been dealing with your chaotic desires the last few Loops?"

" _HAVEN'T UNLEASHED UNIMAGINABLE TERROR AND HAVE BEEN DOING A GOOD JOB SUPPRESSING THE CHAOTIC DESIRES. I'VE DONE WHAT I WAS TOLD. WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO?_ "

Slaanesh ticked. "Oooooh... you're fallen into suppression. Not good..."

" _...WHAT?_ "

Tzeentch nodded. "By nature we are chaotic beings. If we try to suppress our nature, we lose our minds in the most damaging of ways. Apocalypse causing ways. It will also wrench at your very soul, tearing you apart from within."

Nurgle agreed. "Trust me, we would know."

Khorne grunted. "Remember that I wasn't awake at that point-"

Tzeentch let out a snort. "And that changes the point of this how?"

Slaanesh chuckled. "He's just trying to salvage his dignity before we get into the details. Why I remember-"

Pinkie held up a hoof. "We are not here to tell embarrassing stories of each other. That's for next meeting. We are here today to assist Bill in his adaptations."

Khorne grunted. "Still don't see why we don't just smash sense into him."

Pinkie facehooved. "Khorne, you know that wouldn't work."

"It works a lot more often than you'd think."

" _I DO AGREE WITH THE BLOOD GOD. SMASHING WOULD BE VASTLY PREFERABLE._ "

Tzeentch grinned a very evil grin. "He would prefer the smashing. That means we're doing it right."

" _I OBJECT TO MY DISCOMFORT BEING A CRITERIA FOR SUCCESS._ "

Slaanesh smirked. "Didn't you revel in the discomfort of others baseline?"

" _THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT. I WASN'T TRYING TO MAKE THEIR LIVES BETTER-_ "

Pinkie unfolded a scroll. "I will make a new world, a fun world. A party that never stops with a host that never dies." She looked up. "This is from your speech with baseline Ford, trying to argue your case to him. You _did_ believe you were making the world better."

Bill was silent.

Tzeentch spoke up. "Now Bill, Chaos God of Alien Geometries and Random Weirdness, we're here to teach you have to be a Chaos God that other Loopers can live with _without_ completely denying your nature. Chaos is just a part of reality as anything else, but like everything in existence, too much of it is bad for you."

"Except for-" Slaanesh began.

"I do not need to hear any of your perverse arguments right now." Tzeentch interrupted. "It'll go against the whole point of this. Bill, you do not have to deny yourself. You can have your fun, you can use your powers for your own enjoyment. You can prank others and laugh at their expense."

"In fact we recommend it." Pinkie said, grinning. "PARTY PRANKS FOR ALL! Show your fellow loopers what it feels like to have confetti pelt them in the face from all directions at once!"

"...most Loopers' faces do not point every direction." Khorne observed.

" _TRUST ME, IT'S RATHER EASY TO MAKE A FACE POINT ALL DIRECTIONS. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS WRAP THEM AROUND A DIMENSIONAL CONSTRUCT AND BLAST AWAY._ "

Tzeentch nodded. "The triangle is right. Care to elaborate Bill?"

" _WELL FIRST YOU'D HAVE TO ADAPT AROUND A FIFTH-DIMENSIONAL MATRIX. I'D RECOMMEND USING SOME KIND OF FLESHY ROPE FOR CREEPINESS FACTOR AND..._ "

As Bill monologued, Pinkie smiled. _Progress._

* * *

"So how was the meeting?" Ford asked.

"IT WAS FUN! And AMAZING! And we did a lot of discussion of multidimensional pranks!"

" _YOU LOT ARE SO DOOMED IT ISN'T EVEN FUNNY._ " Bill chuckled. Pinkie grinned.

Ford was mildly scared. "Well, the Stan o War is ready for another launch. Ready to explore the world?"

"OF COURSE!" Pinkie yelled.

Stan, from the boat, yelled back. "WOULD YOU GET THEM IN HERE? THE PORTAL'S FREAKING OUT AGAIN!"

Ford rolled his eyes. "Coming Stanley!" He ran in, to see the portal activate and deposit a grey unicorn mare on the ground.

Ford nodded. As expected. It was Littlepip again. She always arrived somehow just before the Stan o War took off. And she was always ready for adventure. This was the fifth time it had happened.

He walked into a hallway, making sure he was alone. Then he called Bill.

"Quite the coincidence that she has appeared again, isn't it?"

" _YEAH, TOTALLY IS SIXER. GUESS THE TREE THINKS THE STAN O WAR NEEDS TO CONTINUALLY BE CREWED BY THE SAME CREW, REGARDLESS OF REGULATIONS-_ "

"It's not Yggdrasil doing this." Ford said, tapping a wall absent-mindedly.

" _OH?_ " Bill said, a hint of concern in his voice.

"Yggdrasil, while connection forming, does not generate non-Loopers whenever they are needed every time without fail. Sometimes, yes. But five times in a row? Yggdrasil is not that orderly. Not that predictable."

" _WHAT POSSIBLE EXPLANATION COULD THERE BE SIXER? IT'S NOT LIKE ANY OF US CAN JUST REACH INTO THE CODE OF YGGDRASIL AND PULL HER OUT. THAT'D BE ABSURD! YOU THINK TOO HARD-_ "

"You're storing her within the TriNet." Ford said, turning to stare at the triangle before him. "It makes sense, she appears every time this crew gets together, you are the only one who is always present, and it's the only way there could possibly be enough space to store her. Trying to store her in any single Looper mind could be disastrous as her personality evolves and changes. However, your Net is _not_ a single Looper mind." He turned back to Bill. "You are sacrificing your valuable storage space for someone who was just a solidified dream when you met her!"

Bill was silent.

"Why?" Ford asked.

" _SHE'S FUN AND DESTRUCTIVE, AND I HAVE PLENTY OF EXTRA SPACE NOW THAT I DON'T NEED TO COME UP WITH SOME GRAND MASTER PLAN. IT WASN'T A BIG DEAL ANYWAY, DIDN'T WANT TO TELL YOU KNUCKLEHEADS THOUGH BECAUSE YOU'D HAVE THIS EXACT REACTION._ "

Ford knew Bill wasn't telling the entire truth, but he decided to let it slide. "Alright. I just wanted an explanation."

" _GOOD SIXER, NOW EXCUSE ME I HAVE A... THING TO ATTEND TO._ "

The sound of Stan screaming and Pinkie laughing could be heard coming from down the hallway.

Bill chuckled, beginning to float away.

"Bill?" Ford asked.

" _WHAT NOW-_ "

"Thank you."

Bill blinked, stunned into silence. Wordlessly he turned around, drifting away.

Ford smiled. There was hope for that triangle. There really was hope. He was very surprised.

* * *

28.7 (Harry Leferts): [Inside Out] / [Kantai Collection]

Riley Awoke to find herself standing on water saluting a group of people, some of whom she recognized as wearing United States Navy uniforms as her mouth continued to speak. "USS _Riley_ , DE-579 reporting." Blinking at that, she looked herself over and noticed that she had parts of a ship on her as if it was a costume. What looked like a mini naval cannon was strapped to the top of one hand with her middle finger through a hoop-like trigger. Something told Riley that pressing the trigger would be _very bad_ at that moment. 'I'm... a ship?'

A moment later, she shook it off as the man wearing a USN Admiral's uniform nodded as he stood beside a Japanese man in a different uniform. "Welcome back to the world of the living, Riley. I think that I speak for all of us when I say that we're glad to see you."

Hearing the cheers, Riley blushed some and hooked the cannon to her side. "Uh, it's good to be back, Sir..." While she slowly made her way across the water toward the ladder, a form of movement that made her think of skating on the ice, Riley frowned. 'Uh, guys? Are any of you there?'

Seconds later, she heard Joy's voice inside of her head as she felt a warmth that made her smile. ' _Yes, we're all here, Riley. And Awake... I have to say, this is..._ '

For a brief flash, she felt terror welling up as Fear shouted. ' **THIS IS HORRIBLE! WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE AND-** '

With a frown on her face as she reached the ladder, Riley could feel some annoyance. 'Never mind him, Riley. He's just freaking out because the mindscape's changed... somehow. Place looks like some kind of ship bridge...'

Now fully onto the ladder which groaned under her for a second, Riley blinked as the ship parts on her vanished in a cloud of sparkles before she shrugged it off. 'O... kaaay... I think that I'll have to get back to you guys...'

Reaching the top, Riley grasped the offered hand and was hoisted up to where the Admiral was waiting. After a moment, he nodded. "Let me introduce myself, I'm Admiral Richardson of the joint forces. Beside me, is Admiral Goto of the JMSDF..."

As she listened, Riley nodded along as she could somehow hear her emotions going through her memories. However, any thoughts was suddenly stopped as a brown haired woman shoved her face nearly into Riley's and made her stumble back. "Whaaaa!"

Before she fell back though, she felt her wrist clasped tightly and easily pulled back before the woman smiled at her. "Hi! I'm glad to meet you, I'm the Fast Battleship Kongou! Lead ship of the Kongou class!"

Still slightly shocked, Riley swallowed down a quick burst of fear and gave a shaky smile. "I'm Riley, fifth of the _Rudderow_ class I guess..."

Kongou hummed as there was a slight twinkle in her eye before she nodded. "Nice to meet you, Dess! Now I think that I should be getting you to the mess hall!" Twisting, she grabbed Riley's wrist and began to drag her along. "I'll take care of this, _Tei-to-kuuu!~_ "

All Goto did was facepalm and groan. "Dammit, Kongou..."

Meanwhile, Kongou dragged Riley out of sight of the various amused and bemused sailors and into the hall before she slowed down. Then Riley felt a Ping and sent one back as Kongou watched her with one eye closed. "You Awake and feeling Loopy, Dess?"

Eyes wide, Riley just nodded. "I. uh, am Loopy, but also well Anchored..." Reaching out, she shook Kongou's hand. "I'm Riley Andersen of the Inside-Out Branch."

Taking her hand in her's, Kongou nodded and shook it. "I'm the Anchor of the Shipgirl Branch, Dess!"

Still confused as she continued to walk beside the other girl, Riley coughed a bit. "So, uh... where are we going?"

Her head tilted to the side, Kongou raised a finger. "We're going to the Mess hall. You'll be needing food very soon."

Before Riley could ask, suddenly she bent over in pain from hunger as her stomach growled. It felt as if she had not eaten for more than a _week_. Suddenly, she felt a pastry shoved into her mouth and she quickly chewed and swallowed, it helping relieve her hunger pains by a small amount. "Mmm, wha-"

Once more, she felt some more food shoved into her mouth by Kongou who sped up with her. This time, by the point she swallowed they were in the mess and Kongou was a whirlwind of activity before piling a plate high with various foods and placing it in front of Riley. "Go on, eat, Dess."

Riley just stared at the enormous amount of food as Disgust could be heard in her head. ' _Ugh, does she really expect for you to **eat** all that? That's going to make you just balloon._' More hunger pains shot through Riley before Disgust sighed. ' _On the other hand..._ '

Slowly, Riley began to dig into the pile of food as Kongou began to explain what was going on. 'Wait... evil spirits in the form of warships have risen up and taken over the world's oceans... and only the spirits of warships past can fight them? Spirits like us?'

Inside her head, Anger scowled. 'She's telling the truth... besides, you got a new Core Memory.' He then glanced out the screen as a new island formed, this one looking more like a pool with a ship floating in it. 'Ask her what's the deal with those guns.'

Swallowing what seemed like half a chicken, Riley took a drink of soda and then sighed before asking. Raising an eyebrow, Kongou sipped her tea. "Your weapons function the same the weapons the warship that you represent had. They make look small, but they hit with the same punch. Though unlike the originals, they can harm spiritual beings, Dess."

That caused all activity in Riley's mind to come to a halt before she slowly looked up. "Spiritual beings...?"

With a nod, Kongou smiled. "Dess!"

Mouth dry, Riley swallowed. "Could they... hurt something like the Slenderman?"

Frowning, Kongou slowly nodded again. "Dess, they could hurt the Slenderman as it is a spiritual being." Now it was Kongou's turn to be confused as Riley grinned and cheered before the Battleship's eyes narrowed. 'I wonder if...'

* * *

Having finished eating enough that a large family would have been stuffed, Riley felt comfortably full. 'I still can't believe how much I ate...'

Inside her head, Sadness sighed a bit and Riley felt some regret about leaving the mess hall. ' **I wish that we could have kept eating for a while...** '

Anger scoffed a bit. 'Considering everything we've heard, we ate more than enough.'

Suddenly, DIsgust spoke up. ' _I suppose that we should be happy that we don't need to worry about getting fat no matter how much we eat..._ ' Then Riley could feel her grimace. ' _Though why you are **eating** those things..._'

With a shrug, Riley bit down on last bit of the steel ingot covered in motor oil in her hand before chewing the mouthful. 'They're strangely good for some reason. Like one of those chocolate covered cookies or something.' Swallowing, Riley let out a soft sigh. 'Which is really weird now that I think about it.'

Giggles could be heard inside her head before Joy spoke up. ' _Well, Disgust just threw her hands into the air._ '

Nodding, Riley couldn't help but smile a bit. 'So did any of you find anything out while I was...'

It was a moment later, she felt her smile widen just a bit as Joy laughed a bit. ' _Stuffing your face? Yeah, we found quite a bit out._ '

There was a chomping sound and for some odd reason, Riley had the image of an annoyed Anger chomping on a cigar. 'For one thing, more than just Headquarters looks like a ship's bridge. The mind workers are all still there of course, but... you also got what seems like a crew.'

Blinking, Riley concentrated and she could somehow _feel_ boots hitting the deck as various crewmembers walked through her halls. She could also feel the food in her stomach somehow being made into bunker oil for her fuel tanks, ammunition for her guns, and the galley being filled with supplies. If she had not been used to it due to her emotions, she would have found it rather uncomfortable. As it was though, Riley only nodded and accepted it easily. 'Yeah, I can feel them.'

Inside of Headquarters, Anger sighed as Fear gave another scream and ran out of the way of what he knew was an amused, though no real features were visible, shadowy human who checked some of the new instruments. 'Yeah, just great.'

A moment later, Riley was snapped out of her thoughts as Kongou leaned down and stuck her face just inches from Riley's own. "Are you okay, Dess?"

Jumping back a bit, Riley held a hand to her chest as she tried to ignore Fear for a moment. "Don't do that!" However, all Kongou did was smile as Riley calmed down. "Um, right, sorry about that I was just talking with my emotions."

That caused Kongou to blink a bit and hum. "Your emotions?"

Her hands in her pockets, Riley took a moment to look herself over as she passed by a mirror. On her was an outfit that was a cross between a Naval uniform and a schoolgirl uniform, her yellow sweater jacket over it. Something that caused Disgust to grumble. "Yeah, my emotions. In my branch emotions are like, tiny little people who live in your mind and help control you during day to day life."

Kongou only nodded at that. "Like a shipgirl's Bridge Command Crew?" At the nod, she smiled and patted Riley on the back. "Sounds normal, Dess. If anyone not looping asks, just say that you're talking with your bridge. No one will give it a second glance."

It was then that Riley noticed that they were outside what looked like a classroom from the 1940s and blinked. "What is this place?"

Placing a hand on Riley's shoulder, Kongou steered her into the room and gestured around it. "Since this was on the way to the Destroyer Dormitories, I thought that I should show you. This is the Destroyer Classroom and here you'll be taught what you need to know."

Utterly confused, Riley looked around. 'Wait... there's a school for shipgirls?'

Both Disgust and Anger groaned. 'Isn't this just great now...'

Having noticed a schedule, Riley walked up and examined it. 'Hmm... some of these are kind of normal but others...'

Fear whimpered a little. ' **Wait, anti-submarine warfare!? Anti-aircraft warfare?! We don't know any of this stuff! What if we fail?! Or not learn enough and have a sub hiding underneath our bed!?** '

Blinking, Riley just frowned a bit. 'I... don't think that might happen.'

Inside Headquarters, Anger grinned a bit. 'Heh, torpedo practice and naval cannon accuracy, eh? I can get into that.'

Unseen by Riley, Kongou looked at the messages on her iPhone and then nodded as she put it away. Skipping over, Kongou waited until Riley turned toward her and smiled. "Teitoku and Yankeetoku just sent a message that you've gotten your assignment." What Kongou didn't tell Riley was that she was the one who made the suggestion for placement.

* * *

Reaching the door, Kongou knocked on it and waited and after a few moments a young woman answered the door. Eyes wide, Riley took a step back as said woman chewed a toothpick in her mouth as her one golden eye observed the looper lazily (the other being under a eyepatch. Beside her head floated two metal horn-like objects. Suddenly, the woman leaned down and grinned. "You scared? Fufufufufu."

After a moment, Riley could feel anger shoot through her and knew that Anger was at the controls as she got into the woman's face. "Like heck I am!"

Several seconds passed before the young woman grinned even more widely. "Good to see you got some spunk then." Holding out a hand, she waited until Riley shook it. "Name's Tenryuu, Light Cruiser in charge of Destroyer Division Six, or DesDiv6 as some call us. Biggest badass on the base."

Knocked a bit off kilter, Riley nodded a bit. "Uh, I'm USS _Riley_ , DE-579... Destroyer-Escort."

Tenryuu only snorted a bit before flicking Riley's forehead a bit with a slight smirk. "Be proud of being a Destroyer-Escort, kiddo. Some of the biggest badasses come in small packages. Look at Sammy B for example. Kid's considered a pint-sized Battleship for a _reason_." Slowly, Tenryuu turned toward Kongou who nodded. "So you're a looper then, huh?"

Eyes wide for a moment, Riley nodded. "I'm normally the Anchor for my Branch, so..."

All Tenryuu did was nod before placing an arm around her shoulders. "Well, congrats, you're a member of DesDiv6 until further notice. Just to let you know, we mostly do resource expeditions and such. So don't expect huge battles or anything, though we get into our fair share of fights out there on the seas." Seeing the slightly worried look, Tenryuu chuckled and jerked a thumb at herself. "Don't worry yourself too much, Big Sis Tenryuu will watch over you. Ain't nothing that will get to you as long as I'm around."

With a smile, Kongou nodded. "Dess! Tenryuu is best Chunnimomboat!"

The Fast Battleship didn't even react as Tenryuu got into her face with a growl. "What'd I tell you? I'm a big sisboat! Not a momboat!"

A twinkle in her eye, Kongou grinned a bit. "Which is why Inazuma and the others call you mom, Dess?"

Blushing, Tenryuu growled. "Shut the fuck up." There was still a grin on Kongou's face as Tenryuu guided Riley into the room and slammed the door on said Fast Battleship's face. Snorting, Tenryuu gave a shout. "Okay girls! Front and Center now so you can meet our newest member!"

Not even a moment later, four girls roughly Riley's age were lined up in front of her. One of them with brown hair and what looked like fangs in her mouth grinned. "Wait, we got a new member?"

While she smirked, Tenryuu nodded and patted Riley on the back. "Yup! This here is Riley, a Destroyer-Escort. Now, she's a looper like us and Awake, so I expect you girls to help take good care of her, okay?"

Getting nods, Riley smiled herself as the four shipgirls greeted her happily. 'Maybe this won't be so bad after all...'

Of course, that night she _did_ get a little freaked out when she heard noises under her bed and found USS _Harder_ sleeping there because she felt it was safe...

* * *

The Abyssal Convoy had been making their way between some islands when they got ambushed by shipgirls. While the Abyssal Ni-Class ran to try and fight off the four Destroyers and the one Light Cruiser, the Wa-Class transports tried to run for cover. Unknown to them, another shipgirl was hiding in the lee of another island before she charged them.

When she came into view of them though, Riley shuddered in both disgust and fear. The Wa-Class looked like dead, pregnant women whose lower bodies were attached to a sphere of eldritch, blackened metal. Their pale skin stretched tightly over their bones except for their protruding bellies, their arms bent back far enough that the shoulder was likely dislocated while the wrists were literally bolted to the metal sphere. What was worse though was that they had no heads, but just an Abyssal organism where their head should be. 'Oh... Oh God...'

Inside her head, Disgust retched a bit. ' _WHAT THE HECK!?_ '

Fear just shivered. ' **Oh no, oh no, oh no! What are those things!?** '

Growling, Anger took control of the console. I have no idea, but we're going to be sinking them. Riley!'

Able to finally shrug off her disgust, Riley took a deep breath. "I hear you. Launch torpedoes!" On her hip, what looked like a metal box with three cylinders tilted until it fired all three into the water. Two of the Wa-Class were sunk almost immediately before the third torpedo just veered off. "Ugh! BURORDS!"

Suddenly, Fear spoke up. ' **Incoming planes!** '

Catching sight of them, the 40mm and 20mm began firing at the incoming Abyssal fighters while Riley began to blast away at the remaining Wa-Class with her five inch cannons. None of them were really that armored and thus soon they began sinking. It helped that she was soon joined by the rest of DesDiv6 who had used the distraction she had caused to destroy or scatter the remaining Abyssal Destroyers and added their weight of fire.

Not long after, the final Wa-Class screeched and exploded as torpedoes hit it, leaving nothing more than an oil slick on the surface. Taking a deep breath, Tenryuu flicked some oil off her blade and nodded. "Good work there girls, that should hurt the Abyssal's supply lines some." Frowning, she glanced over at Riley. "How you doing over there, kiddo?"

Shuddering, Riley rubbed at her arms some. "I-I'm okay... but those Abyssals..."

All she got was a nod as Inazuma patted her on the shoulder. "Yeah, the Wa-Class are one of the more disturbing ones..."

Glancing around, Tenryuu sniffed a bit. "Yeah, I hate those things... Just think of it this way, kiddo. Those things? They're not normal Abyssals, not with the way that they're strapped down. You're probably putting them out of their misery." Tenryuu just shot a look at the rest of DesDiv6 to warn them to be quiet as Riley looked down at the water. 'Best not tell her that in some variants, those things are what happens to normal human women captured by Abyssals.'

Akatsuki frowned a bit as she glanced to where the sun was slowly sinking. "Shouldn't we leave, mama? Just so that we're not caught out here?" Skating across the water, Hibiki grabbed what looked like a large drum that was floating in the water. "Besides, we should grab any supplies we can."

With a frown, Tenryuu nodded. "Good ideas, both of you. Inazuma? Ikazuchi? Help Hibiki. Riley? You're with me and Akatsuki. Do a patrol of the area and if you see anything on your radar, let us know."

Nodding, Riley began to skate across the water, feeling her emotions comfort her. Even after the battles she had been in, the raid was one of the more disturbing by far...

* * *

Riley was calmly sleeping after a busy day when suddenly music began blasting through the windows and her eyes shot open. For several moments, she tried to get back to sleep by shoving the pillow over her head before Anger took control and she growled as she threw the covers off and got up. "Who... is... making... that... racket...?!"

At the windowsill, Akatsuki groaned. "Naka is still angry that none of us is paying attention to her midnight livestream so..."

Beside her, Inazuma sighed and facepalmed. "So it seems that she's trying to stir up interest by playing music from the games... again."

Scoffing, Ikazuchi shook her head. "You would think that the ass kicking that Hoppou gave her the last time when she woke her up from sleeping during her visit would have taught Naka not to pull this stunt."

Inside Riley, Anger was cursing up a storm as Riley herself felt her annoyance rise. For a brief moment though, she blinked as Joy snatched control before she did something she could regret which caused Riley to listen more closely to what music it was the orange traffic cone of a Cruiser was playing. "Wait... isn't that the song from that game? Uh... Undertale?"

Listening for a moment, Hibiki frowned and then nodded. "Khorosho."

However, Inazuma drew their eyes to something as the song repeated. "Uh... guys? Isn't that Haida coming out? And she looks _really_ annoyed..."

Sure enough, when Riley poked her head around Akatsuki's and looked out, there was the red haired shipgirl, HMCS _Haida_ , walking out from the dorms. What really caught Riley's attention was that one of her eyes was blazing with blue energy. "Er... what the heck?"

Ikazuchi just pulled out popcorn from somewhere and shrugged. "No, Sans didn't replace her or anything. It's just one of those strange variants where Haida for some reason has a shipgirl version of Sans' powers."

Over the wind, they could hear Haida's voice drift over. "What do you think you are, Naka? Invisible or something? Whatever, you're about to have a **_BAD TIME_**." It went without saying that Naka tried to run for it, only for what looked like ship railings to spring out of the ground and block her path. Clearing her throat, Haida continued as Megalovania came to an end and was about to restart. "Let's do this then. It's a lovely night out, the stars are shining, crickets are chirping, children are sleeping. But on nights like tonight, Cruisers like you... **_SHOULD BE BURNING IN HELL!_** "

It was all that Riley could do but blink as what looked like Haida's original and full sized warship turrets appeared beside her floating in mid-air before they began to fire at Naka. "What in the world...?"

Handing Riley some popcorn, Inazuma nodded. "Haida-San is really cool."

As she watched, Riley only ate popcorn as she watched the rather epic beatdown. Said beatdown ending a few minutes later when Haida, somehow, summoned her original hull and promptly smashed it into Naka at full speed. Then it vanished as Haida dragged Naka off toward the Admiral's quarters after turning off the music. "Uh, guys?"

Turning toward Riley, Hibiki raised an eyebrow. "Hmm?"

Slowly, Riley grinned. "Do you think that Haida could teach me to do that?"

For a second, Hibiki shared a look with her sisters and shrugged. "Maybe. She might want to challenge you to a game of hockey first, though." Hibiki then blinked as Riley's grin widened some and she pumped her arm into the air. 'Wonder what all that is about...?'

* * *

With a gasp, Riley hit the mat and rolled out of the way of the foot stomp. However, she was unable to get out of the way of the foot that lashed out as she tried to get to her feet and knocked her onto her back. Moments later, a fist hovered inches from her nose as two red eyes stared into hers. Slumping, Riley nodded as she panted. "I... give..."

Grumbling, Anger crossed his arms a bit. 'I hate losing...'

As she straddled her, Enterprise gave a smile and nodded. Much to Riley's annoyance, the Carrier barely seemed even winded. "Good, you know your limits at least." Standing up, Enterprise reached down and hauled Riley to her feet before clapping her on the shoulder. "You've also been doing a lot better."

Still annoyed at losing, Riley grumbled a bit and shoved her hands into the pockets of her shorts. "Still lost."

That only got a snort from Enterprise who smiled a bit wider. "And I've been doing this a lot longer than you. I'd be surprised if you picked up the fighting skills to beat me."

Frowning, Riley shook her head a bit. "It's so weird though... I mean, I've never really learned how to fight but now? Somehow I know how to fight and a whole bunch of different ways."

Slowly, Enterprise nodded a bit as her eyes took on a far off look. "Yeah, I know what you mean. But us shipgirls are made up of the experiences of our crews and the love they had for their ship. What they knew, we knew as well and we only need to work at putting that into practice. A lot of loopers who show up here don't really think of it, but if you want to learn how to fight?" She then tapped her head. "It's already up here ready and waiting for you to look through it and practice to get used to it. Heck, kiddo, you're kind of lucky. Not only do you have normal street fighting, but you also got knowledge from the Taiwanese crews your hull had right up until 1992."

As she blushed, Riley rubbed the back of her neck. "It's not that impressive..."

Enterprise only scoffed at her before ticking off her fingers. "You know several ways of fighting with a knife now, you know how to wrestle, you got normal brawling. On top of that, you got knowledge of a few kinds of Kung Fu as well as that Tai Chi stuff and can handle a sword or bo staff. Heck, Yamato told me that you're pretty good at the nunchucks as well. Trust me on this, kid, you got nothing to worry about."

Inside of Headquarters, Joy bounced a bit at the console. " _She's right, Riley! You got a lot of skills now that you didn't before! And they're all awesome!_ "

Giggling at the feeling of pride and happiness that went through her, Riley nodded. 'Yeah, I guess that you're both right.'

Of course, Enterprise only raised an eyebrow before ruffling Riley's hair. "So, what do you say, Kiddo? Want to go another round?"

Eyes wide, Riley gave her a slightly shaky smile. "I... uh, am feeling kind of tired actually right now so maybe later?"

With a grin on her face, Enterprise chuckled. "Sure, maybe later. Let's hit the showers then."

Riley made a show of taking a sniff and then waving her hand in front of her face. "Whew! That might be a good idea!"

Making a playful growl, Enterprise reached out and tried to swat her head only for Riley to dodge and head for the showers. For several moments, Enterprise was quiet before she glanced to the side. "So, what do you think of her progress?"

A slight frown on her face, Yamato stepped out into the light and turned to look in the direction that Riley had gone in. "I, Yamato, must admit that she's advancing in leaps in bounds. It reminds this Yamato of Fubuki in some ways."

Her arms crossed across her chest, Enterprise only nodded. "Yeah, I got the same feeling too. That said, she's really improved and should be more than a capable fighter for any non-looper she comes across..."

* * *

28.8 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts]

Roxas Woke up facing Riku in front of Memory's Skyscraper.

The Nobody glanced around, seeing that they were surrounded by hundreds, possibly thousands of Neoshadows. He noted the Oblivion Keyblade in Riku's hand then squeezed his own hand, feeling the hilt of Oathkeeper sitting comfortingly in his grasp.

"So, before I beat the snot out of you, shall we dispose of the audience?" Roxas asked, sweeping his arm in an arc and destroying several rows of shadows.

"Like you stand a chance," Riku retorted, obliterating twice Roxas' number.

"Well, going by Baseline, that's definitely a possibility," Roxas muttered, using Event Horizon to wipe out dozens of Neoshadows with every strike.

"You got lucky," Riku growled, activating Darkstrom.

The two Keyblade users locked blades, pushing against each other.

Off to the side, Axel and Namine shared a bucket of popcorn, watching the two bicker.

"They're like an old married couple," Axel said, shaking his head.

"I think it's sweet," Namine said with a giggle.

* * *

28.9 (lord Martiya): [Disney] / [DuckTales]

Donald was savoring the wait. Just a moment, now, and his uncle would show him the pool.

"As usual, nephew, you're WRONG! But wait 'till I turn on the lights!" Scrooge said.

As he would do any time they were in that variant, Scrooge showed Donald and the nephews the immense wealth contained in the Money Bin. Three cubic hectares of cash. A pool of silver dollars (plus some lesser coins and banknotes of larger value) that was a hundred feet deep. A sight awesome enough that even a visiting Gilgamesh had shown him respect. But this time, Scrooge was in for a surprise.

"It's smaller than Unca Donald's!" the nephews said.

"WHAT! PROOF OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!"

* * *

"Okay, it did happen." Scrooge admitted when he saw the two hundred feet deep pool of cash hidden under Donald's house.

Picking up so many silver dollars every Loop and not spending it had been worth it... Now, how could Donald put together the same sum in less time?

* * *

28.10 (GMBlackjack): [My Little Pony] / [Gravity Falls] / [Bar Loop] (also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as part of the _MLP Loops - Gravity Falls_ chapter)

Big Mac cleaned a glass, observing the various patrons. One table in particular caught his eye. Sitting at the table were five ponies, though only three of them were usually equine in form. There were Loopers Lyra and Pinkie, both talking up a storm. Between the two of them was Bon Bon, who was doing surprisingly well in the conversation for not being a Looper.

Across from them was a red unicorn stallion with obviously artificial wings and a six-fingered hand cutie mark, Ford Pines. His brother, grey earth pony Stan, was standing behind him, secretly taking bets on how long it took for Bon Bon to get a "what the freaking fudge" face as he called it.

The five at the table were having a good laugh and reminiscing about times on the Stan o War, Bon Bon and Lyra serving as their audience.

Pinkie was currently the one talking "-and then Bill went KAWOOSH and there was a big explosion, and Blackbeard just went-"

"NOPE" Stan said in a mocking impression of Blackbeard. Everyone laughed.

Then the doors to the bar flew open, and everyone went silent. Standing before them was a tremendous yellow alicorn - as tall as the Emperor - wearing a top hat and an eyepatch. The stallion had the Bill Cipher Zodiac as a cutie mark, making it obvious who it was. He walked to the bar and sat down, frowning at Big Mac. "Something strong enough for a Chaos God, stat."

Big Mac nodded, getting the drink.

"Oh and something for the dream as well." Bill said, generating Littlepip on the stool next to him. Littlepip wasted no time belting out a chain of swears at Bill.

Bill sat patiently while Littlepip devolved into rapid breathing. "You quite done?"

"NO! How does one _accidentally_ summon me while in a duel with Slaanesh? _HOW?_ "

"Chaos." Bill responded, grumpy. "Doesn't matter anyway-"

"Slaanesh kick your pants again?" Big Mac asked, tossing some brain bleach to Littlepip who accepted with scary intensity.

Bill glared at Big Mac. " _YOU DO_ NOT _WANT TO PUSH THE ISSUE. SUFFICE IT TO SAY THERE WAS A DUEL. I WAS NOT PLEASED BY THE RESULT._ "

"Not _pleased?_ " Littlepip yelled. "You-"

Bill censored the resulting spiel because it was likely to scar the minds of those present. Slaanesh got _really_ creative, needless to say.

"Look, Pippy, you only exist because I say so. I could remove you at any time I wished. So shush."

Littlepip's face turned scrunchy before she chugged some brain bleach.

Back at the other table, Lyra spoke up. "Grandpa Ford? Question."

"What is it Lyra?"

"Bill stores Littlepip on his TriNet right for your Stan o War voyages, maintaining her and everything right?"

"Yes."

"Why does he not store others as well? Many people would like to pseudo-loop like he does-"

"Ah..." Ford said, nodding sadly. "Well, you see there's a problem with the system."

Lyra cocked her head. "How so?"

"Look at Littlepip's tail." Ford said.

Everyone did so.

"Why is it red?" Lyra asked.

"Well we were in a Fallout Equestria loop and..."

* * *

The crew of the Stan o War surveyed the wasteland, all in pony form (except Bill, who decided to be a geometric chaos being early on.)

Littlepip frowned. "Yep, there I am. Running out of the Stable." She sighed. "Sometimes I wish I actually _replaced_ people rather than just being something Bill cooks up every time he feels like it..."

"I could override the default mind and put you in its place, though that would destroy the original mind." Bill commented, choosing to not use his normal voice. He had claimed he'd just grown tired of it, but in reality it was because it made people cover their ears whenever they heard it.

Littlepip shook her head. "Yeah, not an option."

Pinkie - who was replacing Silver Bell - grinned. "Maybe you can help me throw _actual_ parties? Huh? Wanna spread cheer?"

Littlepip considered this while _Stan_ of all people got an idea.

"Hey Dorito-"

" _I AM NOT A DORITO._ " Bill yelled, returning to default.

"Sure whatever. She's always complaining about a little Littlepip in her head - can't you just wave your magic hands and put her inside the other her's head?"

" _ARE YOU CRAZY? THAT WOULD REQUIRE A-_ " Bill blinked, finally comprehending what Stan just said. "Hold on a sec... That just might work... Hey Pippy, want to make the little pony thing _literal?_ "

Littlepip blinked, pondering this for a second. "I don't see why no- WHAUGH!" Littlepip yelled as Bill levitated her into the air and then clapped his hands. He dusted them off. "Good, she's inside this world's pony now. What should we do for now?"

Pinkie grinned. "WASTELAND PARTY!"

"I like your style." Bill chuckled. "I'm going to pay the Goddess a visit first though. 'Great and Powerful' needs to be kicked down a few pegs by _real_ power. I think I'm going to use sharks this time. Coming Stan?"

"Can we use mermen? I've always wanted to freak gods out with mermen."

"I don't see why not. _NOW AWAY WE GO!_ "

* * *

Littlepip came to, aware she was inside a mindscape. She prepared herself to become the little pony in her head. It was rather meta, to be frank.

The body she was in opened her eyes, revealing a Stable ceiling. Littlepip began to plan how exactly she, as a little voice in her own head who knew about the future, was going to go about this...

She (the body) stood up, groaned, and looked down at her white hooves.

_Wait what- white?_

Blackjack blinked. Was that a tiny voice in the back of her head screaming obscenities? Were subconsciouses supposed to know words she didn't? Was it inventing words on the fly?

Best not to think about it right now, it was time to get ready for work. Security pony. _Yay._

Littlepip screamed. "BILLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!"

* * *

"You put her in the wrong body." Pinkie said, observing Blackjack talking to herself from a distance.

Bill shrugged. "Eh, wasn't intentional. I did try to cut a few corners by just having her consciousness seek out the most prominent character in the Loop. Forgot momentarily that she wasn't the only hero around here."

Pinkie giggled as Blackjack chugged more whiskey obviously to spite the little voice in her head.

"Be more careful next time." Ford cautioned. "While it's funny right now, several more times would get tedious."

Bill rolled his eye. "Yeah fine whatever."

* * *

A few Loops later Bill was bored, so he waved his hand to summon Littlepip.

Blackjack stood before him.

" _...WAIT WHAT?_ "

"Oh. Hi Bill."

" _HOW DID- WHY ARE-?_ "

Blackjack looked down at her hooves, frowning. "Wait no... Oh fudge it. I thought I was out of this body-"

Bill blinked. " _LITTLEPIP?_ "

"Yeah. And there's a little voice in my head screaming to me to go drink some whiskey." She glared at Bill. "This is all your fault and I'm going to find a way to make you pay. Right after I satisfy Blackjack's apparent need for whiskey to get her to shut up."

Little- Black- Littlejack? Walked off.

Bill just floated there, not entirely sure what had just happened.

* * *

"...We discovered later that when he stored Littlepip at the end of that loop, he took Blackjack with her by accident." Ford continued. "The TriNet was apparently unable to keep the two of them separate, so... the retrieval code became glitches. Sometimes you get a Littlepip in Blackjack's body with a tiny Blackjack in their head, sometimes the opposite. Sometimes you just get a fusion of the two of them, while others it seems to be just Blackjack or just Littlepip. It gets really confusing when Bill retrieves more than one at once, each one completely different from the others. He has no control over the randomness."

"What exactly caused this?" Lyra asked.

"As it turns out the TriNet is not well designed to store actual individuals, much like a Pocket. In the refreshing the TriNet goes through, something as complicated as an actual person - or pony - cannot be kept separate from other similar codes due to sheer complexity. They meld together and cannot be removed, and Bill cannot create a secondary retrieval code. We're really lucky it works at all." Ford sat back. "Does that answer your question Lyra?"

Lyra nodded. "So... is Littlepip-Blackjack stable?"

"About as stable as you." Ford responded.

"SWEETROLL." Lyra burst out, then blushed. "Uh, sorry about that, we're having a sweetroll war..."

Ford chuckled. "Indeed."

At the bar, Littlepip drunk herself under the table. Bill chuckled.

Bon Bon never made a "what the freaking fudge" face, much to Stan's disappointment.

* * *

28.11 (GMBlackjack): [Gravity Falls]

Bill was a difficult being to punish - due to his nature he _had_ to be some kind of higher being or else his mind would just crack from the influx of TriNet information, and it was hard to keep a powerful creature like him from having fun.

But the Admins had eventually discovered something that would drive him insane. It was a custom punishment Loop that could be inserted in the background of any Looping universe. Bill's consciousness would be stored fully in a pocket dimension that there was no way out of - a kind of Limbo. Bill would receive initial memories and information from the TriNet, and then be completely alone for anywhere from a few centuries to a million years. Essentially however long the Admins thought he needed to stay in time-out.

He sometimes generated Littlepip/Blackjack, but both had expressed extreme dissatisfaction with this. At one time the words "I fear what would happen if I was kept alone here with you for a century. I'm not sure if I'd grow extremely attached to you or try to murder you in every way possible. It's best for both of us that we don't find out" came out of her mouth. So Bill kept her visits few and far between for both their sakes.

So aside form analyzing the TriNet for new information and occasionally bringing the unicorn into existence from time to time, he had to learn to entertain himself.

He had grown tired real quick of ordering pizza from himself. And the size of Limbo was small, just a mile cubed. He had made tiny civilizations, a city made entirely of copies of himself, and a star that burned cold.

The problem was that he was alone, anything he created he knew inside and out, and even though the copies could mess with him sometimes, they rarely were able to do anything truly surprising.

He grew annoyed. " _CAN YOU JUST LET ME OUT OF HERE ALREADY???_ " He screamed.

The tune of "it's a small world" began to play.

" _NO! NO! ALL I DID WAS CRASH A LOOP! IT WAS BY ACCIDENT TOO! HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT THE GNOMES WERE MADE OUT OF URANIUM? I DON'T DESERVE THIS! STOP! NO!!! NO!!!!!!_ "

"It's a small world after all-

it's a small world after all-"

" _FOR THE LOVE OF HATING LOVELY THINGS PLEAAEAEAEAEASE MAKE THEM STOOOOOOOOOOOP..._ "

They didn't.

* * *

28.12 (Awesomedude17): [One-Punch Man] / [Pirates of the Caribbean]

Saitama couldn't believe it.

It was a Fused Loop and one of the visiting Loopers was managing to dodge his punches almost by accident.

He was not letting this criminal get away with stealing money and booze.

Saitama let loose a series of normal punches, but the swaying man was dodging each one with ease.

After several minutes, Saitama gave up.

The man then put a toupee on Saitama's head.

"Sorry mate, but your bald head was distracting." Captain Jack Sparrow said.

"How'd you dodge my attacks?"

"You were attacking me? I was looking for my hat." Captain Jack walked off, leaving a flabbergasted Saitama.

* * *

28.1: Welcome to the Loops, Fubuki.

28.2: Maleficent being surprisingly reasonable.

28.3: ...Yeah, that'd be convenient.

28.4: _Prototype_ is a strange series.

28.5: Okay...

28.6: He really is improving.

28.7: Given Riley's experiences, I can't blame her reaction.

28.8: Oy.

28.9: Good question.

28.10: And so a loophole is dealt with.

28.11: I never thought I'd say this, but poor Bill.

28.12: That's Captain Jack Sparrow for you.


	46. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Nine

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-01-20. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Twenty-Nine**

29.1 (Luna Gale): [Gravity Falls] / [Danny Phantom]

Dipper didn't know why he'd agreed to this. Really, when Danny said 'I've got to show you something, it's really cool!', most people with enough common sense would run in the other direction. This was especially true if Danny had his signature mischievous smirk playing on his face, the look spelling the chaos of some sort of not-so-safe adventure for anyone involved. The preteen blamed the arguing Fentons and Danny's (most likely) over exaggerated Christmas horror stories on his momentary impulsiveness. Although, in his defense, the mutant turkey randomly attacking them pretty much had Dipper agreeing to go with the halfa to wherever he wanted to go as long as it was anywhere but the Fenton family kitchen.

Which, really, was Dipper's first mistake.

"Wait," The preteen said, after finally reorienting with himself. He looked around him, stomach dropping, and eyes going wide, as he eyed the green landscape, "Danny, isn't this the place where the ghosts live... I mean, _reside_?"

Danny was holding the preteen to his chest, as the two flew across the cold, endless abyss around them. Dipper was liking the situation less and less with each and every growing ectoplasm filled second, and he pretty much had a mini heart attack every time Danny even slightly loosened his grip even the slightest bit.

Unaware of Dipper's discomfort, Danny huffed, "Hey! Just because ghosts are dead, it doesn't mean they're not living somewhere. Reside just sounds rude, you know?" At Danny's small shrug, the monster hunter scrambled to hold on to the halfa's arms, "Besides, it's called the _Ghost Zone_. I thought you knew that."

"I am very aware of that, thank you very much! I'm making sure _you_ knew that!" Dipper hissed, his stomach dropping even more, as he eyed the _skull bone island_ in the distance. He gulped, and tried to look at Danny's face, but only seeing more of the Ghost Zone instead, "Why are we in enemy territory? I thought you were going to show me something cool! I did not sign up to fly through the land of evil egotistic, ectoplasmic entities!"

It wasn't like Dipper was unfamiliar with other dimensions. By this point, he'd been through the Mindscape enough times that he could control the dimensional plane nearly as well as Bill could (though, even the demon had him beat on certain things). He had visited other monster hunting worlds as well, knew the ropes on fighting non-human entities, and could, in a certain respect, wrangle nearly any type of monster no matter what shape or size.

But when he visited those locations, he'd been prepared with background knowledge, abilities, or just being plain armed to the teeth with both magical and mundane weapons just in case something happened. Here, he only had his limited knowledge of this world's ghosts, some white magic (which Danny had already strictly forbidden any use in this universe or so help him), and his own wits to keep him from getting kidnapped and/or harmed by these creatures.

And, of course, he had Danny, but considering that he was the one taking Dipper into this madness, the monster hunter didn't exactly trust his judgement on what he considered concerning.

Danny must have felt Dipper's stress radiating off him because the halfa commented, "Dude, relax will you? Nothing's gonna hurt you, in fact remember, you're human so nothing _can_ hurt you..." -That was kind of reassuring- "Just as long as you don't go through any doors. They're bad news, as in, I'm in another timeline bad news."

Or not.

He shrunk in one himself, gripping the halfa's arms like a lifeline, "Stay away from creepy floating time warping purple doors filled with ghosts," The preteen mumbled, "Got it..."

"Hey, Dipper. It's okay," They slowed down, and Dipper supposed that Danny was trying to make his voice sound reasonable, "Calm down for once, will ya? Do you really think I would take you into the Ghost Zone if I didn't think you'd be 100 percent perfectly safe?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" Dipper mumbled. The halfa sighed, even shaking his head at Dipper's reaction like he was being unreasonable. Unfortunately for the preteen's frantic heart, they sped up again, as if getting their faster would alleviate his worries, "Hey, here's an idea!" Dipper did not appreciate the snort that Danny gave. He ignored it and continued, "How about we go back to the Fenton Christmas Party? I'm sure mutant turkeys aren't so bad."

"Dipper, I told you," The halfa voice sounded a strange mixture of annoyed and amused, "There's something in the Ghost Zone I wanted to show you."

"If you want me to stop freaking out, then it would be nice to tell me!"

Danny didn't say anything, the halfa probably musing over his options. Truthfully, Dipper didn't know if he wanted to know what plan the halfa concocted up. However, he supposed that, at the very least, if he knew what he was about to face, he could mentally brace himself. Either way would trigger his anxiety, but at the very least, he knew how to attack this type.

Because, really, watching purple doors and green floating islands stream past him without any sort of knowledge of what was going on was not helpful, at all.

"Fine," Danny finally huffed, bringing Dipper's attention back to him, "The ghosts host a Christmas Truce Party every year, and I being your awesome 'cousin' wanted to bring you as my guest of honor... Besides, Sam doesn't celebrate Christmas, Tucker wanted to spend Christmas with his family this Loop, and Jazz is distracting Mom and Dad, so congrats! Welcome to your first Christmas in the Ghost Zone!" Danny said this like Dipper should be _happy_ about the situation.

"Danny."

"Yeah."

"Please don't tell me we're about to have a party with a bunch of your enemies."

There was an uncomfortable amount of silence from the halfa. An ectopus swam in the distance, and a howling could be heard from one of the near islands.

"...Okay," Danny finally said, "we're not about to go to a party with a bunch of my enemies."

" _Danny, why are we going to a party with a bunch of evil ghosts that want to take over the world?! I'm not okay with this! This is a terrible idea!_ "

As the preteen's mind went into overdrive, he vaguely felt Danny stop and turn him around, white gloves holding him steady in the air, "Dipper. Breathe. Find your inner zen. Do something that isn't hyperventilating," After a moment, Dipper found himself, and Danny smiled back, eyebrow arching to his hairline, "Calm?"

"Better," He replied, still kind of shaky and definitely not at all okay with the situation, "Not calm. Better."

"I guess that's as good as I'm gonna get..." Danny mumbled. The halfa squeezed his shoulder, "Look, the Christmas Truce Party is the one time of year where the other ghosts don't attack anyone, including halfas like me. I try to go to it as often as I can. It's fun, and it's a nice way to get to know the other ghosts around here."

"Danny," It was as if the halfa could not see common logic sometimes, "I think you're forgetting the little detail that I'm, I don't know, _not a ghost!_ "

But the superhero simply rolled his eyes, and to Dipper's annoyance, held him back to his chest to continue their flight, "But you're with me," The halfa reasoned, "And attacking you means attacking me. So until the 26th, you're completely and 100 percent untouchable..." He paused and added unnecessarily, "just, don't try to provoke anyone. After the truce you're completely fair game."

Eyes twitching, Dipper continued his rant, "Okay, even if I'm not a ghost, we're still going to a party with your enemies. You know, the ones that want to _kill you_."

"Well, when they're not trying to kill me, some of them are pretty cool. Like Ember? When she isn't trying to mind control you, her music is even better than Dumpty Humpty. She's even a Looper. Granted, she's not Awake now and she kind of hates my guts this Loop for accidentally breaking her guitar, but I'm pretty sure we can be on good terms by the end of this. Just another reason to go, right? Oh, and Skulker? Man, metal head makes a mean Christmas Turkey. It's so good! It has all these weird fillings that I don't know where he gets- Oh look we're here!"

And sure enough, they were in front of one of the many purple floating doors that inhabited the Ghost Zone. Dipper didn't know how Danny distinguished one from another, and while some part of him was curious to see the subtleties between the dimensional doors, another, much louder part of him thought he'd be better off not knowing.

Dipper stared at the door with no little apprehension, and gut clenching, let out a heavy sigh, "Great..."

"Right?"

At that Dipper noted, as the duo flew into an unknown ghost's lair, to never, ever go on a field trip with Danny ever again, no matter how horrific his Christmas stories seemed to be, if only to keep his the rest of his limited sanity.

* * *

29.2 (Slayst): [Dishonored] Re. [The Princess and the Frog] (no local Loopers, just discussion)

Emily Kaldwin, sweet and innocent heiress to the imperial throne, was happily terrifying the poor staff members of the Hound Pits pub.

Piero Joplin had barricaded himself in his workshop, Callista Curnow was looking on the verge of quitting whenever she came back from a tutoring session with the young girl, the three traitorous Loyalists were keeping to their living quarters, and all the other employees were avoiding her just the same.

Samuel Beechworth, had previously applied an old Space Wolf philosophy that could be summarized as 'Choose your battle.', which basically meant that he was scared senseless of her and didn't want to face her wrath.

But eaten away by curiosity as he was, he finally yielded. He absolutely needed to know what had managed to put the young looper in such a sour mood and thus, went straight to his Anchor to get the full story.

At first, Corvo discarded his question with a simple "She's just venting, let her be."

Samuel didn't give up though, and after being forced to look at the inside of a Gauss rifle's barrel, the Anchor finally saw reason.

"You remember that loop you had with her, in Ancient China?"

The boatman nodded gravely.

How could he have forgot, when that loop had had such a deep impact on Emily, even pushing her to face Daud by herself – and win!

"Well, this branch is recorded in the Hub as an animated movie called 'Mulan', and produced by the Disney company. The thing is, they produced quite a number of other movies, almost all of them gravitating around a princess or a queen, and all those universes are looping. The Disney Princesses live quite the adventures, and with Jessamine for mother, Emily is basically a princess herself. She keeps on replacing them."

"Oh... so she didn't just have a bad loop, she had a number of them?"

"Well, they're not bad loops per say. There's only a couple of kidnappings, murders, betrayal, manipulation, and evil sorceresses throwing hexes around. But it's fairly easy to get friendship, love and a happy end, even without any pocket or out-of-loop abilities. Take the one we're just coming back for instance, she only had to kiss a frog."

"... did you just say –"

"That she had to kiss a frog? Yes, I did, though it was an insufferable prince unAwake me had cursed earlier, and she had the excuse of being a frog too at the time."

"I... suppose that it could have been worse. It _does_ explain her anger though..."

The building shook on its foundations. Samuel wisely decided no to comment on it, and carried on with his questions.

"If you unAwake self had turned the prince into a frog, couldn't you have undone it yourself?"

"It would have been with pleasure, but I didn't perform the spell myself at the time."

"Then who did?" asked Samuel with an inquisitive look.

As another tremor shook the area, the Anchor stole a glance at his shadow, cast on the aged wall by the sunlight filtering through the veiled window. Said shadow seemed definitely darker than the others, and as Corvo looked back at Samuel with a perturbing smile, the shadow could briefly be seen smirking wickedly itself.

"Just my friends on the other side."

* * *

29.3 (phantomdemon2): [Lilo & Stitch]

Lilo waved at Sparky as she left the power plant, the last of the experiments let loose this time around. Smiling she turned to Stitch with wide eyes.

"Wasn't that fun Stitch? Sparky was all "Buzz Zap Zip" and we were all like "Whoosh, not today Sparky and..." Lilo trailed off as Stitch wasn't responding. "Stitch?"

"...Uh?" Stitch realized Lilo was trying to talk to him. "Ih?"

"Stitch what's wrong? You're normally happy when we finish getting all your cousins where they belong." Lilo asked

"Stitch thinking. Stitch fast, is strong, can't be killed. But stopped easy. Jumba make me best, say I'm masterpiece, but beat others through trick in powers, not because me but flaw in them. So why I'm best?" Stitch was quickly silenced by Lilo giving him a big hug.

"Doesn't matter. You're Stitch, I'm Lilo, and together no one can stop us." Lilo gave Stitch a strained smile "So let's go see if we can't undo the lock Jumba put on the hover cars."

"Ih" Stitch said in response, picking up Lilo and running towards the house.

"STIIITCH PUT ME DOWN!"

* * *

29.4 (phantomdemon2) and (Hvulpes): [Lilo & Stitch] / [Doctor Who]

It was late at night at the Pelekai household and at the moment only three people were both Awake and awake. Jumba the Mad Scientist, Stitch the walking genetic WMD and the War Doctor, Time's Champion.

"I must say Jumba, I'm glad you don't exist in my universe. Seeing young Stitch here I'm certain you would have managed something terrifying with the DNA back home." The Doctor said, both praise and condemnation held in his voice.

"Thank you, it always feels good knowing my creations can still strike fear into one's heart." Jumba responded "Though I wonder why you chose now to speak with us, Little Girl isn't awake and she is our more ... calming influence." Stitch nodded up and down in agreement

"Ih, why now? Why secret?" Stitch inquired

"I suppose it's because I've had a couple of bad loops recently and. Been going through this body here almost exclusively for the past couple of loops and when Time is fraying it makes it hard to keep track of the years. It got me thinking, a question that I suppose you two can help answer. I often find myself asking whether or not I'm a good man. I know I'm an idiot, a madman, the runaway with a magic box. I know that I try an help out where I can, never stop trying." The Doctor started saying.

"Ih. What Question?" Stitch asked.

"Heh, Straight to the point." The Doctor drew a deep breath "How do you know when to stop holding back? When your back's against the wall the answer's easy, but in everyday life? I could solve almost every problem in my universe and never leave my TARDIS, but how do I know when I should?"

Jumba looked hard at the Doctor. "Doctor, Me and 626. We're not good. We are EVIL, held back only by Ohana and our own selfishness. I make experiments and devices that could bring ruin to world's and I make them in kitchen while listen to Little Girl's School day."

"Ih, Stitch protect Lilo, Lilo protect Stitch from Stitch"

"Aye, 626 is correct. Little Girl is one who started this for us. You have Companions who hold you back as well, No? But for Me and 626, we ALWAYS hold back, because if we don't, we cause our Ohana to be sad. I came to this planet as a last attempt for freedom, capturing my own experiment so that I could be free. But 626 different, now cares for Little Girl and Family, makes no sense." Jumba started shaking his head back and forth from the memory. "I make six-hundred-twenty-five Experiments beforehand, I encode Death and Mayhem into every fiber of being. Yet, he wanted to protect this little girl. But still causes mayhem and destruction the way I intended towards enemies, when saving her stole tank of fuel and drove it into volcano. 626 was still violent and destructive."

"Never towards Ohana." Stitch stated, the words coming out as pure fact.

"Aye 626, never towards them. Doctor, you ask us when to stop holding back? For us, the answers simple. If Ohana, if Family is ever in true danger, we fight back with tactics deemed evil, with technology for domination. If they're ever in true danger, than we stop holding back. In many ways these loops of ours prevents that true danger from happening often so we've never had to stop yet."

"I see." The Doctor rose from his seat "Thank you for answering this question of mine you two, but I must be going. I took a detour to come here but I still have a war to fight."

* * *

29.5 (lord Martiya): [Sky High] / [W.I.T.C.H.]

It had been a while since Will started finding himself back in time (while still keeping his powers), and by now he knew how to deal with Gwen/Royal Pain (he just couldn't think of her as Sue) early without getting in trouble himself. And yet this time he'd been thrown a curve ball, with Gwen this time being a short redhead who, in her introduction speech to the freshmen, had pointed out it was created to not risk people with weak powers unnecessarily before admitting it had been handled badly-and somehow convinced Layla to demonstrate her powers to the coach and be enrolled in the Hero track so she could change the system from the inside (he did it too, but to get closer to his target).

After that unusual day Will went to sleep... And found himself in an empty space, his only company being the 'new' Gwen. Who was now an adult, wearing purple boots and high-collared shirt, skintight short green pants, striped socks in two shades of green that covered her legs between the boots and the pants, and fingerless black gloves, and had wings.

"Hello, Bill Stronghold." she saluted him.

"Uh, it's Will..." he protested, earning a glare.

"I suppose you've been wondering why time started rewinding and you're the only one to remember, don't you? Well, the answer, as crazy as it sounds, is that the universe is a computer and is broken, and the system admins, that is the gods, are putting all universes in loop to repair it."

Will blinked. Of all things he expected from this strange situation being told that was not one of them. Must have been a dream... And he really shouldn't have tried the mystery meat.

"Sounds crazy, doesn't it? I wouldn't have believed it either had it not come from someone I really trust..." 'Gwen' admitted as she pulled out a large book and put it in his hands. "Still, it's true, and this book includes most of what you need to know. Now, why don't you wake up and see that this isn't exactly a dream?"

With that the empty space dissolved and Will found himself lying in his bed, the book from the dream next to his head.

* * *

The following day Will tried to meet 'Gwen' at school, but only caught the aftermath of her stopping Lash and Speed's bullying antics (electrocuted by faulty wiring). But, as expected, she once again showed up in his dream.

"So, did you have a good read, Bill?" she asked. As he confirmed, she continued: "Then welcome to the Multiverse. I'm Will Vandom, from the Kandrakar Loops.

"By the way, a warning: the Loops aren't peaceful and easy, in fact they're rather dangerous. Sometime the danger comes from someone ending up in a foreign Loop and getting in a situation they aren't equipped to deal with."

Those words were followed by a change in scenery, showing a man in a dark metallic armour pinned to a giant magnet while a blue-skinned man in white military uniform looked at him with calm satisfaction.

"And sometime you have to face Loopers who actively cause damage."

The scene changed again, showing Will Vandom and four other girls trying desperately to stave off a horde of THINGS as a cute-looking critter watched with a smile.

"In fact I'm using this Loop as a little test." she continued. "I'm going to try Royal Pain's plan."

"Wait, you can't!"

"I can, and I will. But to make things less one-sided, I'll only use technopathy in the endeavour, both mine and the one I got from replacing your villain, plus my experience. I'm also giving you a week to make preparations before I continue from where I left. Good luck, you'll need it."

And with that, the dream ended.

* * *

True to her word, the other Will gave him a week before attacking, a week he used to set alarms, cameras and detectors to know when to intervene and get his parents on the case. There had been a little scare the first day when a blackout interrupted the feed, but Will saw that the other Will was still at school.

A few hours after that, however, she made her first raid, trying to sneak in a small recovery bot. Then a squadron of giant robots. And as the months passed her attempts at recovering the Pacifier grew crazier, culminating in a cooking-themed mecha that fired carrot-shaped missiles. That one had actually defeated his parents and gave him a desperate run for his money, much worse than Gwen had ever managed. Nonetheless, homecoming had arrived and the Pacifier was still in the Secret Sanctum.

And now 'Gwen' was about to make a speech to the assembled teachers, students and alumni.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm well known for my criticism of the Hero-Sidekick divide." she started. "Oh, I do recognize that some superpowers aren't exactly useful-no matter what, I can't think a serious use of things like turning into a beach balloon,-"

"HEY!"

The other Will blinked for a moment, mouthing "Seriously?". Apparently she had believed it was a joke. Then she resumed her speech.

"-and so some superpowered people should be kept out of unnecessary danger. My problem is the WAY it's done. Little combat training to defend themselves, or do some jobs by themselves. Rampant bullying from supposed 'heroes'. Not only it's unjust and a waste of people's powers, but do you have any idea of what could happen if someone shunted away as a sidekick for supposedly lame powers became resentful and changing circumstances made her powers much stronger? Such as for a technopath with an age-altering device?"

That was when Will started realizing something was amiss, and tried to fly-unsuccessfully.

"She could come back to this school, wait for the right moment where you're all in one place to put you under the effects of a power nullifier, gloat to you about what she has just done from the safety of a forcefield, show you that the highly qualified janitors and bus drivers with the technical knowledge to wreck her plans-"

And that was when every single janitor and bus driver popped out chained and gagged from the roof.

"-and, before turning you into toddlers and deciding if she should raise you as villains or just let this be a lesson in manners, show you exactly who you're dealing with."

At that point she changed in her armour under an apparent dress, made a mock bow and, putting on the helmet, presented herself as " **Will Vandom, also known as Royal Pain.** "

"Royal Pain... Is a girl?" the Commander asked.

" **Mrs. Stronghold, if I decide to give you back your ages please keep the chauvinist on the couch for a while.** "

And with that a dozen automated Pacifiers popped out of the roof and turned everyone but 'Gwen' and Stitches into toddlers, with the power nullifier keeping Medulla from being able to think his way out of it.

* * *

"Where is everyone?!" Will asked when the other Will (now in the form he had always seen her in the dreams) turned him back to his real age.

"Stitches' putting them all into various locations, some embarrassing depending on how I feel about them." she replied. "Don't worry, I'm going to turn them back to their real ages. Now do you get it? Loopers are the real deal, not supervillains that I'm starting to believe have been trained wrong on purpose by this school."

"How did you get it? And when?"

"The first day after the truce. I spent the week to put together the Ultrasonic Remote Stopper, wouldn't believe where I saw it, a scanner and a robotic double, and while the double made you think I was still here I just waltzed to your home, that I knew where it was thanks to the eye of the bot, blocked all alarms and electronic security, entered and scanned the Pacifier to know how to make more. Then I just launched a few overt attacks just to make you think I hadn't got it yet while I put together the forcefield and the nullifier in this room. Easy, simple, and not a wacky Silver Age plan with more holes than machine-gunned Swiss cheese.

"You know what you did wrong, Bill? You should have made a mock-up of the Pacifier, your parents can't tell the real thing anyway, then destroyed the real thing during the truce, and after that try and expose me. Or just bashed me in the head. But don't worry, I'll teach you a few tricks in the time we've left. And lesson number one, when I'm around the only Will is me."

* * *

29.6 (Shadow Wolf75): [Mighty Ducks] / [Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]

For once, the Ancestors did not have an answer for Wraith. Oh, the spirits knew there was something wrong with time itself, but they were unsure what, and did not experience the strange looping he was cursed with. In the end he sighed to himself and wondered why he bothered asking. Their non-answer was the same for all thirty attempts he made. Or was that number closer to fifty by now? It was entirely too easy to lose track of how many times he was sent back...

A bit later on he ran into Siege in the Raptor's corridors, and just out of making idle conversation, Wraith asked the same question he did for the last handful of loops. "Siege, have you ever... felt as though you have lived this life before?"

"Huh, what kinda question is that?" The bulkier Saurian's green eyes narrowed for a second as he actually put some thought into it, and then he just kind of shrugged. "Nope, not that I can think of. Why'd you ask?"

Wraith shrugged himself, using the motion to hide his disappointment. His problem would be so much more tolerable if one of the others was stuck along with him, even as infuriating as they could be. So far his typical bad luck was holding, though. "It was just a passing thought I had, nothing of real importance. Well, I have that assignment to take care of, and I'm sure there are a few repairs you could attend to until I return, so I'll see you later."

He parted ways with Siege at the next corridor junction, off to tend to his part of the current plan.

* * *

The sorcerer teleported to just outside the range of the Pond's defense fields, in the hopes of gaining a distraction from the rest of Dragaunus's efforts. Wraith hid himself behind a cloaking spell and lurked around the Pond's main entrance, waiting for the Ducks' manager to emerge from the building as he always did. By this point he had the timing down to the second, so it was rather surprising when the pudgy human was close to five minutes late!

Phil did eventually wander out, but he stayed close to the entrance, glancing around warily and not daring to venture over to his car.

Wraith continued invisibly lurking there for a moment, the end of his tail twitching as a sign of his irritation. How could he pull off a proper ambush if his target was already this spooked--

Wait, did that stupid human know he was there?! Impossible . . . unless the fool remembered what happened from a prior trip through time, of course.

In the next instant a fireball slagged the entranceway so Phil couldn't go running inside for help, and then Wraith dismissed his cloaking spell, seeming to appear from the smoke created by the slowly growing flames. He let out a laugh at Phil's shock, though it had a slight edge to it. "My, whatever could be the matter here, human? I thought you had work to do, away from those noisy Ducks?"

For his part, Phil backed away a few steps, before straightening his tie to regain his composure. It only half worked, though he still felt confident enough to try and talk his way out of things. "What's the point? You would've just interrupted me again anyway. Say, this whole going back in time thing is probably your fault too, isn't it?"

"My fault? Bah, I only wish I had such power. I certainly wouldn't be subjecting myself to this slow torture, if I had any choice in the matter." Having said that, Wraith glanced around, though he kept most of his attention on the human in front of him. "Enough talk. My abilities no longer work on you, so I suppose a simple kidnapping will suffice as enough distraction for those blasted waterfowl..."

From there it would've been as simple as just reaching forward to grab his enemy and teleporting away, if not for two new voices making themselves known,

"Chain Bind!"

"Restrict Lock!"

The buildup of mana in the area was subtle enough that Wraith hadn't quite picked up on it, not until the magic circle appeared at his feet, and by then it was too late to dodge. Two sets of magical bindings sprang up around him, chains at his limbs and energy bands nearly everywhere else, pinning him in place quite effectively. It was almost instinct to try to teleport, but the binds were giving off too much interference. Unable to do much else, the sorcerer glanced in the direction the voices came from and blinked a bit in surprise.

Oh, right, the other odd thing about this latest trip through history other than Phil remembering. Instead of Mallory, there was a duck named Nanoha in her place. She had reddish hair, and acted somewhat similarly, so Wraith dismissed the change as unimportant. Now he wished he hadn't, as she stood there as the source of one of those spells, with what looked like a fairy familiar hovering at her side maintaining the other binding. They also put out the fire he started, likely with another spell.

"Phil, you okay? Raising Heart sensed someone casting out here, so we both came running." Having asked that, Nanoha looked over the Saurian she caught for a moment, a curious expression on her face.

"Yeah, I'm fine; he didn't have time to do anything with his powers other than the fireball. So, what are you doing with him? You could drag him to the holding cells, but I happen to know a guy who owns a snakeskin shoe factory..."

"I was hoping to talk with him, actually. And you too, considering you both mentioned going back in time." At that, Nanoha stepped closer to her captive, not intimidated at all by the Saurian's impressive height as she looked up at him. "Are you all right, Wraith? The Loops can be stressful enough on their own, let alone when you don't know what's going on."

It was all sorts of ironic to hear a duck asking him that first question, but Wraith could see the sincerity in her eyes. Then the rest of her words hit him, and the desperation he managed to keep so well hidden over the past however many loops broke through his calm facade in an instant. He pulled against the bindings, maybe he would've tried to grab her if he could free himself. "You-- what do you know about all of this? I demand that you tell me!"

"Shh, take it easy! I'm getting to it, don't worry." Nanoha would've added 'this might seem far fetched', but considering the loop's baseline, events like these would almost be expected. "Every universe that exists, or will exist, is contained within the branches of Yggdrasil. It's both a tree and a giant supercomputer, I guess. Unfortunately for us, right now it's pretty badly damaged. It also can't be fully shut down, so the only choice the Admins had was to set every world into a time loop, to keep things from getting worse..."

Surprisingly enough, Phil actually recognized the tree's name. "Yggdrasil? Like the one in Norse mythology?"

"Yes, that's right. The gods from that mythology are some of the Admins, in fact. Actually, all of the Admins are gods of one religion or another, with the exception of one."

Still bound, but content to cease struggling and listen for the moment, Wraith rolled his eyes at that. "So the 'gods' of Earth are responsible for this? Somehow I find that rather difficult to believe..."

The girl's smile turned a bit catlike; she might've reminded herself of Hayate if there was a mirror nearby. "Have you found any other answer in the loops? From how desperate you sounded a minute ago, I'm willing to bet you haven't. Come on, to create illusions means you have to be able to see the truth; you know I'm not lying."

That got a slow nod out of the sorcerer. "Yes, my power is telling me as much, which makes it all the more confounding. Very well, I believe you. Is there anything else particularly important we should know about?"

And so the mage turned alien duck went on, about loopers and the different kinds of loops, and the various things to watch out for.

Phil perked up when Nanoha mentioned something like their current situation, of a looper replacing someone else. "Oh, so that's why you're here instead of Mallory, because this is one of those 'fused' loops?"

"You're picking up on this really quickly, that's good! Yes, normally my name is Nanoha Takamachi; I'm a human mage from Uminari City in Japan. Since I'm replacing your friend, Yggdrasil made me into a Duck for this loop. It's not bad, though having feathers takes some getting used to." She idly scratched at one elbow, ruffling the feathers there a bit.

Nanoha even went on to teach them how to ping, and how to reach their subspace pocket. Wraith had the easiest time with both, given he was already used to bending physics with his mind.

The new loopers didn't seem all that confused, and looked to be getting the hang of their abilities. Nanoha still had one thing she was concerned about, though. "All right, you two seem to have gotten all of that down pretty well, but I've got one more question. How many times have you been looping so far?"

Phil glanced over at Wraith for a moment, then back to his employee and sort of shrugged. "I only remember going through this once, so I guess this is my first."

Wraith went a bit quiet at the question, seemingly lost in thought. Just, the idea of being alone for so long... A shudder ran through him before he managed to speak up. "It's been very close to fifty times. I may be blurring a few together, events have largely remained similar until now."

"Hmm, that long, and this was Phil's first loop..." The Ace of Aces considered things for a moment, then nodded to herself. "If you've been going for that long by yourself, that means you might be this world's Anchor. There's a slim chance it could be someone else, since some Anchors prefer to stay hidden, but it's probably you."

Those red eyes of his went wide, maybe Wraith would've taken a step back if he wasn't still trapped. "Me? Surely it should be Wildwing or one of the other Ducks! Why would anyone possibly think I was stable enough? Besides that, wouldn't those Admins prefer someone more 'heroic' for this sort of duty?"

"Well, the world hasn't glitched once since I Woke up here, so that's a nice indicator of your stability. And you've seen the difference in Wildwing when he's wearing the mask compared to when he's not, that sort of split might disqualify him." Nanoha didn't mention how her own Anchorhood might be helping to keep things in check, and went on. "Ultimately the choice is between your Admin and Yggdrasil, but the tree isn't above acting on its own. An Admin might try to make one choice, but then the loop either won't start or crashes instantly, until the person Yggdrasil feels is correct gets selected."

Ultimately there was silence from the Saurian mage, his tail lashing back and forth as he couldn't properly fidget otherwise. So many possibilities flitted through Wraith's mind, to the point where he wasn't entirely sure what to do.

Nanoha sighed a little bit. Not everyone could take the news as well as she had, though at least he wasn't actually panicking. Still, it was probably best she got him moving away from the Pond, otherwise the other Ducks would come out and capture him. Better he processed things while still free as opposed to sitting in one of the holding cells. "Well, that covers everything, so welcome to the Loops!"

Raising Heart had a pretty good idea of what her partner was going to do next, so she guided Phil so that Nanoha would be in a good position to defend him if necessary. Given the amount of mana that was about to get thrown around, hopefully Wraith would be smart and just run, though.

"All right, Raising Heart and I are going to drop these binds. We'll even be nice and let you have a thirty second head start before we start casting again!" With that, both binding spells were canceled, and Raising Heart floated to Unison with her master.

The huge flash of light and the sudden spike in mana levels were plenty to snap Wraith out of it, but spying the magic circle appearing at the transformed Nanoha's feet was what got him moving. The duck mage never used any spells in front of him before, but the sheer amount of power being channeled would be far too much for his defenses even before it was focused. He turned to run before suddenly remembering he could fly and taking to the air, then either vanishing behind a cloaking spell or just teleporting.

With the enemy properly shooed, the mage and her device dropped the Unison, then looked toward Phil. "Well, that went about as well as I hoped for, now let's go back inside. It won't take him long to come up with another distraction, considering he couldn't use you for one."

Sure enough, Nanoha's comm unit started beeping crazily, she answered it and Wildwing was on the other end. "Nanoha, where are you? Drake One just picked up teleportation energy downtown!"

"Phil and I are on our way, Wildwing!"

They dashed off, while unknown to either of them, Duke l'Orange was listening to the entire proceedings from behind some of the facade around the Pond's entrance. He peered from his hiding place to make sure they were gone before starting to follow after them. "Loops, huh? That explains a lot..."

* * *

A few months later . . .

Events in Anaheim ran very close to typical baseline despite Nanoha's presence, though dealing with Asteroth was significantly easier. Not much could stand up to a full powered Starlight Breaker, not even the Lord of the Red Dragon. Somewhat more intriguing (and maybe a bit worrying) was the fact that Wraith had picked up a few Mid-style spells via simple observation. He didn't have the raw output for anything serious yet, but it was surprising to see him toss up a Round Shield to hold off a barrage of pucks.

Nanoha shot down the Raptor herself, with a pinpoint Divine Buster to the engines as opposed to taking out the gateway generator directly and causing an overload. Now the mage stood there on the coast along with the other Ducks, looking down into the ocean and wondering if the loop would end soon.

The group all went back into the Aerowing at Phil's prompting. Once they were in flight there was something else Nanoha was wondering, and that was how the Saurians were faring. She sent out a ping, then reached out with her telepathy, hoping she might get a response. _Hey? Are you all right down there?_

Down below, Wraith was just settling into his quarters to wait for the loop to end when he heard the message. He rolled his eyes and sat down on his bed, figuring the reading he intended to do could wait. _You are entirely too kind-hearted, are you aware of that?_

_Yup, people tell me that all the time._ Though Nanoha's expression was neutral as she stared out the Aerowing's windshield, the image she projected along with the thought was of her smiling mischievously. _Someone has to be willing to reach out or to care. If no one else is, it might as well be me. Besides, we're both Loopers; we should look out for each other because of that, if nothing else. So, how are things? Dragaunus didn't get too angry, did he?_

The warlock sighed a little, not entirely understanding but oddly reassured by her continued kindness. _Well, we did crash, obviously. The safety systems worked a bit better this time, as only the engine room is flooded and not the entire deck surrounding it. I suppose we have your very accurate spellwork to thank for that? I could be helping with repairs, but the loop usually ends soon anyway._ He paused as he heard Dragaunus out in the corridor bellowing something, probably at Chameleon. _Oh, and Dragaunus is always angry about something, this event just makes him especially livid. It's simple enough to teleport out of reach, however..._

Nanoha had a feeling the old Saurian wouldn't quite be ready for what she was about to suggest, but the memories of all those she helped along the way were what made her send the words. If she managed to get him thinking about it, then that would be enough for now. _You don't have to stick so closely to baseline, you know. Try something different, learn more about Earth or Puckworld, challenge yourself to handle something in another way. Maybe you could even strike out on your own, away from your boss?_

If this was the original timeline, Wraith was certain he would have started shaking at the very idea. Fifty loops later and the warlock had seen nearly every iteration of Dragaunus's bluster he could imagine, though even then he surprised himself at how little fear he felt. Something still held him back, though. _I could leave, yes . . . but I have no wish to be alone on a planet full of humans. This looping is isolating enough by itself. Perhaps when either Siege or Chameleon start to loop, I can convince them to join me..._

A mental nod from Nanoha. _That's a good idea, but you might be in for a long wait._ At a sudden influx of noise, she looked up and noted the Aerowing was coming in for a landing at the Pond. _Well, we're back in Anaheim and I guess we have a hockey game to win, so I should let you go. Goodbye and good luck, Wraith! I'll see you around the Loops, but you'll probably run into some of my friends before we cross paths again._

_Farewell, Nanoha. If your friends are anything like you, I do look forward to meeting them._ As that seemed to be the end of the conversation, Wraith let the mental channel drop, and reached for the book he was going to read earlier. The Art Of War would certainly be enough to occupy him for the two and a half hours it would take the Ducks to win that game, at which point the loop would finally reset.

* * *

29.7 (Shadow Wolf75): [Mighty Ducks]

Wraith Woke, and immediately had to stop himself from lashing out at the circles of runes that kept him contained. Sometimes he really wished his Waking didn't vary so wildly; he was usually so much better at keeping himself out of trouble than his in-loop self was most of the time. Another second or two and he had access to the proper memories . . . so, he was grabbed by some source of power on the other side of a dimensional gate, the same one they tried sending the Ducks through to get rid of them. He tried sending a ping, frowning a bit when the first reply seemed really distant. Whoever that was, was probably back in Anaheim. There was another reply ping a few seconds later, likely one of the Ducks that got pulled to this world.

Well, standing there in what looked like a castle dungeon wasn't getting anything done, so Wraith drew on his power and burned a path through the barriers that held him with a massive bolt of flame. Certainly whoever tried to trap him was now aware of their rune array getting vaporized, but the warlock was too irritated to care. No, he simply focused his senses on the magical energies around him, zeroed in on the strongest mana source besides himself, then stepped forward and started blasting holes in walls. A labyrinth is only a problem to those who can't make their own straight path to the center.

Flying over the walls might be quicker if there weren't any defenses up there, but breaking things made him feel better. He especially looked forward to raining on the parade of whoever was stupid enough to capture him.

Eventually Wraith heard the particular high pitched screeching of a puck launcher in use, and on following the sound, discovered five of the six Ducks as well as an elf of some sort. Of course, as soon as he was noticed, four puck launchers and one saber were instantly pointing at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"Is it against the law to do a bit of sightseeing, Wildwing?" Nope, none of them seemed willing to bite at his snark, and so Wraith got on with the actual explanation. "Fine, I was dragged to this world at the same time you lot were, by something that lives here. I imagine they're just behind that wall, given the amount of magic I sense in that direction?"

"Yeah, it's another sorcerer named Asteroth. So, are you willing to help us fight him, or do we get to deal with you first?"

"Bah, I'll help, if only because that fool attacked me first. The barrier array around my cell would have siphoned off my mana for his own use, I take offense to that!" As he spoke, the warlock sent out another ping, and was rewarded with a smirk and a one-fingered salute from Mallory when no one else was watching. Wraith thought he saw Duke jolt as well, but then again the thief could have just been jumpy because they were all standing on the enemy's doorstep. Hmm, there was that bet he had going... maybe he would see if he could act on it shortly.

* * *

The battle had quickly gotten hairy. Wraith had a bit of advance warning simply because he could feel the amount of power contained in that stupid amulet, but even then he wasn't quite expecting Asteroth to turn into a dragon. Said dragon probably wasn't completely fireproof, but his usual fireballs didn't seem to be making much of a dent. He tossed two more in Asteroth's general direction, before the answering torrent of dragonfire had him diving behind a bit of cover already being used by Duke.

"That 'fighting fire with fire' ain't workin' out so well, huh?" Duke had a good laugh at that, in spite of the rampaging dragon still trying to kill them all. It was there he noticed Wraith was starting to cast something different than his usual spells, with a glowing magic circle forming and all. "Where'd you get that one?"

It was hard to focus given he still wasn't quite used to this sort of spellcasting, but at least switching out the Mid runes for Saurian ones improved his speed a bit. One last calculation and Wraith unloaded his modified version of Axel Shooter at the dragon still soaring above, smiling viciously when that finally got Asteroth to flinch in the air. Given Duke's question, he saw an opportunity to act on his bet and took it. "I don't suppose you remember Nanoha?"

"I kinda wish she was here right now, actually--" At Wraith's chuckle, Duke realized he screwed up but it was too late to take it back. "Tch, dammit... "

"Ahaha, I won a bet~" Having to quickly pull up a shield spell to block more dragonfire made Wraith pause in his gloating, and he took a moment to send another barrage of mana bullets towards Asteroth before speaking again. "Namely, your manager and the soldier over there did not think you were looping. My intuition said that you were, but keeping it to yourself. Thank you for proving me right. Oh, and I didn't ask for anything destructive as a reward, if you're wondering. They just have to buy me takeout whenever I want it for the rest of this loop."

Duke rolled his good eye at that and focused most of his attention back on Asteroth, who was currently trying to torch Nosedive and Wildwing. "That's nice for you, I guess. You got anything like a Starlight Breaker in that new bag of tricks? We're gonna have to take care of him the old-fashioned way otherwise."

"I would need a Device, and if my understanding of that spell is correct, there currently isn't enough loose mana to focus into it."

"Welp, old-fashioned way it is, then." At that, the former jewel thief called to the other Ducks and the Prince that fought alongside them. "Hey guys, try and box him in by blasting open the fire hydrants; I'll try to get the amulet while he's distracted!"

Ending the battle at that point was painfully simple, with Duke's plan working just as well as it did during baseline. It was admittedly rather tempting to swipe the amulet the moment the group all landed in Anaheim, but Wraith knew that generally artifacts of that power were more trouble than they were worth.

He also didn't have the chance, as the gate from the other Anaheim dumped them all right into the area where Siege and Chameleon installed that earthquake generator. Wraith didn't want to be seen with the Ducks, and the constant shaking spooked him more than he was willing to admit. Even living in California and repeating time as long as he did, earthquakes still bothered him. The first moment he could reach his teleporter, he hit the return button, vanishing back to the Raptor.

A few hours later, as he was enjoying his ill-gotten Chinese food (roast duck, of course), Wraith decided this wasn't such a bad loop so far in spite of the rocky start.

* * *

29.8 (Shadow Wolf75): [Mighty Ducks] / [Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha] / [Madoka Magica]

Mallory blinked pretty hard when her actual memories came up alongside the in-loop ones, and was suddenly rather confused. Wait, this was Midchilda, not Earth? And she was currently a combat cyborg, not a Duck? It took most of the military training on both sides of her memories to keep up proper decorum and discreetly glance to her current commanding officer.

"Uhm, Commander Yagami, may I have a word with you in private? It's really important..."

"Of course, Mallory, let's just go in my office for a moment." Well, that was what Hayate said as she started leading the way down the corridor. What she sent with her telepathy was this: _Oh, I was wondering when you were going to Wake up; normally there's a girl named Subaru in your place._

The red haired cyborg nearly blurted something out, but they hadn't quite reached the safety of Hayate's office just yet and managed to keep quiet. At least when speaking out loud, anyway. _What? You know what's going on here?!_

At that point the two of them entered the office, after which Hayate closed and locked the door behind them. "Yes, I do; you're looping. Luckily for you, I am as well, so I know exactly what you're going through. Come on, let's trade stories; I'm sure you come from somewhere very interesting!"

* * *

"... And that's where I was last loop, helping Commander Yagami and the rest of Riot Force Six deal with the JS Incident. Being a cyborg was actually kind of fun, and I brought back some nice souvenirs too . . . hehehe, I can't wait to try them out on the Saurians! I wonder who will be more surprised: Siege when he finds out I can knock him over with one punch, or Wraith when it turns out he's not the only mage around anymore?"

With how excited Mallory sounded, Phil kind of hated to rain on her parade, but it had to be done. "Funny you should mention Wraith. You know that ping we both got earlier? Take a wild guess where it probably came from."

"What, he's looping? That is so not fair." A pause, as the Special Forces operative realized something. "Are any more of the lizards looping? This could be really bad if Dragaunus is..."

"Nope, so far it's just Wraith. He's been looping for a lot longer than us, too. Nanoha mentioned something about him being Anchor?"

Mallory's eyes widened a good bit at that, disbelieving. "That... that can't be right. Everyone that was Awake in the other loop were heroes . . . well, there was that white furry thing that Hayate ended up casting Diabolic Emission on the moment she sighted him, but that was the only exception. The only way to be sure is, well, if something manages to kill Wraith and the loop crashes afterward."

Phil raised an eyebrow at that, not sure he liked where things were going. "You're not going to test that theory out, are you? I'm going to guess a loop crash is bad."

"No, of course not! We're not here to kill the Saurians, we're here to stop them, even with time being broken like this." What went unsaid, was the thought she wouldn't particularly go out of her way to save the warlock if he needed it, either.

* * *

29.9 (Hvulpes): [Star vs. The Forces of Evil]

Star had been waiting for Marco's news, but he had decided to wait till the first adventure of the loop was over. Once alone, he began.

"Star, you are not going to believe it... but I was on a Hub loop. I decided to surf the net about our show, just in case I could find an edge just in case as it never hurts to be careful... When I read this!" Showing her the news story he had copied down.

"We're getting an expansion! With more weirdness! Awesome! I wonder if I should get a new dress... or battle armor... oooo...ooo.. A dress which doubles as a battle armor!"

"I'm sure Tony Stark Tailoring Shoppe has one of those."

* * *

29.10 (lord Martiya): [Eden Hall] / [Disney]

Ryu saw Donald and Daisy Duck, both in their superhero outfits (Donald with the one from what he dubbed the "Might and Power" expansion, Daisy with the one from the "Ultraheroes" expansion), coming to the bar with a dazed expression.

"Fat Margaret, please." they asked together.

"What-what did just happen?" Ryu asked, surprised at them asking the strongest alcoholic drink after pure ethanol.

"He's Paperinik!" Daisy shouted, pointing at her boyfriend.

"She's Paperinika!" Donald shouted, pointing at his girlfriend.

"You mean you didn't know? We thought you had figured it out long ago and were just flirting..."

The two ducks' eyes twitched before Daisy grabbed her head with both hands and Donald started counting.

* * *

29.11 (lord Martiya): [Avatar: the Last Airbender] / [W.I.T.C.H.]

"What?! Imposs-!" Zhao tried to shout before being buried in mud with his men. All left rigorously alive: the soldiers already had it bad enough, and Zhao would have welcomed a death in battle...

Sokka looked at the show, then turned to his sister for this Loop, Irma Lair. Who had just Bent the mud.

"Since when you can Earthbend?" he asked.

"That was Waterbending." Irma replied. "Been using the Power of Water as the Power of Mud since my baseline, and wanted to see if it worked with Waterbending too."

Sokka facepalmed. Why didn't anyone thought of it before?

* * *

29.12 (lord Martiya): [Disney]

"KEEP THOSE THINGS AWAY FROM ME!" Pete (the Awake one) shouted, pointing at the vegetables in Mickey's bags. "WHY DO YOU HAVE THEM?!"

"But... It's cucumbers!" Mickey replied. "And I've been out for groceries! And what's the problem with cucumbers?"

"KEEP THEM AWAY! AWAY!"

* * *

29.13 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Lion King]

Sora had been a lion once or twice in Baseline. However, this latest Loop had him considering a few things.

One is that there's an outright expansion involving Simba's branch that he just found out about.

The second is that lions know how to open doors. Which is how they managed to get an entire pride or two stuffed into a Gummi Ship.

"I didn't see this coming," Goofy replied, ignoring Donald's angry ranting.

"Me neither," Sora replied.

"You guys mind if we hitch a ride?" Timon asked them, on Pumbaa's head. "The Heartless are getting a bit too rowdy and we're evacuating as much as possible."

* * *

29.14 (lord Martiya): [W.I.T.C.H.] / [Winx Club] / [Paperinik New Adventures]

"HOW DID IT EVEN GET SO BAD?!" Will shouted.

'So bad' was Phobos, the Guardians trickiest opponent, stealing the immense power of Moldrock (Paperinik's mightiest enemy, a low-level reality warper), Valtor, Darkar, and many others, until he was powerful enough to pose a danger to all their Branches-and be beyond their ability to stop him.

"I don't know!" Flora admitted. "How do we stop him?!"

"Relax and enjoy the show, I've called for reinforcements." Paperinik said.

"FOOLS!" Phobos bellowed. "I AM INVINCIBLE! YOUR REINFORCEMENTS SHALL BE-"

Suddenly a hulking man with a terrifying black beard appeared behind Phobos and gave him a powerful slap, knocking him out and knocking all his power out of him, to the amazement of the fairy and the Guardian.

"Thanks for the help, Bud." Paperinik said to the newcomer.

Bud grunted and left in a hurry-he had been cooking some beans when Paperinik called.

* * *

29.15 (Duckapus) & (Hvulpes): [Phineas and Ferb]

"Here," Candace said as she shoved a piece of chocolate in an orange wrapper into Buford's hand, then walked away.

* * *

A few minutes later a raspy voice could be heard throughout the neighborhood, "PEANUT BUTTER WITH CHOCOLATE ISN'T AN ABOMINATION!"

Candace grinned, "Goodbye Molecular Separator! I love Reese's peanut butter cups."

Sometimes the simple solution is the best.

* * *

Of course, Candace didn't realize she had encouraged her brothers and their friends into making a Molecular Combiner... also known as the Combininator in baseline.

* * *

29.16 (Awesomedude17): [Gravity Falls] / [Admin Shenanigans]

Xolotl appeared before the Awake Pines, causing Stan and Dipper to fall out of their seats.

"What gives? What could be so important that you decide to interrupt breakfast?" Stan yelled.

"Long story short, Monkey, thinking it was funny, pressed a random button on his terminal and now nerfed Bill Ciphers are everywhere in Yggdrasil, annoying pretty much everyone. Any fused Loop for the next few thousand iterations are going to be more annoying than dangerous. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to have a chat with Monkey." Xolotl disappeared.

"Oh great, just what we needed. More Bills." Dipper rubbed his head.

"Well, can't be all bad. Xolotl said they were nerfed." Mabel shot at Stan with a nerf gun.

"And now I'm annoyed." Stan said as the darts bounced harmlessly off his head.

* * *

29.17 (Masterweaver): [My Little Pony] / [Finding Nemo] (not yet compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as of this writing)

"Literal seahorse. Okay." Lyra Heartstrings flicked her fins. "Seapony, you want to take this one?"

"Oh sure, just because I'm the one with the closest body-type--"

"Okay, okay, just asking. Pony? Human? Sweet Roll?"

"Roll for it?" Human suggested.

"Yeah, alri--"

"--mo! Nemo! No!" A panicked blur of orange and white darted past her. "Nemo! Nemo! No! No, _please_ , no! No, no!"

For a moment the multiple personality seahorse frowned. "Anybody have any idea what that was about?"

"Somebody called Nemo is in trouble?"

"Okay, yeah, that much is obvious Sweet Roll--"

"I say we help orange panic-face," Pony piped up. "Any takers?"

"Eh, nothing better to do," Seapony replied.

"Would be the right thing," Human pointed out.

"Right. Limit loop abilities to things that can be explained or not noticed though," Lyra insisted. "Let's go swimming after orange panic-face."

* * *

Orange panic-face had turned out to be a clownfish called Marlin, and with the help of a blue tang called Dory they had been shanghaied by a shark into some sort of carnivores anonymous group. Lyra had casually let the sharks know that if they tried to eat them, she would blow them up. It helped that there were mines and a few unlaunched torpedoes around the sunken submarine.

Although, given the scuba diver's mask had been caught on a jut of metal in the sub, she'd refrained from unleashing her full wrath. Marlin didn't deserve to have the sole clue to his quest disintegrated.

The other two had nearly collapsed in panicked, tired relief, only just managing to rest in the goggles themselves before passing out. Lyra decided to read the scuba mask herself, just to keep abreast of the situation--Dory was pretty friendly and all, but she knew from personal experience that unusual thought processes could be distracting at the wrong time. Now all she had to do was wait till the others woke up.

"...seven arms, so you're a septapus..." Dory murmured drowsily.

Lyra snorted, quietly settling down between the other two fish. "Sounds like a fascinating dream."

"...running only makes me want you more..."

The seahorse nodded, letting her eyes shut as she nestled against the plastic.

"...haven't we done this before? I remember this..."

"Wait..."

The other four personalities reluctantly groaned in Lyra's head as she prodded them awake. "Did you all hear that?"

"Ugh, what?"

"Dory's sleeptalking. Did you hear--"

"It's a dream," Human grumbled. "It doesn't mean anything."

Lyra took a breath and nodded, still frowning as she shut her eyes.

"...p-sherman 42 wallaby way sydney..."

Lyra's eyes snapped open, leading again to groans from the other mental constructs. "You heard _that_ , right?"

"What?" Sweet Roll groaned. "What were we supposed to hear--?"

"Wait. Did Dory just sleeptalk the address on the diving goggles?" Seapony asked.

"Yes!" Lyra hissed. "I mean, how could she have--?"

"She did catch a glimpse of it," Pony pointed out. "She might have... read it then."

"In the middle of a shark attack."

The other constructs paused. Dory mumbled something about purple shells.

"...What are you thinking?" Human asked slowly.

"Look, you know how we did a lot of psychology research back when we started looping because of... you know, how our memories work in the loops?"

The other mental constructs nodded.

"Well, even if Dory has short term memory loss," Lyra continued, "those memories have to go somewhere. Maybe they get caught up in her dreams. And she did mumble something about 'doing this before,' and just now the address on the goggles--"

"Oh oak," Sweet Roll groaned. "You think she's looping, don't you?"

"I'm not saying she is, but it's certainly a possibility--"

"A possibility we can explore _after_ we get some sleep," Human grumbled.

* * *

29.1: Smart idea, Dipper.

29.2: The implications at the end there are terrifying.

29.3: These two...

29.4: Sage advice there.

29.5: Welcome to the multiverse, Will.

29.6, 29.7, 29.8: And with these, we welcome the Mighty Ducks to the Loops. And an odd choice in Anchor, but it worked.

29.9: Indeed.

29.10: Some superheroes are surprisingly bad at figuring out who their fellows are behind the mask.

29.11: Good question, Sokka.

29.12: Equally good question.

29.13: ABANDON SAVANNAH!

29.14: Do I even want to know?

29.15: "Sometimes the simple solution is the best." Yes. Yes, it is.

29.16: (groans)

29.17: Dory's nice, but an oddball.


	47. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-01-27. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty**

30.1 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Cars]

Lightning McQueen looked around, and mentally sighed. _Great. The courtroom again._

He always hated it when he Awoke too late to keep from tearing up the main road through Radiator Springs. Getting arrested was _not_ fun, especially after the... how many times had it happened to him? Ah well, he had a plan for it this Loop.

"Pssst," Mater whispered. "Lightning? You Awake in there?"

"And well-Anchored as long as you're here," Lightning assured him.

Mater grinned. "So what's the plan this time?"

"Ahem."

The pair looked up to see Sheriff eying them, then cleared his throat. "All rise! The Honorable Doc Hudson presiding."

Lightning looked up as Doc Hudson entered the courtroom and began his usual speech. Once he'd finished (and ordered Sheriff to have Lightning thrown out of town), Lightning cleared his own throat. "Um, sir? I'd like to speak in my own defense for a moment. Please?"

Doc glared at him. "You have two minutes."

"Thank you, sir." Lightning looked around. "First off, I'm pleading guilty to accidental destruction of city property."

There were a series of murmurs throughout the courtroom.

"Second... I am very, very sorry for what happened last night." Lightning paused. "I was lost, I was already nervous, I could barely see a thing since I don't have headlights due to not being designed for normal roads, and when I heard what sounded like someone shooting at me-" (and here he heard Sheriff exclaiming "Shooting at you?!"), "I panicked. I know now that it was just your sheriff's engine backfiring, but it scared me out of my wits. The end result was the destruction of your main road and some other city property, and I take full responsibility for it. I'll gladly pay to have it repaved, or even do the work myself, if you want." He looked at Doc. "That's all, your honor."

Doc Hudson looked at him, a curious expression on his face. "Well now. Never thought I'd see the day a racecar admitted he was at fault for something bad, or was willing to do something serious to make up for a mistake. Tell you what, Mister... whoever. I'll take your deal. Fix our road, and I'll clear this incident from your police record. That sound fair?"

"Yes, sir." Lightning nodded.

"Good. Then get out there. Sheriff? Hook him up to Bessie so he can get started."

"Right away, sir."

As Lightning left the courtroom with Mater right behind him, he noticed a light blue Porsche standing by the door, staring at him with her mouth open in surprise, and inwardly smiled. _Oh, Sally, my love... I can't wait for you to join us._

* * *

30.2 (kingofsouls): [Frozen]

When Anna saw Kristoff reach into his Subspace Pocket and reveal a small squirt bottle, she knew that she had done messed up. "Come on Kristoff, it can't be that bad, can it?"

"Anna, I don't care if thermodynamics say it can be done, you are not going to convince Elsa - Awake or otherwise - to learn how to reverse her ice powers and shoot out fire instead."

"But you know how useful fire is? Especially against certain individuals from say, I dunno, the Southern Isles?"

Kristoff responded with many well aimed squirts of the water bottle.

* * *

30.3 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb] / [My Little Pony - no confirmed Loopers]

Phineas took off his futuristic gladiator helmet and looked over at Ferb.

"Looks like we can cross Antigravity Chariots off our list. I wonder how the track's gonna disappear."

As if summoned, a masked equine figure in a purple cape and stylish hat flew past, casting some kind of spell on the floating racetrack. Both it and the hooved enigma vanished in a flash of light.

In the end, Ferb had only one thing to say; "That was one Mysterious Horse."

* * *

30.4 (Masterweaver): [Finding Nemo]

Intellectually, Marlin knew that Coral would only be around for a year or so. Nemo had explained the loops, and the concept of variants.

But emotionally, he couldn't distance himself from her. He'd doted on her, ever since the loop began. Nemo had mock-gagged, but willingly moved to sleep with Dory so Marlin could indulge himself. It had been going well.

Then Coral, for some reason, declared she wanted a pet llama. And Marlin had, without really thinking, agreed to get one for her.

Which had somehow resulted in all of them being separated in what Nemo had identified as a 'water park.' On the one hand it was easy to navigate, but on the other he'd warned that they couldn't let the humans see them.

So now, Marlin was hiding under some sort of water-jet tower, looking out of the water to a llama standing on top of a tower connected to a complex collection of slides, and wondering if Coral and Nemo were both still in the wave pool.

"...You know," he mused, "at this point, I really shouldn't even be surprised."

* * *

30.5 (Purrs): [Mary Poppins]

_Wind's in the east, there's a mist coming in_

_Like something is brewin' and 'bout to begin_

_Can't put my finger on what lies in store_

_But I feel what's to 'appen all 'appened before...*_

"We won't forget you, Mary Poppins," Jane whispered to the stars.

"We'll never forget," Michael promised.

Then.

"Hurry up, Jane! Let's run!" Michael urged.

Quite to the contrary, she stumbled to a stop. Why was it daytime—why were they in the street and not the park—where had their parents gone?

"Come back here, you little blighters! You've got to do your lessons," scolded Katie Nanna.

Katie Nanna? Realizing just _when_ she was, Jane turned her head over her shoulder to stick out her tongue at the sour old nanny, then ran after Michael. "What are we doing here?" she complained. "Mary Poppins left. She wouldn't just do this to be mean. She thought we don't need her anymore!"

"Who's Mary Poppins?" Michael asked.

"Who—you just said you wouldn't forget her, ever, and now look at you!" She gaped. "Oh, _no_."

* * *

Jane had barely managed to hold herself in during the interview, such as it was, but all bets were off once Mary Poppins was alone with the two of them in the nursery.

"Very tidy, I must say. Tidier than I was expecting. Who's responsible for that? Jane, I thought I told you not to stare."

"I can stare if I bloody well want to, Mary Poppins!" she snapped, balling her fists. "Why'd you do it?"

"Language," Mary Poppins reminded. "What, pray tell, _did_ I do? I haven't been here for hardly ten minutes yet."

"You said you'd leave when the chain breaks. The chain broke, didn't it? I'd be glad you stayed except what was even the point of fixing everything if you were just going to undo it all?"

"What are you talking about?" Michael wrinkled his nose.

"Exactly!"

Mary Poppins tsked. "I'm afraid I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about, although frankly I am not surprised."

Jane frowned. "Why not?"

"I'd be quite disappointed in myself if I thought such a petulant girl was satisfactory."

"I am not—"

But Mary Poppins was already pulling out her tape measure and holding it up to Jane. "Petulant, just as I thought, and short-tempered to boot."

Jane sighed, half-annoyed, half-happy. Whatever this was wasn't Mary Poppins' fault, at least. And who was she to complain, with Mary Poppins back in the house? "Better than last time, at least."

"Now you, Michael."

"I know this one," she said with confidence. "'A noisy, mischievous, troublesome little boy.'"

Mary Poppins hummed, laid her measure against Michael, and nodded. "Quite right, Jane."

Michael screwed up his face and crossed his arms. "You're making that up."

"In that, as in so many things," Jane said loftily, "your information is faulty."

Mary Poppins laughed at that. "You certainly have been spending time with me, it seems."

"Can we go see Bert? In the park with Neleus and Queen Victoria and all the statues?"

"If you're good. That shouldn't be a problem for you, miss time traveler."

"Oh, no, it won't. Now _do_ tell us your measurement, won't you, Mary Poppins?"

She smiled pleasantly. "I'm practically perfect in every way."

"Practically perfect!" Jane sang.

"So people say..."

Jane just could _not_ be more excited for another month of magic. Hopefully she could keep Mary Poppins from leaving this time, even.

* * *

30.6 (Purrs): [Mary Poppins]

"Mary, don't stare. And Michael, close your mouth. We are not a cod—" Jane Poppins reoriented herself and nearly squealed with glee. "We are not a codfish. Up to the nursery, _children_." She practically flew up the stairs. Once Mary and Michael joined her, she fixed them with a smug look and launched into song. " _I'm_ practically perfect in _every_ way."

"Practically perfect?" Mary repeated.

Jane snapped her fingers, grinning like nothing else. The nursery straightened itself to the tidiest it had ever been, glasses full of colorful medicine or whatever it was appeared in front of each of them, and a whole plateful of gingerbread stars came into being in her hand. "Wouldn't you say?

Each virtue virtually knows no bound.

Each _treat_ is great and patently sound!"

She took a big swallow from her glass. Mmmmm, Lime Cordial.

* * *

30.7 (Purrs): [Mary Poppins]

_How do you learn to talk dog?_

_How do you think? Master the grammar—_

_Practice when you can—_

_And avoid mongrels._

Far _too much slang._

"Rruff!"

"Good. How was yours?"

"Growf."

"That's too bad. Don't worry, though, I'm sure you'll find her soon."

"Aroof?"

"Of course! Just let me know—what's so funny?"

Jane snickered. "Michael, I don't know what you thought you were talking about, but there is no way you understood that conversation. Willoughby was just chatting about the weather, silly. Go practice some more."

"Twitter~"

She looked up at the lark perched on her head. "Exactly my point! Now, what were you saying about environmental policy?"

* * *

30.8 (Purrs) & (BIOS-Pherecydes): [Mary Poppins] / [RWBY]

_The winds may blow, but who's to know_

_Exactly what it's bringing_

_Good news or bad, happy or sad_

_The pendulum keeps swinging_

"Stand over there," Mary Poppins directed. The two children shared a glance, then warily obeyed. She pulled a measuring tape from her bag and held it against the elder. She glanced at the measurement, stiffened marginally, and read it again. "Now you," she directed, and ran the tape along the younger. Snapping the tape closed without saying a word, she bent down to the girls' eye level. "I have the feeling that 'practically perfect' isn't a feasible goal in the time we have together, is it?"

Ruby Banks grimaced. "No."

"Perhaps not," she said, straightening, "but remember, Ruby: anything can happen if you let it."

* * *

"Come on, you two!" Bert called, but as he and Mary Poppins pranced faster, Yang and Ruby didn't; the children were soon on their own in the park.

"Boring, where's all the excitement? Epic quests and fast paced fights. All these nature scenes are nice, yet We want more than just pretty sights," the two complained.

"Too young," Yang sighed, "that's what they keep saying."

"Can't fight or train or party late," Ruby agreed.

"There's nothing here to see."

"No sweets to eat

Our friends aren't with us"

They returned to unison. "And we both agree

There is nothing to excite us in—"

An unnerving creak sounded from behind them. On instinct, Ruby whipped out Crescent Rose and neatly decapitated the figure behind her.

"Neleus!" Bert dashed over and cradled the severed head in his hands. "Neleus, speak to me!"

"It doesn't even hurt," Neleus pointed out, "I'm a statue." His body folded its arms over his carven toga. "Not that that makes it better, of course."

"I thought you were stone dead." Bert exaggeratedly dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve. "Agate all weepy just thinkin' about it."

Mary Poppins strode over. "Now what is—oh. One moment." She poised her fingers to snap, but Bert cut in.

"Hold on a bit, Mary." He held Neleus' head close and whispered something.

A grin spread across the stone boy's face. "Toss me back, will yo _oooouuu_ u thanks," he said, catching his head. He tucked it under his arm. "Look, all I need is a horse!"

"Well, if you're happy like that," Mary Poppins allowed, and turned to the children. "Now put that weapon away and be polite with the statues."

"You're not going to—"

"Go on. Spit-spot!"

* * *

"This plinth is half empty!" the park keeper declared. "One of the statues is missing!"

Bert spun him around to face the other direction.

"Do you mean you've lost your marbles?" Mary Poppins inquired.

"This is your fault, ain't it?" he accused, while behind him Neleus leapt back into place. "I knew we should have trouble when you first arrived! And now we've got—" He turned to gesture again at the statue which, he discovered, was no longer missing. While he stood there, taken aback, Neleus' head started sliding off, and the statue hastily adjusted it before returning to his pose. "Oh, Lummy!" the park keeper muttered, and stormed off.

Mary Poppins looked over the two children who were not exactly children. "Yang, Ruby, why don't we go to Mrs. Corry's talking shop? She sells conversations and the most delicious gingerbread stars."

Ruby smiled hesitantly. "I do like cookies."

_A game is played, a change is made_

_But still the road is long_

_And though they might yet fly a kite_

_Sometimes the wind's too strong..._

* * *

30.9 (Purrs): [Mary Poppins] / [Peter Pan]

_Up through the atmosphere_

__

_Up where the air is clear_

____

_Oh, let's go fly..._

____

Jane and Michael looked at each other, then at their sister Wendy, currently sound asleep, then back at each other. They'd tried to send Mary Poppins a letter by chimney but it hadn't gone up, so either she just wasn't there at all or she didn't want to come.

____

"Variant?" Michael suggested.

____

"Maybe." Jane shrugged. "I'm in the mood for a walk, how about you?"

____

"It's a bit late, isn't it? Mother and Father wouldn't—"

____

"So we don't go past them." She nodded at the window, beyond which lay a star-studded sky of deep blue-black.

____

He grinned. "Oh, _that_ kind of walk. Of course."

____

Grabbing her brother's hand, she opened the window and led him forward with confidence. She turned to see Michael push the window closed with his foot. "Come on," she declared, and set forth. The darkness gave a little under her foot, like a cushion, but as long as she expected it to hold their weight, it would. It was bouncy, almost, if she let it, which she did. Their steps pattered faster and faster until they were running full speed across the night, laughing without abandon.

____

That was when they crashed headlong into someone else.

____

Jane stumbled back from the collision. Self-assurance faltered a moment in the face of the instinctual fear of falling, which unfortunately led to them doing just that. She reasserted her right to do as she pleased, and pulled Michael to his feet. "You're okay?" He nodded, and she frowned at the boy who was now several metres above them. "Look where you're going next time, will you?"

____

He ignored her comment and floated in circles around her brother and her. It was odd, the way he was drifting right through the same air that felt firm enough under her bare feet. (In hindsight, it might have been a better idea to put on shoes before leaving. They weren't technically needed, but the sky was cold this time of year. She was surprised the boy wasn't shivering, actually, considering he was wearing nothing warmer than dried leaves patched together with spiderwebs.) "Where'd you find pixie dust around here?" he asked.

____

"I didn't," Jane replied, and was about to continue when Michael beat her to it.

____

"What do you mean, pixie dust?"

____

"For flying, of course." Hovering upside down, the boy prodded Michael. "How are you doing it, then?"

____

Michael poked him right back. "I might ask the same of you."

____

He looped around them again, this time curving under their feet and ending up reclined above their heads. "You two look silly with your feet on nothing like that. Why don't you actually fly?"

____

"This way's more dignified," Jane justified, to avoid admitting she wasn't sure how to 'actually' fly.

____

The boy's face crinkled up, eyes narrowing, and he folded his arms. "You might as well say _grown-up_ ," he accused. The word fell from his lips with all the sentiment of some of the naughtiest words Mother and Father wouldn't let her say.

____

There was only one possible response. Jane stuck her tongue out at the boy, who laughed and responded in kind. Then he swept under them and attacked her feet with his fingers. "Aaaahaha!" she shrieked, and instinctively wriggle-kicked away from his touch. She tumbled free, catching glimpses of the boy moving on to Michael with a wicked slash of a grin. Eventually she got control of herself, but her feet were still free. Frowning, she waved her arms a bit to find that it was kind of like swimming now. "Huh."

____

"Huh," the boy echoed, cocking his head at the two of them. Michael was still spinning. "Didn't know that would happen. Neat."

____

Jane grinned. "We should keep an eye on you. You're tricky."

____

"Thanks!"

____

"That's my line," Michael protested with a mock-glare, having stabilized. He turned to the boy. "What's your name, then?"

____

"I'm Peter, and you?"

____

"We're Jane—"

____

"And Michael—"

____

"Banks," they said together, and giggled.

____

"Do you have any more tricks?" Michael asked.

____

Peter flew between them and pointed at a star. It twinkled on cue. "A whole island full of them," he bragged.

____

Jane and Michael shared a glance full of anticipation. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!" Jane declared.

____

* * *

____

30.10 (Purrs): [Mary Poppins]

____

_I'm practically perfect, and here's my aim:_

____

_By the time I leave here, you both will be the same_

____

_Mary Poppins held her tape measure up to Jane. "An untidy—"_

____

"Here, Mrs. Brill, let me help you with that," Jane offered, bending down to pick up the pieces of the shattered vase.

____

"The heirloom's gone and broke, and what now?" the housekeeper mourned.

____

Mary Poppins sniffed the air. "Is that dinner cooking?"

____

"Oh, don't you start on that again." Mrs. Brill shot the nanny a glare. "I've opened the windows, and—"

____

"I was only going to say it smells wonderful."

____

Mrs. Brill threw up her hands with a huff and stormed into the kitchen. "The whole world's gone upside-down, _that's_ 'what now' for you!"

____

As Jane tittered at the familiar exchange, a sparkle caught her eye. It was a gingerbread star, one of several shining from amidst the mess, and she grinned. Yes, yes, maybe these stars did help Daddy be nicer again when he found them, but that didn't mean she couldn't break off a piece for herself.

____

* * *

____

_"—thieving—"_

____

When Mrs. Corry handed Jane and Michael each a piece of gingerbread from her daughter Fannie's tray, the girl's mouth watered, but she held off on eating it. Michael, though, was quick to raise his to his mouth.

____

"Uh-uh," Mrs. Corry interrupted. "Georgie always saved his stars."

____

Michael reluctantly put the treat in the pocket of his coat, and Jane raised a finger. "Could I save one for him, too, then, besides mine?"

____

The oldest woman in the world grinned and handed over another cookie. "Well, aren't you a dear? Now, Mary Poppins, what can I do for..."

____

How much longer would it take, Jane wondered, to be older than Mrs. Corry? Each repeat lasted a month and a half, which made eight of them to a year. Mrs. Corry was... Jane wasn't sure about Vlad the Impaler or Alexander the Great, but she was pretty sure that William the Conqueror was alive something like nine hundred years ago. So if Mrs. Corry had talked to him, that made her at least that much. Nine hundred years was...a bit more than eight per year...seventy-two hundred repeats. Thousands. That...that was a lot. But they would end a long time before that, right? Of course they would. So Mrs. Corry could stay the oldest as long as she pleased.

____

"...Jane," Mary Poppins was saying. "Jane, pay attention."

____

"Sorry," she said.

____

"Now, you pick seven letters. Michael's already chosen his."

____

She reached into the jar, pulled them out, and looked them over. "I've got a D, G, R, U, C, L, and...and B." Oh. Oh no. She'd always gotten the I there before. How were you supposed to spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious if you didn't have any I's? Maybe Mary Poppins would take it, and they could just swap the B for the—

____

"And I'll choose an X!" Mary Poppins announced. "Now, what words can we make?"

____

"We can use each letter more than once, right?"

____

"That's right, Jane. Good thinking."

____

Jane preened. Compliments from Mary Poppins were few and far between. Now if she could only find a word. "I see 'cat' and 'dog'," she offered.

____

"'Rautoplex'," Mrs. Corry suggested, because where did words come from if not people making them up? "That's nine."

____

"'Lapetoferous', that's eleven, nearly there," Bert chimed in.

____

She _could_ just replace the I's with E's, couldn't she? That might work, and if she wedged in the B somewhere...

____

"Let me see..." Mary Poppins hummed. "Aster...cata...laborfecto...pseudogalact...era!"

____

Jane laughed—she should have known—and then her face fell in dismay. She was going to have to learn the letter dance all over again. _Too fast..._ Her muscles ached already.

____

* * *

____

_"—absentminded—"_

____

Oh, was Mary Poppins _really_ going to hold _every_ little thing against her? Hadn't they all four of them been supposed to be good enough back at the end of the first time? Couldn't she just be done? Couldn't _everything_ just be done?

____

It didn't even matter. She wasn't going to change anything anyway no matter what she did.

____

Willoughby scrambled up to her, panting. He barked.

____

Great, Miss Lark had run off again. Jane knew just where the woman was at this point in the repeat—as a matter of fact, she was coming this way even now, wringing her hands and looking about nervously. "I saw her go that way," Jane said, and threw Willoughby in the opposite direction.

____

* * *

____

_"—mean-spirited—"_

____

Guilt thrummed through her veins. What _had_ she been thinking? Of _course_ it all mattered. Maybe she didn't know why this was happening, but surely there was some reason, and she _had_ to be better, else what was the point? Besides, she felt positively awful about the way Michael had reacted when she scowled at him at the beginning of the repeat.

____

Jane scuffed a shoe on the cobblestoned street and looked up.

____

"I want to feed the birds with Michael," she said.

____

"Then you, like Michael, should also save your sixpence," Mary Poppins replied, a smile on her face and another coin in her hand.

____

Jane held up the sixpence coin Mr. Northbrook had given her, then tucked it in a pocket. It was special. "Don't worry, I will, but you save yours too." She reached into a different pocket and pulled out a fistful of coins. It was something like half a crown all together, if she'd counted right earlier. "Here," she said to the bird woman, offering her hand. A few pence fell onto the street. "One bag, please."

____

The bird woman complied, stunned into silence at what she had received. She'd been selling the birdseed bags for only tuppence each, after all.

____

"Thank you!" Jane smiled widely at the woman and cast out a handful of seeds.

____

"What was that for?" Michael whispered.

____

"I just felt like it," she said, because it wouldn't do any good explaining.

____

* * *

____

_"—secret-keeping—"_

____

Jane frowned. What was—was it because she didn't mention the time thing? It was just that Mary was much the same whether or not she said anything, and Michael only got confused when she did. But then, she couldn't think of what else it could be.

____

After Mary Poppins had settled her furniture in the bedroom, Jane sat down on her bed with a bounce. "I've lived through this before," she announced, and Michael stared at her in a way that he'd never done the other times she mentioned it.

____

"You too?" he asked.

____

Jane gaped. "Wait, how many times—"

____

"I only went back this once. Does that mean you've—"

____

"So many, Michael. _So_ many. At least fifty, I must be something like fifteen." She leaped up and ran to him, nearly bowling him over with the force of her hug. "And now I'm not alone."

____

* * *

____

_"—inconsiderate little girl."_

____

She bent to pick up her—no, he was his own doll—from where he lay on the floor. Fortunately his arm wasn't seriously ripped again yet, but the stitches from last time were coming loose. "Valentine, this would be easier if you were bigger, please." The doll remained immobile, and Jane grinned sheepishly. "Oh, you want some privacy, don't you? Here, I'll put you back in your house," she said, doing just that.

____

Soon enough, Valentine came crawling out of the now-quite-small-for-him dollhouse and turned his back to Jane. "There's also the seam along my other arm, if you would be so kind. It feels like my stuffing is due to come out any moment."

____

"Of course," Jane agreed, and slid her needle through the cloth of his shoulder. "Just tell me if there's anything else."

____

Valentine kept facing away from her, because turning his head would tug at the stitches, but she could hear his usual wide smile as he replied. "Thank you, Jane."

____

* * *

____

Jane craned to read the tape measure stretched down Michael, but before she could make the words out, Mary Poppins snapped it closed and stood. "Now you, Jane."

____

She obediently held the end by her head as Mary Poppins brought the tape down to her feet. Then the nanny closed the tape again and took a step back, looking the children up and down. "Well," she said, "it appears that we match."

____

"What?" Michael blinked.

____

"Practically perfect, the three of us." Mary Poppins strode to her hatstand, plucked off her flowered black hat, and replaced it on her head. "It appears I'm not needed here. Good luck, you two."

____

The children, dumbfounded, watched as she returned the hatstand to her magic bag. Lifting the bag and her bird-handled umbrella, she walked to the door. The clicking of her heels was the only noise in an awful silence.

____

"Wait," Michael burst out. "Don't leave us."

____

"We want you to stay," Jane pleaded.

____

Mary Poppins didn't even turn her head to look at them. "Jane, you must know that you don't need me, and that other families will. Goodbye, children." She left the room. If they tried to go after her now, they knew, they wouldn't even find her in the house.

____

"We could misbehave on purpose this time around," Michael suggested after a pause.

____

Jane shook her head. "It wouldn't work. We wouldn't mean it. She'd know. She knew what I said when she left us, so she'd know this, too."

____

"How does she know so much?" he mused. "Do you think she's stuck in this time thing too, or what?"

____

She shrugged. "We could go ask her. She's probably with Bert right now, saying hello before she leaves."

____

"We wouldn't get any answers, though. She never explains anything. She's never done it, and she said so herself."

____

"Right." Jane sighed. "Do you think we'll ever see her again?"

____

"How would I know?" Michael moved to the window and peered out into the city. "But there's still Bert, and the statues, and Mrs. Corry and her shop, and the Bird Woman and Mr. Northbrook, and the chimney sweeps, and the toys."

____

"And Miss Andrew." Jane made a face.

____

Michael shuddered. "And Miss Andrew."

____

She walked over to stand next to him and watched a carriage make its way down the street. "And our family."

____

He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed right back.

____

* * *

____

30.11 (Harry Leferts): [Zootopia]

____

Having Woken up early, Nick had sent out a Ping and gotten a large number of quick ones in return which had staggered him. Pulling out his phone, he quickly tapped a message to Judy with a frown having gotten used to her number after so long. 'Hey, Carrots, looks like we might have a number of loopers.'

____

Moments later though, he got back a message that caused him to blink. 'No, that was me! Nick... do... do you know that coffee shop on Fourth?'

____

Just raising an eyebrow as he tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut, Nick thought for a moment and remembered that this was the day Judy was given to acquaint herself somewhat in regards to the city. 'The one with that carrot cake you love? Yeah, what about it?'

____

It went without saying that the reply caused Nick to really become concerned. 'YES! That one, go there to the back room and I'll meet you... I... I really need to see you...'

____

Frowning, Nick put away his phone and ran his mind through the various ways to get to the coffee shop. "What happened, Carrots?"

____

* * *

____

When he reached the coffee shop, Nick pulled out some money (one of the reasons he was thankful for having a Pocket) and got himself a coffee and a slice of blueberry pie before he made his way into the back area. A back area that was strangely empty except for Judy who was staring ahead from where she sat with a shaken expression on her face. That, more then anything, told Nick that something horrible had happened as even that odd variant where predators had shock collars hadn't shaken her up this much. "Carrots?"

____

Nick winced and could have _sworn_ that Judy's neck cracked from how fast her head whipped around. "Nick?" Upon seeing him, her eyes widened and she began to tremble as tears built up. As Judy leapt from her seat, Nick quickly set his coffee and pie aside and just managed it before she grabbed him in a hug. "NICK!"

____

Feeling his ribs creak a bit under the pressure, Nick tried not to grimace as he patted his friend on the head. "Hey, Carrots. I know that I'm good looking and that you missed me, but..." It was then that he noticed that Judy had barely reacted to what he said as she buried her face in his chest. But what really showed that something was wrong was how he could feel wetness soaking into his shirt. 'She's... crying? But she never...' Gently, he guided her back over to the booth she was using, though he was surprised that instead of sitting on the side she had, Judy picked to be on the same side as him so she could continue to hug him. "Now... what happened, Judy?"

____

A shuddering breath escaped from Judy as she gulped and pulled her now cold coffee over before staring into it. "I... it was bad, Nick. Really bad. It was some sort of strange variant where things did become violent and I got hurt."

____

Unseen by Judy, there was a stormy expression on Nick's face as he clenched his paw. "How badly."

____

Still looking into her coffee, Judy sighed. "Bad, as in I was hemorrhaging a lot of blood and was wounded enough that I couldn't be moved much. The worst part was that we were trapped in a warehouse with the sheep and they were looking for us. At one point, they shouted out that if you left me behind along with serum and antidote that they would let you go."

____

A stricken look came over Nick's face at that and he gulped. "And what did I do?"

____

Reaching up, Judy rubbed her arm a bit. "Well... I gave you the serum along with the antidote and told you to run. That I would distract them."

____

There was a far off look on Nick's face as he thought it over and considered what he would do in such a situation, what the unAwake him would do at that point in time. "And then?"

____

It took Judy a few moments before she took a deep breath. "You trapped me in one of the cages and locked it... For a moment I..."

____

With a small frown, Nick nodded. "You thought that I betrayed you to save my own skin..."

____

Judy nodded a bit and then frowned. "Which was about when I Woke up. Just as you placed the serum and the antidote in my hands. Telling me if I remembered the what happened under the bridge, where you were hurt but I protected you..." Another shudder went through Judy's frame as she shook her head. "... And then you had this odd look as you put the pellet we had switched with the fake one between your teeth and bit down..."

____

For several seconds, Nick was silent before he nodded. "And I scared you?"

____

Snorting, Judy shook her head. "No... you terrified me, Nick. Those sheep had no chance, but even with the antidote... we weren't able to..." Closing her eyes, Judy swallowed. "For the rest of the loop you were in a cell because you were feral. I visited as often as I could and while you didn't seem to recognize anyone else... You seemed to recognize _me_. You were always a bit more peaceful. And it _hurt_ to see you like that."

____

Quiet, Nick placed his arm over Judy's shoulders and tried to imagine what went through that Nick's mind. Then he slowly nodded before smiling. "Well... I'm here now and I can tell you, I'll try to make sure that sort of situation never happens while I'm around."

____

Just chuckling, Judy nodded. "I know that, you dumb fox."

____

Humming, Nick glanced at Judy's cold coffee. "How about you go and get some new coffee." At her look, he just smiled. "I'll be here when you get back. And if you don't hurry, I might try and take some of your cake."

____

In reply, the bunny only punches him in the shoulder before she walked off to get some new coffee having recovered some by talking with Nick. As she did so, Nick leaned back and frowned in thought.

____

* * *

____

30.12 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb]

____

Baljeet blinked owlishly, "Is that a giant Mech made of loafs of bread?"

____

"...Yeah," Buford admitted somewhat sheepishly, "It was Warhammer, and I was an Ork so... yeah. Breadnought."

____

Indeed, the self-proclaimed bully and his best friend/usual victim were currently standing in front of a fully operational Dreadnought-one made entirely of Rye bread.

____

The Flynn-Fletchers were going to have a field day with this.

____

* * *

____

30.13 (lord Martiya): [Marvel] / [W.I.T.C.H.]

____

Tony Stark saw his AI F.R.I.D.A.Y. activate her hologram, today taking a look that reminded him of a lady from that odd Loop, complete with katana.

____

"Let me guess, F.R.I.D.A.Y., more good news." he said with his usual smirk. That he lost when his AI cut the table next to him and held his 'little Tony' at swordpoint.

____

"I know your reputation, Stark, so you better have an explanation for this or for this Loop I'll make you celibate." she growled.

____

"I take you don't just look like Orube... By the way, for some reason the Loops turned you into my secretary AI. Who has a crush on me."

____

Orube was about to call bullshit when her Loop memories hit her. And they checked out.

____

In Latveria, Doctor Doom heard the scream of horror and mistook it for his Squirrel Girl alarm. He wouldn't sleep for days.

____

* * *

____

30.14 (Duckapus): [Fairly OddParents] / [Chicken Little - setting only]

____

When Chester Awoke, he felt a lot smaller than normal, despite also feeling like a teenager.

____

_'Let's see, feathers on my arms, so I'm some kind of bird boy, slight aversion to acorns for whatever reaso-'_

____

Then he remembered. The endless short jokes. The overreactions. The 'Sky Falling Incident.'

____

Chicken Little McBadbat groaned, "Even when I'm not home I get saddled with a bad reputation."

____

* * *

____

30.15 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Mega Man]

____

As he appeared in front of Light Labs, the robot considered his best approach.

____

_'Let's see, forced entree would fit the theme, but they'd obviously take it too seriously. They_ are _expecting a Wily-style attack after all. Better just knock.'_ And so he did. He also included a Looper code, just in case.

____

"Coming!" Roll's muffled voice called from inside, before opening the door, "Oh, hi Phineas! I didn't know you were here this Loop."

____

Phineas just shrugged, "It's a more recent development. You know, just built and all. Say, is Rock home? I ended up replacing Bass and I've got a message for him."

____

"Sure thing," she said, before leading him through to the lab proper. "So, how have things been going in Danville?"

____

"Pretty good. We expanded to the end of summer and the first day of school a while back, so there's that."

____

"Cool. We got a new branch just a little while ago, I can tell you about it when you've got time."

____

"I'll be sure to remember that," he noted before spotting his 'target', "Hey, Rock! Special Delivery from Doofenshmirtz!"

____

With that Phineas dropped a metal disc to the floor and teleported away. Before anyone could properly react a hologram of Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz appeared over the disc.

____

_"Hello Rock, Roll, Thomas. As you've probably guessed by now, I am replacing Dr. Wily. What you may not know is that some time ago Danville's Baseline had an expansion where I left the path of Evil. I've been going along with it for a while, and don't get me wrong it's great!_

_____ _

"But, well, the Evil Scientist thing is just too fun to give up! So, I'm gonna try to take over the city with my Inator Masters so I can get back into the swing of things. I would've just had Perry deal with me, but I figured you would enjoy having some inators in that copy chip of yours, Rock.

_____ _

_"And don't worry Roll, I'm not leaving you out! I've got_ plenty _of designs in the wings for later schemes to curb this place's apparent lust for conflict. Have fun guys!"_

____

After taking a moment to process the current situation, Rock could only say one thing, "Well, I know what I'm going to do today."

____

* * *

____

The first Inator Master hadn't been too hard to find, considering the trail of syrupy mess and spatula-wielding Mets he left in his wake. Still, nothing could have prepared Rock for what was coming.

____

"Greetings, Mega Man!" The blue and yellow waffle iron-shaped robot exclaimed, "I have heard much about you from my creator! I, Waffle Man, shall be honored to face you in battle-and to aid you in the battles beyond this scheme!"

____

Rock held back a snicker. _'Only Doof would purposely mix Thor with breakfast food.'_ "As will I, Waffle Man."

____

"Glorious! My Wafflinator is primed and at the ready!"

____

_'Hold on, is that a_ Gatling-'

____

For the next few minutes, all Rock knew was breakfast.

____

* * *

____

Honestly, Balloony's face was really creepy. Especially when it was attached to a body made of balloons and a visible Jacob's Ladder skeleton.

____

Rock racked his brain for a balloon-related inator. "Soooo, you would be Static Man, right?"

____

The eerily silent balloon responded with an electricity-covered balloon-shaped missile.

____

"Right. I think waffles make a good insulator."

____

* * *

____

"Okay, what is with all the giant Mets and killer plants?"

____

"That'd be my handiwork, lad."

____

Rock wasn't really expecting an answer, so actually getting one caught him off guard. As he looked around he noted that he was, in fact, in the standard robot master chamber. And that the one who had spoken was a mechanical Lawn Gnome.

____

"The name's Shrink man," He continued in his gentle Irish accent, "And I'll be cuttin' you down to size."

____

With that, Rock's world got a whole lot bigger.

____

_'Why are the Inators so much more impressive as robots?'_

____

* * *

____

_'Okay, think.'_

____

Dodge.

____

_'Buster isn't strong enough,'_

____

Jump.

____

_'He's as much of a bottomless pit as Guts Man, so the waffles just get eaten,'_

____

Deflect.

____

_'All that rubber makes electricity useless,'_

____

Jump again.

____

_'One more to try.'_

____

Rock fired the Shrinkinator.

____

Tire Man now had to look up.

____

It ended rather quickly after that.

____

* * *

____

Rock could only stare, dumbfounded. The... Robot Master lifted his sunglasses to get a better look. "What, is there something on my face?"

____

After looking himself over, Dance Man realized what was confusing the young hero, "Oh, right. It's, er, kind of a reference. You see, the Baseline Danceinator was originally supposed to be an instant clothes dryer. And before you ask how those two functions could possibly come from the same place, note that the Flynn-Fletchers have a sorbet machine that turns people into insects if you take the wrong piece off."

____

With that out of the way, the Blue Bomber sprang into action against the inexplicably drier-shaped Dance Man.

____

* * *

____

While a bug with an ice cream cone body was weird, at least Combo Man fit his theme (unlike _some_ people).

____

"GAH! CURSE YOU MEGA MAN!"

____

And besides, not much was funnier than an angry dessert.

____

"WILL YOU _PLEASE_ GET OUT FROM UNDER THERE? THIS IS STUPID!"

____

"Hey, you're the one who thought it was a good idea to fuse me with a Met!"

____

* * *

____

Rock was starting to realize just how long a day he'd had. "Seriously? I'm all for creativity Doc, but this is ridiculous! It's just a plane holding a glue bottle! What's 'Eulg' even supposed to be?"

____

Eulg Man responded by squirting his Master Weapon onto Mega Man's arm-which then proceeded to fall off.

____

"...Of course. Well, they can't all be fun."

____

* * *

____

"Hey, Rock."

____

"Hi Vanessa. I take it you're why all the robots here have backwards attack patterns?"

____

"Yup," The currently-mechanical teenager replaced her arm with the usual Inator ray gun, "say hello to the Least-Likely-inator. It causes whoever is hit by it to-well you know. Obviously using it on you will end badly, considering you're a pacifist with access to some of the most powerful weapons in the multiverse. That does not, however, mean you get to just copy my weapon and leave. I kind of hit myself with it, and you know how I feel about helping with my Dad's schemes."

____

"...Hand-to-hand, first to knockout wins?"

____

"Deal."

____

* * *

____

_"Doofenshmirtz Evil Big Fortress!"_

____

Rock snickered a little, "That never gets old."

____

The fortress itself was a mix between a Wily fortress and an office building, with possibly-for-decoration construction equipment jutting out the sides and Doof's usual Ferb-shaped penthouse at the very top. And on the inside... well, all the Blue Bomber could be sure of was that he had quite the climb ahead of him.

____

* * *

____

Floor 1:

____

As he entered, Rock noticed something rather odd. Instead of Doofenshmirtz's signature purple-and-green color scheme, everything was in shades of blue and brown. As he pondered this, a voice came from all around him, "Hello, Mega Man, and welcome to the newest branch of Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated. In case you are wondering yes, I am the Looping version of Baljeet. Currently, I am also this Fortress's main computer. In a way, this means I _am_ the Fortress.

____

"Here is how this part of your challenge will work; this fortress, despite its immensity, technically has only one hundred and twenty floors. Every twenty floors you will encounter a Fortress Guardian, each of increasing difficulty, with the doctor waiting at the very top. In the case of a Looping Guardian, they will only use a Looper Power if it was incorporated into their design."

____

With explanations over, Fortress Baljeet sprang to life, rapidly becoming the ominous deathtrap that so many Fortresses before him had aspired to be.

____

"Shall we begin?"

____

* * *

____

Floor 20:

____

" _Finally!_ " Rock gasped between gulps of an E Tank, "that was insane. Where did you learn how to set up a level?"

____

"I spend an unprecedented amount of time as evil Artificial Intelligences. Anyway, on the other side of that door is the first Guardian. Devil Series, if I am not mistaken."

____

"Right."

____

Unfortunately, Baljeet wasn't mistaken. This was quite possibly the strongest looking Devil Series robot Rock had ever seen. It was mostly black and built like a brick. Its lower body was an olive green color, with suspender-like ridges to match. Its feet, rather than just melding into the legs, resembled red and grey boots. And in place of the standard single eye was a familiar stylised skull.

____

"Nothin' personal, Rock," Buford offered, "but the Bully Devil's gotta do what the Bully Devil's gotta do."

____

The fact that this was supposed to be the easy one didn't give him much comfort.

____

* * *

____

Floor 40:

____

"So... Sniper Izzy?"

____

"Yup," the pink, off-model Joe unit confirmed, "Dr. D made me last and ran out of ideas. The Rainbow Buster is cool, though."

____

Baljeet just groaned, "Oh, yes, The epic battle of Skittles vs Lemons is the _perfect_ place to strike up a conversation."

____

He couldn't tell for sure if those stray shots hitting the more sensitive parts of the room were intentional or not.

____

* * *

____

Floor 60:

____

The room Rock found himself in was shockingly dark compared to the rest of the Fortress, and the eery violet light peeking out of various places wasn't helping much.

____

"So you've arrived," Ferb's soft voice drifted from the darkness, "It's good to see you again. Hopefully later on it can be under more peaceful circumstances."

____

Suddenly, a glaring red glow appeared to Rock's left, causing him to aim his Buster in shock. He saw exactly what he had feared; Ferb, in black robes, wielding his Sith form's signature six-bladed lightsaber.

____

"I thought you weren't gonna keep the sith thing going. You know, considering how you got it."

____

Ferb shrugged, "I wasn't at first, but Anakin's homemade gingerbread cookies are surprisingly persuasive. Now, are you ready to face Darth Rhapsody?"

____

* * *

____

Floor 80:

____

Rock was only mildly amused. That's what he was telling himself, at least. "This was inevitable, wasn't it?"

____

"Yup," True to what he'd told Roll, Phineas was currently wearing an orange and blue version of Bass's armor, albeit with a heavily modified helmet. Standing next to him was Perry, who looked like a green, more symmetrical version of his Platyborg counterpart- with both eyes and his hat intact, of course.

____

"Oh," Phineas seemed to remember something, "on-duty, we're Concert and Chord. Just so you know. Also, I'm kinda replacing the Robot Master rematches too. Dr. D's a little behind schedule, so he didn't have time to rebuild everyone."

____

"Alright then. So... mirror match, right?"

____

"I'll wait for you to call in Rush."

____

* * *

____

Floor 80 (Second Phase)"

____

"Chord, Super Adaptor mode!"

____

"...The Beak? _Really?_ "

____

"We ran out of ideas!"

____

* * *

____

Floor 100:

____

"Hello Rock," Baljeet's voice was now coming from one spot-a huge computer monitor on the other side of the room. One which happened to have his disembodied head on display.

____

"Welcome to the Final Guardian. I am sure that you saw this one coming. After all, what self-respecting villainous computer does not supply a boss battle?

____

"Now, down to business; you destroyed my companions. Yes, I am aware that they are perfectly fine and will be rebuilt later, but it still... peeves me a little. Aggravates, even. One might say it... **makes me angry."**

____

Suddenly, the room was filled with a harsh green glow.

____

**"Will you like me when I am angry?"** Fortress Hulkjeet asked ominously as large turrets sprang from the walls.

____

* * *

____

Floor 120:

____

"Ah, Rock. How unexpected." Doof called out from the darkness, "And by unexpected I of course mean _COMPLETELY EXPECTED_!"

____

As the good doctor basked in his own evil laughter the lights came on, revealing an immense chamber in his normal color scheme of purple, chrome, and electric green. And at the center; a fifty foot tall version of Norm with a screen on the chest, revealing Heinz Doofenshmirtz in all his pharmacist-like glory.

____

"BEHOLD! The Doof-Powered Battle Norm, equipped with all of his Baseline weapons, all eight Master Inators, and a few surprises! Get ready for the fight of your Looping career!" With that, the mad inventor started running, supplying the needed kinetic energy to his creation.

____

"WE SHOULD DO LUNCH SOME TIME!"

____

* * *

____

30.16 (Harry Leferts): [Zootopia] / [Jurassic Park]

____

Nick bent his head back slowly and stared up with his eyes wide. "... C-Carrots? Is... that you?"

____

There was a deep, rumbling chuckle before a deeper and louder version of Judy's voice echoed out. "Yeah... it's me."

____

Looking around, Nick noted that no one was really giving Judy a second glance despite everything and then turned his attention back to her. "Really... it's you?" After getting a nod, he pawed his face and took a deep breath. "... I... I just... really?"

____

Another rumbling chuckle could be heard for a moment. "Uh, yeah... trust me, it was really weird for me as well when I Woke up... and even odder is that everyone is treating me just like in Baseline."

____

For several moments, Nick was silent as he looked up at her. "... They're treating you as a rabbit..."

____

Humming, Judy nodded a bit. "Pretty much..."

____

Now utterly confused, Nick spread his arms wide. "How... I mean why!?"

____

If anything though, Judy was just really amused. "I was adopted this loop."

____

Flabbergasted, Nick let his arms drop before he groaned. "That just brings up more questions!"

____

Judy "Indominus" Hopps just shrugged as she tossed back a hot dog like the bite sized morsel it was. "You're telling me, though the whole able to camouflage myself and seeing heat is pretty cool."

____

* * *

____

30.17 (Black Omochao): [Zootopia] / [DinoZaurs]

____

"Excuse me," the elephant working the counter of Jumbeaux's Café looked forward to see a small bat hovering before him with a smile on her face. "I would like one of your jumbo servings of ice cream! Mix of all flavors you have, and don't go easy on the peanuts!" the elephant regarded the small, flying mammal without much care.

____

"Beat it shrimp! We don't serve your kind," the larger mammal huffed, causing the bat to frown a bit. The air around her seemed to blur and the eyes of the elephants behind the counter, and all the customers widened and they backed up as a massive dragon stood where the bat did, barely fitting in the front of the store.

____

"I don't think you heard me. I would like a jumbo serving of ice cream... Now!"

____

Fearfully the elephant took the order and the others began to get her ice cream. "And glove those trunks! I don't want snot in my ice cream!" The elephants could only nod fearfully as they followed her directions.

____

* * *

____

"Thank you!" The small bat cheered as she somehow carried the giant cone out of the shop that was easily several times her size. She walked on the ground with the cone held between her small hands as she left.

____

"C-come again," The elephant behind the countered mumbled timidly. After the bat left the shop she met up with a rabbit and a fox.

____

"So, how are you liking Zootopia Kira?" Judy questioned as Kira set her cone down and hovered to the top of it.

____

"Well, if I can get ice cream like this here, I hope I can come more often!" Kira cheered before diving into her massive serving of frozen dessert.

____

"Just try not to scare everyone too much," Judy muttered with a little chuckle.

____

"Speak for yourself, that was hilarious," Nick smirked.

____

* * *

____

30.18 (Arc_Zephyr): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Undertale]

____

At first Sora had figured that this was going to be a Baseline Loop. Sure there were little variations at the start like an Unawake Kairi speaking only in a mix of French and Spanish, but the events didn't seem to stray too far from Baseline this Loop.

____

That notion was quickly squashed when he arrived in Halloween Town and saw just who was replacing Jack Skellington this Loop.

____

"GREETINGS, HUMAN... AND DUCK AND DOG PERSON!" The tall skeleton with a red cape fluttering in the wind cheered gleefully. "I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS~! WELCOME TO SPAGHETTIWEEN TOWN. WOULD YOU LIKE SOME OF MY ARTISAN SPAGHETTI?" The Unawake version of Papyrus continued while ignoring the confused stares he was receiving.

____

"Gawrsh, Spaghettiween Town? I thought this was Halloween Town, Sora?" One thoroughly confused Goofy echoed the thoughts of all three Loopers with that one question.

____

With the dim lighting that came naturally with this world it was hard to tell, but most of the Halloween attractions that made up Guillotine Plaza were replaced with sculptures made of spaghetti. Little monster children were running around from door to door. Naturally, they must have been going on a round of Trick or Treating, but even Sora had to blink in surprise when he saw them receive plates of spaghetti.

____

"Eh, I've seen weirder." Donald commented nonchalantly causing his fellow Loopers to give him strange looks.

____

Regardless of what Donald said, Spaghettiween Town was one of the weirder variations of Halloween Town in Sora's books.

____

* * *

____

30.1: This marks the first Loop in this thread that was entirely mine, rather than an addendum to an older one. And the first and (as of this writing) _only_ Loop written for this particular setting, since I have yet to find anything for it that's older.

____

30.2: She's got a point there.

____

30.3: ... Okay, how did Mare-Do-Well get there?

____

30.4: No. No, you shouldn't be surprised, Marlin.

____

30.5: And so Jane Banks begins to Loop.

____

30.6: Replacing your mentor...

____

30.7: Another Loop with Jane.

____

30.8: A couple of visiting Loopers.

____

30.9: That must have been a fun one.

____

30.10: Several Loops in one, and Michael Awakens.

____

30.11: Ouch... poor Judy, having to go through that.

____

30.12: Punny!

____

30.13: Yes, F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s avatar actually looks like that W.I.T.C.H. character.

____

30.14: Oy.

____

30.15: Yep, these sorts of things happen in the Mega Man Loops.

____

30.16: Oh. My.

____

30.17: Kira of DinoZaurs visits Zootopia.

____

30.18: Yes. Yes, that is a pretty weird variant.

____


	48. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-One

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-01-27. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-One**

31.1 (phantomdemon2): [Lilo & Stitch]

"What are little Girl and 626 doing?" asked a confused Jumba.

"We're having an arm wrestling competition." Lilo replied from the table where she and Stitch were Arm Wrestling

"Why? Stitch much stronger than little human ar... you haven't lost yet though. New ability?"

Lilo turned to Jumba "Sorta, me and Stitch traded places last loop and I wanted to see who would win." Lilo's hand suddenly hit the table. "STITCH, I WAS DISTRACTED!"

"I win, I win, Stitch beat Lilo," taunted the blue alien

"AGGGGHHH!" Lilo retaliated by tackling Stitch.

* * *

31.2 (Harry Leferts): [Zootopia] / [Redwall]

Scowling, Judy turned over the last item on her person to the guard that could be used as a weapon. Once the rhinoceros nodded, she moved into the small room and sat down. In front of her, there was a mouse that was simply watching her from inside his cage. When she had Woken up, she had quickly found out that Bellwether had not gone to Zootopia. Judy had actually relaxed a bit and thought it would vacation loop of sorts...

And then the night howler case had started up, but with differences. Baseline, it had threatened carnivores as a whole, but here, certain species were hit targeted. Rats, weasels, stoats, cats of all kinds... Foxes too.

That last one had cheesed her off a bit. _Especially_ when whoever was behind it had targeted Nick specifically. However, she had still cracked the case and it turned out to eh a group of mice, lead by the one in front of her. Of course, considering what had happened, the guard wasn't there to prevent the mouse from escaping, but rather jump in if Judy attacked. After all, Nick was still limping since he wasn't Awake yet.

But Judy, after a lot of work convinced them to let her question the mouse. Much to her surprise though, the mouse just sighed and shook his head at seeing her. "You know, I'm rather surprised at you." At her narrowed eyes, he shrugged a bit. "For a rabbit, you seem pretty intelligent. And a rather good fighter as well."

It went without saying that Judy's voice was layered in sarcasm. "Gee, thanks. I appreciate a compliment from _you_."

Sadly, the mouse just smiled. "Yet you don't seem to see the truth, or want to see it. You actually trust that fox."

Eyes narrowing, Judy growled. "I trust Nick with my _life_. He is one of the most trustworthy people I know."

The mouse just shook his head. "That's what I mean. You've somehow fallen for his tricks. Foxes, like all vermin, can't be trusted. They'd sell their mothers into slavery or even murder them if it gave them just a bit more of a chance to make their plans come to fruition. He'll backstab you one of these days, they don't know the first thing about friendship after all."

It took Judy a few moments to calm herself before she snorted. "They obviously know more about friendship then you." After a moment, she frowned some. "You keep calling them that. Vermin... Same with rats, weasels, and others. Or Goodbeasts if they're a mouse, hare, squirrel... Why?"

Shrugging, the mouse sat down. "Because that's what they are and what ones like you and me are. They're vermin and we're Goodbeasts. It's just how things work." Crowning, he glanced over at the television and shook his head. "I just wish that you and the others would understand. I was just showing the world how they truly are."

Before Judy could say anything though, she felt a Ping and sent one back. Her eyes widened though as she noted that the mouse stiffened for a moment and the looked around slightly and then she felt a third Ping. 'No...' Once more shoving her anger down, Judy. "You know, you might be wide Awake, but I think that you're pretty loopy."

Head whipping around, the mouse stared at her for a moment before frowning. "Actually, I'm pretty Anchored."

It went without saying that the grin on Judy's face and the look in her eye caused a shiver to run down the mouse's back. "Oh, no, I'm an Anchor for people." Slowly, she leaned down as the mouse's eyes widened. "I don't know where you're from, Martin. But I do know this... You just made an enemy when you put Nick into the hospital. When we cross paths, you better hope it's not in your home where you do a loop de loop. Because I. Will. Wreck. It. And. You."

With that, Judy got up and walked away, the grin causing even the rhino guard to back away some.

* * *

31.3 (Slayst): [Grimm] / [Zootopia]

Nick Burkhardt was so used to his loop by now, that he could almost always identify a Variant by a mere glimpse of a situation. It wasn't perfect, but his instincts were right in nine cases out of ten. The murder weapon being unusual was a pretty good gave away, and so was a total absence of murder.

The present day was engraved in his mind as the one where an innocent _wesen_ suffered once more from the cruelty and greed of their flawed society and morals. In every loop, young Peter Bennett died simply because of what he was, a Willahara.

Those bunny-like _wesen_ were extremely peaceful. Nothing in them would ever identify them as valuable prey for other _wesen_. Well, nothing but their feet.

As fucked up as it seemed, their severed _woged_ paws acted as a placebo aphrodisiac to other _wesen_ once placed under the conjugal bed. It was a good luck charm, supposed to enhance the couple's fertility.

Because of this stupid legend, the young boy always ended up dead and one foot short, a small distance from his house. An innocent nightly escapade to see his girlfriend turned up to be deadly when a Vulpesmyrca showed up to sprung a trap on him.

Those fox-like _wesen_ , cousins to the Fuchsbau, were formidable hunters. Cunning, strong enough to rival a Grimm, and not shying away from modern technology, they stopped at nothing to get to their prey.

What had changed this time? Why hadn't the boy been killed? Why wasn't the family targeted?

The answer may very well lie in the two pings he had felt a couple of days ago. It was entirely possible for a looper to have either replaced or interacted with either the murderer or the Bennett family.

It was time for the Portland PD to pay them a little routine visit.

* * *

"Please Detective, make yourself at home." pleasantly said Mme Bennett, gesturing at the living room. "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"I would love to, but that survey won't answer itself I'm afraid. I'll quickly interview your children and be on my way."

"I see, what a shame." she replied, walking toward a flight of stairs. "My son Peter's out at the moment, but you can always talk to my daughter. Judy!"

Nick had to contain a victorious "I knew it!" at hearing the girl's name. The baseline daughter was named Chloe, this Judy had to be a visiting looper.

"What is it mom?"

"Come down please, a policeman wants to ask you a few questions."

"Huh, if you don't mind..." interfered Nick. "I'd rather go upstairs myself. Answering that survey can be rather embarrassing for teenagers, especially girls. I'm afraid your presence would only bother your daughter."

"Oh..." sighed the woman, understanding the probable nature of the totally imaginary survey. "Wouldn't one of your female colleagues be more suited for such an inquiry then?"

"Most assuredly, yes, but my boss is a sadist." explained the Grimm, scratching his head awkwardly. "I think he likes to watch me get uncomfortable. But hey, he's my boss so I don't really have a choice."

The Bennett matriarch had previously checked the man's ID, and could see the truth in his words.

"Well... good luck then." she said with a tired smile, before once more calling up the stairs.

"Judy, Detective Burkhardt is coming up."

"But, mom... I'm with a friend and..."

The mother showed momentary surprise, apparently unaware of housing a guest.

Nick decided to prevent any drama and talked to the girl himself.

"I'm sure your friend won't mind me taking a few minutes of your time for this survey, miss Bennett. It is official Portland PD material, destined to help our city's teenagers in their everyday lives. The results will assist those few who feel a bit loopy and need to be anchored properly."

If his suspicions proved correct, she would understand.

His enhanced Grimm hearing faintly picked a hushed exchange between the girl and her mysterious guest, whose voice was definitely wait to low to be female. The exact content was too blurry, but he could swear that he'd heard Anchor and looper somewhere in there.

A weak and slightly weary "Fine, I'll do it." finally reached the first floor.

"Thank you sweetheart." beamed her mother. "I hope your room is clean."

"MOM!"

Nick smothered a grin and walked past the woman, taking the stairs.

Reaching the second floor, the Anchor got his first glimpse of the young girl he was supposedly here to interview on things he definitely didn't want to.

Fifteen years old, maybe sixteen, with a fair figure and hypnotizing violet eyes. She was dressed in jeans, a blue shirt, and had long light-brown hair – which weirdly enough appeared greyish in the sunlight – held in two braids around her head.

"Detective." she said with a small acknowledging nod, immediately followed by a gesture toward an open door. "Come in please."

"Thank you." replied the Grimm, nodding back.

He'd barely stepped into the room when she closed the door behind him and asked the question he'd expected.

"So, you're a looper?"

"Anchor, actually." he smiled, presenting his opened hand. "Detective Nick Burkhardt. Welcome to the Grimm loops, miss...?"

"Officer Judy Hopps, Anchor for Zootopia." she introduced herself, accepting the handshake.

"And your friend?" asked Nick, pointing his thumb at the man seated in a shadowy corner of the room.

"Officer Nick Wilde." replied the other looper, coming over to shake the local Anchor's paw... huh, hand. "Her partner."

"And a Vulpesmurca, if I'm not mistaking."

The _wesen_ looked at the Detective and _woged_. His face bloomed into a foxy grin when he saw the Detective's black eyes.

"So, you're a Grimm."

"You are?" asked a surprised Judy, herself _woging_ in her Willahara form.

"Calm down Carrots, he's the one who helped the _wesen_ community around Portland for the past three years. Must be tough to deal with this on top of your standard duty." said Nick Wilde, musing over the complexity of such a task. "I wouldn't want to be in your place."

"Dealing with Night Howlers is hard enough." added Judy.

"I manage." shrugged Nick. "Now, I don't want to worry Mme. Bennet, so I'll be quick. We're currently the only Awake loopers around. I can handle the loop myself, it won't last that much longer, but help is always welcome. So, do you want to treat this as a vacation, or do you want to help?"

The visiting officers exchanged a quick glance, a nod, and a smile. With matching moves, they snatched sunglasses from midair, just as police hats dropped on their heads.

"Where do we begin, Detective?"

* * *

31.4 (TangleKat): [Ratatouille] / [Redwall]

Remy Woke to a bubbling pot of slop that seemed to be trying to call itself stew. Shaking the dregs of the changeover from his mind, he began stirring the pot while surreptitiously taking stock of where he was. It was some sort of badly-maintained camp, and everyone in it was covered in varying levels of grunge - Remy himself included, which almost made him gag.

There were quite a few varieties of animals making up the populace of the camp; rats, weasels, stoats, a few ferrets - Remy even swore that he saw a pair of foxes at one point. Each of the beasts was armed to the teeth, and they distinctly gave off the air of having been pirates at one point - if the layers of salty, half-worn rime covering everything was to be believed.

Delving into his Loop memories, he winced - half from tasting the slop and half from the experiences floating in his subconscious. It seemed that at one point the crew had been pirates; however, they'd been ransacking the surrounding areas on land for about three years now. The Captain was a wicked giant of a rat named Cluny the Scourge; so called due to the fearful iron barb that decorated his long, whiplike tail.

It seemed that Cluny had gotten it into his head to try and conquer a place that was whispered about amongst the crew; a place that was almost alive in and of itself, protected by the guardian spirit of one of its' founders: Redwall Abbey. Just the name seemed to resonate with Remy, and he gave an unconscious flick of his tail as a chill of anticipation ran down his spine.

Giving the slop one last whiff, he lay down his spoon, squared his shoulders, and marched off towards Cluny's tent. Knocking on one of the wooden supports, he shivered as a deep, guttural voice growled out of the darkened tent. "So what sorry news have you brought this time?"

Quelling his quivering knees, Remy tried to keep the tremble out of his voice, only to fail miserably. "S-sorry, sir, b-but the food's almost unpalatable. I was w-wondering if I c-could maybe take a f-foraging party out to find some in-ingredients?" There was something about the voice, about the smell, that seemed to shut down every instinct that Remy had as a Looper - the voice of Cluny the Scourge reached past all that and dragged his animal instincts screaming to the fore.

The Voice seemed to consider it for a moment, before shrugging back a terrible laugh. A paw shot out of the darkness and seized Remy by the throat, hoisting him into the air as if he were made of rags. "So you don't care for the food, eh? You'd rather have something better?"

Remy struggled to breath, trying to tear the iron-hard paw from his throat. "I-urk! Know how to cook, sir! If - if the crew doesn't have -ack! - something healthy to eat, they'll all get sick!"

Cluny's grasp loosened a hair, and Remy could see a single eye glittering wickedly out of the darkness at him. "Hmmm... Morale has been loose of late, and no army marches on an empty stomach... fine then. Make your foraging party. Take Clawback and Splitsnout with you, and keep to the shadows. I don't want any of those Redwallers finding out about this."

Cluny's paw withdrew into his tent, and Remy drank in the fresh air gratefully, massaging his aching throat with a paw. Utilizing his Loop Memories, he quickly found the stoat and rat whom Cluny had mentioned. Both were sitting at the slop-pot, gagging as they ladled the swill into their bowls. Taking a deep breath, he let a fraction of his Unawake self drift up to help him avoid detection.

"Hold up, lads. Y'd better not touch that, else it'll make yer bellies try t' murder yew. I just finished - er, speaking... with the chief. He's okayed me for a foraging party, an' yew two are to accompany me. We'll all be havin' proper vittles by nightfall - guaranteed." He resisted the urge to hack, as his voice fell into the raspy, uncomfortable pattern of speech. Fortunately, the pair didn't even bat an eyelash as they dumped their bowls back into the slop pot.

"No clue as to why ye've been holdin' out on us afore know, but I don't care at this point. All I want's some fresh food - and ye'd better not skip on the meat for us, lad." Clawback muttered, jabbing Remy in the gut. Setting off into the forest's cool shade, Remy couldn't help but wonder what kind of a Loop he'd ended up in - and the echoes of Cluny's laughter in his memory gave him a shudder as he entered the shadows of the underbrush.

* * *

"What's so different about this particular foraging party, Martin? Cluny's sent plenty of them before - especially in this Variant." Matthias bit back a yawn as he tramped through the dewy grass with the Warrior's spirit drifting beside him.

The Anchor didn't answer right away, peering through the mid-dawn gloom to check for rats or other vermin scurrying through the shadows. "For starters, this foraging party wasn't his idea. I only caught the tail end of it, but it seems that one of the horde-rats was dissatisfied with the food they were getting and wanted to make something better. I didn't recognize him, so I'd guess that we have a visiting Looper on our paws."

Matthias understood instantly. "And we should probably be on our guard if he's Looped into Cluny's horde. Makes sense. So we're going to get a bead on him before we do anything else, right?"

Martin nodded. "Right. I can't see him being any trouble, but I've been wrong before about these things."

Matthias laughed, and swatted a leaf out of his face. "Not often, though."

* * *

The two Redwallers found a vantage point in a large, bent oak tree that overlooked a sizeable clearing. Beneath them, three rats - two brown, and one blue-grey - were searching through the brush for anything edible. Martin gestured to the blue one, who seemed to be acting as the leader of the party.

"That's the one who suggested the foraging party - the Looper. Whomever he is, he's not afraid to take charge of a situation."

Matthias watched as one of the brown rats showed a pawful of leaves to the newcomer, who sniffed them and started sorting through them. "He's also got a good eye for details, so he's pretty smart too. We might be in trouble if he decides to overthrow Cluny."

The newcomer threw out most of the leaves, and tucked the ones he kept neatly into a worn rush basket. As he wandered slightly out of view of the other two rats, he surreptitiously grabbed a large burdock leaf and began scrubbing himself down, a look of disgust on his face. Special care was given to his paws, which he wiped furiously as if trying to remove some unseen taint.

Martin's eyes narrowed. "He's fastidious, so I'd guess that whatever Loop he comes from has to have more amenities than ours. Probably filtered water and a reliable source of soap, if I had to judge."

The newcomer plucked a branch and deftly twisted it into a rough comb, which he proceeded to use to groom his fur. A quick sniff had him retching, as if he couldn't believe how filthy he was.

Something tickled the back of Matthias's mind, and he scratched behind his ear as he tried to recall what it was. "How he's acting... it reminds me of someone. Something I've seen before..."

Martin rubbed his chin. "Now that you mention it, it does feel familiar. I'd still swear that I've never seen him before, though."

The newcomer spotted a group of truffles clustered beneath the oak where the two Redwallers were sitting, and Martin faded from sight while Matthias used his habit to camouflage himself against the tree. Up close, the novice cum Warrior could see that the blue-grey rat's eyes were keen and appraising, and he examined the truffles with a professional air. Despite the unkemptness of his fur and the vermin tackle festooning him, he seemed somehow more noble than the two horde-rats who rushed up to him clutching armfuls of roots, tubers, and other plant matter.

Unnoticed by the vermin, Martin drifted up next to them, trying to hear the newcomer's voice.

"Y'can't jus' grab any sort of stuff in th' woods, what d'you numbskulls think yer doin ou' there? Pickin' daisies to make Cluny a daisy chain? Take more care when you grab stuff. Clawback, those berries'd kill yew - see th' dark spots? An' Splitsnout, th' wild carrots yew grabbed wouldn' even make a mouthful. Go back an' grab some better ones, or I'll have yer tails fer dinner instead."

The Anchor bit back a silent groan. Whomever this Looper was, he was sure pouring it on thick with the accent. And that was on top of the already-present French accent that the newcomer seemed to be sporting.

Back in the tree, Matthias suddenly realized exactly what it was that had been bothering him, and he gestured for Martin to get back.

Drifting back to the treetop hiding place, Martin made himself slightly visible and raised an eyebrow at Matthias. "What? Did you figure something out?"

The other Looper nodded. "Yeah, I did. The way he's acting - it's like Friar Hugo does when he gets his mind set on a particular dish. That would explain the cleanliness and his eye for details, though I couldn't tell you much else."

Martin sat down on the branch that Matthias was standing on and watched the three rats exit the clearing on their way to find something else. "It tells us a lot, actually. When I was down there, I heard a bit of a French accent in him. If we can go through the list of known villainous Loopers, we might just be able to find him and defend against whatever he might plan later down the road. For now though, we should probably head back to the Abbey."

The two Loopers melted into the shadows and vanished from sight. Back in the clearing, Remy cocked an ear towards the tree where they'd been sitting. _"Well, that might make things a bit more difficult. That Cluny guy already scares me enough; I don't need the native Loopers thinking I'm a villain - or vermin, as it seems to be here - on top of that. Still, I made a promise to give these guys a good meal, and I intend to keep my word."_

* * *

31.5 (kingofsouls): [Gravity Falls] / [Etrian Odyssey 2]

The Fafnir Knight couldn't help but snicker at Dipper as the two made their way towards the forest entrance, eager to get the adventure started. "It's not funny."

"It kind of is." Fafnir replied through a stray snicker. "Your real name is a little underwhelming. Dipper stands out, but... your real name kind of falls flat. I can see why you go by that."

"Says the guy who can't even remember his own name?" countered Dipper with disdain evident in his tone. "Hello, pot, I'm kettle."

"Okay, you got me there." relented Fafnir.

* * *

31.6 (Shadow Wolf75): [Mighty Ducks]

It was Orbital Industries under attack yet again, and it turned out there only were two of the three Saurian henchmen in the area. While it wasn't completely unusual for Wraith to not tag along with the others, Tanya remembered he was there last time. In fact she remembered narrowly avoiding getting roasted by one of his fireballs during this particular fight. So, while most basic things from the previous timeline would stay the same, other things might be different? This didn't really follow with how time travel usually worked.

Eventually this one alteration to the timeline bothered the tech enough that she dared to ask about it. "Aren't you guys missing someone?" Tanya immediately had to dodge a blaster bolt aimed for her head . . . oooh, Siege did NOT look happy.

"If you mean the idiot who tried to kill Lord Dragaunus and then ran like a coward, then yeah, we're missin' someone. Gonna snap his neck if I find him..."

Judging by the amount of her teammates with dropped jaws, and the fact Tanya didn't recall it from this timeline's memories, this was a very new development. Like, at some point between their last scuffle with the Saurians and this one.

"Come on, Siege, I still don't think he was tryin' to kill him exactly..." Chameleon avoided a few pucks that were shot in his direction, and commented again. "Tryin' to hurt him, probably, but the boss would be dead if Wraith really meant it."

"It's still treason either way, you moron! Tch, just my luck for trusting a damn mage, even if he is the last one." Siege was a bitter soul normally, but this sounded to be the last straw. There would be no quarter for his former comrade if they ever crossed paths again. "You know what our orders are, you better follow through if you find him first!"

The battle raged on, and eventually the two lackeys were sent scurrying back to the Raptor, without either of them saying much else about whatever happened between Wraith and Dragaunus.

* * *

31.7 (Kaoupa): [Gravity Falls]

"So, what do you say?" Stan grinned, inviting the twins Dipper and Mabel onto his boat in yet another Loop.

Dipper thought it over very briefly. "...You could come fishing with us, Grunkle Stan."

"Eh?" Stan frowned, puzzled by the offer that his great-nephew had made him.

"I mean, Soos's boat is a lot bigger, there's way more room for you to fish from!" Dipper continued quickly.

"Yeah! And this part of the lake is probably all fished out by now." Mabel said. "Well, at least the fish probably aren't biting as much."

"Hmmmm..." Stan said, looking more considerate now.

"Soos's boat doesn't have any leaks on it." Dipper added, looking briefly over the Stan'O War. Which was leaking an awful lot, to say the least.

"Eh..." Stan said, still doubting it. This was a boat he had made himself, after all...

"Here, boss." Soos said, throwing Stan a rope.

"Huh? What's this for?" Stan asked, holding up the rope and trying to throw it away.

Only to realize that it was stuck to his hand. "WHAT THE HE-Y?!"

"Let's go!" Dipper grinned. Soos hit the accelerator on his boat, dragging the Stan'O War along behind him.

"You'll thank us for this later, Grunkle Stan!" Mabel yelled behind her.

Stan was too busy yelling to really respond to her.

* * *

31.8 (DrTempo): [RWBY] / [Kingdom Hearts]

Winter Awoke, and saw that she wasn't in Remnant this Loop. Looking around, she saw she was looking at what appeared to be a place of some kind. Confused, she sat down, and saw two people sit down next to her, and her Loop Memories provided their names.

"Hello, Terra and Ventus. It is good to see you."

The said two Keyblade wielders instantly used a Ping, and Winter sighed in relief.

"Phew. Guess I'm not alone this Loop. So, this is the Kingdom Hearts Loop? Seeing you two here... that means I replaced Aqua."

Terra smiled. "Had a feeling you'd figure it out quickly, miss Schnee. And before you ask, Sora once Looped in Ruby's role, and met the Unawake version of you."

Ventus chuckled. "Sora took out Cinder before her plan could be enacted. Pretty clever, if you ask me."

Winter than said, "Since I replaced Aqua, I wonder..." Using her Loop memories as a guide, Winter focused, and in a flash of light, A Keyblade that appeared to be made of ice, with the teeth of the blade shaped like a snowflake, appeared in her hand."This is my Keyblade... Isn't it?"

Terra nodded. "Yeah. I've seen Sora use that Keyblade before. It's called Diamond Dust. It fits you perfectly, Winter."

"So, how long is it before the Unversed appear, Terra? I do need to learn how to use my Keyblade."

"About six months, if memory serves." Ventus then yawned.

"Less talking, more training!" Winter bowed.

"Let us begin then, Terra." Terra nodded.

"Let the training begin, Winter."

* * *

Six months passed, and Winter was a fast learner, quickly getting the hang of using her Keyblade, and the abilities that came with it. Apparently, her Loop memories helped her catch up to baseline Aqua's skill level quickly. And now, the Mark of Mastery exam had arrived on schedule. After Winter and Terra had their fight, before Eraqus and Xehanort departed, Winter said, "Before you leave to decide if Terra and I passed, Ventus remembered something he wanted me to ask you, Master Xehanort... something about you wanting to create something called a X-blade."

Eraqus quickly looked at Xehanort. "You are still searching for that, Xehanort?"

Xehanort tried to say something, but Winter then said, "Before the orbs we used as targets for the exam went crazy, I sensed darkness coming from Master Xehanort. I think he was trying to sabotage the exam."

Eraqus growled, and Xehanort made a gesture, but looked surprised when nothing happened.

"Looking for something?"

King Mickey then walked in, and tossed Vanitas' helmet to the ground. Xehanort, realizing his plan had been stopped before it could begin, tried to escape, but a barrier surrounded the room, and Xehanort realized he had been outwitted. Raising his Keyblade, he prepared for his last battle...

* * *

Shortly after that, Terra and Winter were dubbed true Keyblade Masters, and Winter asked, "Now what?"

Ventus shrugged. "More training, I suppose. You still have a lot of training to do to catch up to our level."

Winter nodded in agreement. "Very well. Still, this will be a challenge. But, I've dealt with worse."

"At least you didn't get trapped in the Realm of Darkness."

"Agreed. The Heartless, from what you told me, are very similar to the Grimm back home. Not something I want to deal with this Loop."

With that, Winter and Terra began sparring, and Winter knew she'd be ready for whatever came next.

* * *

31.9 (Hvulpes): [Phineas and Ferb] Re. Milo Murphy's Law

"Well, the readings are correct. There does seem to be an increased level of probability flux occurring as the time loops occur. It is as if the more loops we have, the more concentration of negative probability incidents occur. The question is why?" asked Baljeet, as he and his friends looked at the machines as well as the read-outs.

"I know. Dr. D says he hasn't done anything out of the ordinary with luck, just his normal baseline stuff. And we didn't do anything with luck. So what could be causing all of this bad luck to occur?" continued Phineas as he tried to locate the source of the luck.

"It's like Murphy's Law gone amuck!" finished Isabella as they were all looking at the machines, wondering why this was happening.

It was just bad luck they weren't looking at the street as a body in a sweater vest and a backpack ran from the pack of wild wolves with his friends.

* * *

31.10 (Kaoupa): [Gravity Falls] / [Marvel]

"Wait, you're saying that you haven't added any magical computational abilities to your computers?" Dipper Pines asked curiously, looking up at Mr. Fantastic as the older Looper worked in his lab.

"Well, not exactly." Reed Richards admitted, absently stretching his arm out to grab a vial from a different bench, "I have several dozen magically-enhanced computers from other Loops and Loopers in my Pocket. I just see no need for them at this point."

"Really? It would probably make things a lot easier for this... whatever it is that you're doing." Dipper commented, looking over the screens in front of him.

He had to admit, that he understood about half of it at the moment, without tapping into his... powers, felt pretty satisfying.

"It's a recent project I've started working on over the last few Loops after I wound up in the Walled World." Mr Fantastic said politely. "Levi asked me to see if I could create a way of curing the Titan condition without killing the host human or the need for mental powers, or to turn normal Titans into Shifters."

"Yeah, they'd probably like having that around." Dipper agreed.

"Indeed. I'm making progress, but so far, I haven't come up with anything they'd be able to reproduce in their own Loop without outside assistance." Mr Fantastic admitted, frowning as he looked over the charts again.

"Seriously, why not just use some magic in this? It would probably make it a lot easier." Dipper deadpanned. "Magitek usually works best."

Mr Fantastic snorted. "I am aware of that, Dipper, but I have very little skill with magic."

"Well, they might not." Dipper pointed out. "Couldn't you use those computers from your Pocket now?"

Reed laughed. "Dipper, I understand you, but... I need to challenge myself somehow these days. As it is, it only took me seven Loops to get this far..."

"...A _challenge_ , huh?" Dipper grinned, sprouting teeth in his mouth that were much sharper than usual. "I think I can help with that..."

* * *

"-so well, I can't offer you too much advice on taking care of older children. Franklin and Valeria are both brilliant, but I barely ever see them when they're older than thirteen."

"Yeah, thanks, Mrs. Storm." Mabel said, nodding. "It's just... I never thought i'd ever see a Variant where I have kids."

"I can imagine that would be rather surprising at first." Susan admitted, before arriving at the front entrance, and pressing a button.

Almost clicheingly, a doorbell rang.

"What?! You have no bio-electric autoscanner or fingerprinting?!" Mabel demanded, looking comically outraged.

"We do, you just can't see it." Susan smiled, before frowning as the door refused to open. "Is it stuck?"

"Hello, Mrs. Fantastic!" The comm chirped happily, in a voice neither Mabel or Susan recognized. "I apologize, but you can't come in at this time."

"Who is this? What have you done with my husband!?" Susan snarled.

"And my brother!" Mabel shouted alongside her.

"Oh, nothing." The voice said cheerfully. "They're doing fine. Well, Richards is really annoyed, but they're fine. Now, I will let you in if you give me a six-pack of root-"

Without blinking, Susan smashed open the glass window next to the door, before carefully walking through the hole. Mabel jumped through after her.

"...You two are _no fun_." The voice said, sounding almost like it was pouting.

* * *

Upstairs...

"What exactly happened here?" Susan Storm asked, an eyebrow raised as she looked over the board of computers in front of her.

She was pretty sure that her husband would have told her before making what appeared to be another AI.

Let alone one that wore a top hat and a suit, and which had apparently taken over his computer network.

Mr. Fantastic sighed as he started typing. "This, dear, was a result of my poor word choice..."

In the background, Dipper Pines sat at the dinner table, absently making popcorn in his right hand.

And as he watched Mr Fantastic try fiercely to purge his computer systems of the Alcor Virus, he smiled a smile filled with far too many sharp teeth.

* * *

31.11 (Firehawk242): [Winx Club] / [Percy Jackson] (also compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as 23.10)

CLANG!

CLANG!

CLANG!

"Ow!"

"Point for me. Wanna take a break?"

"Sure."

The two demigods retired to the edge of the arena for some water.

"So, not to be rude, but how do you even _lift_ that thing?" Percy Jackson asked.

"This?" Brandon asked, patting the enormous greatsword he was using. "This is nothing. My Phanto-Blade's even bigger."

"Isn't that like a lightsaber?" Percy asked. "Does it even have weight?"

"Sort of," Brandon said. "It doesn't weigh much when it's turned off, but it weighs as much as a normal sword when it's on."

"Ah, magic," Percy said.

"Pretty much," Brandon said. "That's just how we roll."

"Dude, don't try using our slang," Percy said. "It does not work for you. Does not."

"Got it," Brandon said.

"So, explanation for what this loop made you?" Percy asked. "I mean I know Hera and Ares are mother and son, but that doesn't mean she likes his kids. Even weirder is Aphrodite agreeing with her."

"Not sure," Brandon said. "I mean the whole Son of Ares thing makes sense. I'm the strongest of the Specialists. Um, I mean in terms of actual strength. Sky and Riven are better fighters."

"You're the strongest? Really? No kidding!" Percy said. "Is that why you use a barn door for a sword?"

"It's not that big," Brandon said. "So the Son of Ares thing makes sense. I have no idea why Hera and Aphrodite like me though."

"Eh, I guess there's no accounting for gods," Percy said. "Wanna go another round?"

"Sure, let me grab the spear this time," Brandon said.

* * *

31.12 (Hvulpes): [Frozen]

Elsa was trying to hold back her laughter at the looks Kristoff and Sven, the dirty grumpy looks, they were giving Anna.

The redhead was looking a bit ashamed and sheepish, "I thought we could all enjoy some holiday music."

Anna had tried to spark the Christmas Spirit, by bringing out some music from the collection in her pocket. Selecting some songs to play, she had obvious made a mistake which had upset the princess' boyfriend and said boyfriend's best friend.

"Neither Sven or any of his friends or family have every run over anyone! Especially not any elderly women or grandmothers!" said the blond haired man as he also said for the reindeer while moving the animal's lips, "Yeah! I never!"

* * *

31.13 (Masterweaver): [Zootopia] / [RWBY]

"Why the ears? Why is it always the ears?"

"They're easily accessible and quite prominent."

Jada Hollins, better known across the multiverse as Judy Hopps, shook her head. "Look, in my baseline nobody believed a rabbit cop would amount to anything, and I had to fight for respect from day one. I'm not going to become some meek hideaway just because of one bully."

"Cardin's a particularly stupid one," Blake Belladonna acknowledged. She carefully watched as Judy finally patted the fur on her ears down. "Sometimes he does mellow out after Jaune rescues him... usually, we only pay attention to him when we're bored and need to plan a prank on a deserving victim."

Judy gave the raven-haired girl a flat look--before pulling back her hair with a small growl. "Argh! Why'd my unawake self grow her hair out this long?" She tried to force it behind her head, not noticing Blake moving back a step or two. "Usually I keep it short when I'm human!"

"You're a faunus."

"Yeah, well, it _feels_ like I'm a human. Aside from the extra ears." Her eyes rolled up to see her accouterments. "Seriously, is that it? Do Faunus just have animal ears on their head?"

"Ears, tails, horns, claws... it varies from individual to individual."

"Seems like such a small detail to base so much prejudice on," Judy quipped. "Second class citizen just because you have an extra part?"

Blake sighed. "Unfortunately, racism simplifies things. Us versus them is an easy mindset, all you have to do is define one or the other." The black bow atop her own head twitched. "That's why some of us hide it."

"Us versus them..." The rabbit-eared girl let a sigh of her own out. "You're right, you know. I've been on both sides of that. I was such an idiot back in the beginning..."

"I... have seen the film," Blake admitted. "It hit pretty close to home, to be honest."

"Really?"

"Ex-White Fang. Check your loop memories."

Judy tilted her head. "...you were a terrorist?"

"We thought of ourselves as freedom fighters. At one point we actually were--protesters, petitions--but things changed when... well." Blake rubbed her arm awkwardly. "I stayed on until a train mission. Robbing the Schnee company, I could go for, but letting the train operators be bombed to death... I drew the line at killing innocents. Cut the cars off so they could escape and made my way to Beacon from there."

"...I can respect that," Judy finally admitted. "I know that I've had to do less than legal things in my baseline to get the perp."

"Like I said, I've--"

"--seen the film, yeah. They skipped over a LOT of the paperwork, you know?" Judy chuckled. "You know, I think... I think this is why you get me."

"What?"

"We've both had to fight for our right to what might be seen as 'normal' by others. To live the life we want. Other loopers, they seem to be on edge around me, like they don't want to offend me for some reason--honestly though, I'm a big girl, I can take it." She shook her head. "I mean, really, a lot of them have suffered worse than me, they should... be..."

Judy frowned. "...Blake, why are you looking at me like that?"

The girl was staring at her in shock. "...Have you heard of the League of Looping Lagomorphs?"

"Um. No." Judy held out her hands. "Should I have? Am I going to get a letter in the mail or--"

"Oh sweet Dust. You don't know. You..." Blake's mouth worked for a few minutes, before she collected herself. "Okay. Where should I start with this..."

"What? Is this league some sort of..." Judy tilted her head. "Wait, do they teach rabbits crazy self-defense? Is that why people are so cautious around me?"

"No, it's... Look. You know the stereotype, right? Rabbits: Cute, cuddly, defenseless, all that?"

Judy frowned. " _Yes._ "

"Forget it. It's wrong. Completely."

"Okay, sure. Wait, what?"

"Look," Blake said, "if you go around the multiverse and you find large populations of rabbits, most of the time you're safe--assuming they don't have names. The rabbits that have names, the rabbits that step up, the ones that are likely to become loopers... There's this girl called Cream, she's a nice rabbit from the Sonic loops, about six or eight years old, and she regularly decimates armies of robots. She's one of the local superheroes, and don't get me started on Rab _bot_... Bugs Bunny, he's a karmic trickster toon with all the powers that that entails. Peppy Hare, from Starfox, he's an experience starfighter pilot--Buck O'hare, leader of a rebellion against a space empire. I don't know if you've looped into Watership Down yet--"

"First fused loop. Wait, what are you--"

"My point is, _most_ rabbits are cute, cuddly, and defenseless, because the ones that _aren't_ are _completely terrifying._ And it's not just pure rabbits--the girl you're replacing can replicate _any weapon_ she photographs at _will_ and use it with _expert_ skill. You've seen the crazy weapons everyone has, you know how terrifying that is. And Usagi, her name _means_ rabbit... she fought, like, five or six different kinds of demons in her baseline, and she's one of the original seven on top of that. There's a loop where a group of rabbits slaughters a village of other rabbits, and the sole survivor chased them down and killed them all by either kicking their necks in half or throwing knives in their eyes. People aren't cautious around you because they're worried you might be fragile, they're cautious because they're worried you might fry them five ways to Friday!"

Judy gaped as Blake finished her rant, panting for breath. "That--that--that... I'm a _cop!_ I want to _serve_ and _protect!_ "

"So you're the nice kind of terrifying. That's good to know."

"But--wait--you're kidding. You have to be pulling my leg, you can't possibly be serious."

Blake shook her head. "No. I'm sorry, but... Yggdrasil is filled with killer rabbits."

* * *

31.14 (wildrook): [Zootopia]

"You mean to tell me that you knew about the 'League of Looping Lagomorphs' thing?" she asked Nick, who was up against the wall. "And you didn't tell me!?!"

"In my defense, Carrots," Nick replied, "I was told not to tell you UNTIL you found out. They've got close ties with the Vulpine Variety Ventures."

Judy blinked. "The what?" she asked him, letting go of his neck.

Nick groaned. "Long story," he muttered, "but let's just say that while the rabbits are lethal, the foxes are more varied and surprisingly noble." The irony was not lost on either of them. "And I'm not kidding about the close ties thing. Tails is an inventor who's friends with Cream the Rabbit, Fox and Krystal are part of a mercenary group with Peppy Hare, and Naruto Uzumaki and Kurama are close to Usagi due to being members of the O7. I think you can see why I wasn't allowed to tell you until they tried to make contact."

Judy groaned. "So, we're both tied in with groups that are mostly exaggerated variations of certain attributes." Nick gave out a snort. "Easy there, Wilde. I still have the camera thing that can copy weapons."

"I'm aware. I've taken a few archery lessons from Robin Hood myself." Nick gave Judy a look. "So now that we're part of groups that are not only close, but happen to be led by several powerful figures, should we discuss our plans for the Night Howler plants?"

Judy returned said look with a smirk. "I was more thinking we get you registered on the force first," she replied, "then we discuss plans. Still, how varied are these vulpines?"

"Ever hear of the concept of Yokai?" Judy gave him a nod considering she met a few moon rabbits from Gensokyo in that group. "Other than Kurama the Nine-Tailed Fox, there's Kurama from the Spirit Detective's branch, and then there's Kyubi from the place with the Yokai Watches. And the latter was new because he had no idea about Kurama and literally wet himself in terror. And the guy was an S-Class Yokai in Baseline, but to them, he was more of a four-tailed one."

"Wow," Judy muttered. "Anything else?"

"One thing... you ever run into a man named Takeru Tenkuji?" Judy shook her head as he snapped his fingers. "I was supposed to deliver him a package... a green eye that held the soul of Robin Hood... well, _a_ Robin Hood. It kind of went in our possession one time."

"I think we'll keep an eye out when the time comes," the cop replied to the con-man. "Although I'm not familiar with the spiritual to be an expert of this thing, I can dabble."

Nick smirked. "I think they saw why you'd be a candidate," he said. "They can adapt. Although I could have done without the initiation concerning the robot pirate fox and the stun gun."

Either way, it proves that they had friends in high places. Although they did have questions whether or not other species had this kind of an alliance, though.

* * *

31.15 (jxz): [Tangled]

Flynn Ryder/Eugene Fitzherbert (Depending on the mood and loop) had Awoken in a bad place. Gothel had trapped him before he even had a chance to bust Rapunzel from the tower, and Maximus and Pascal were trapped in some kind of illusion she made. Apparently, across the years, Gothel had learnt some spells in this loop, which Flynn blamed to the rock dwarves in Elsa and Anna's kingdom. He didn't care that they didn't teach her magic, those were the most magical being in their loop, damn it!

"So, you think you can bust my dear daughter out of our house, and throw her into the dark, deep world you rat come from?" Gothel said in a mocking voice. Flynn noticed that Rapunzel was behind her, but she seemed to be in an illusion too. "I'm afraid I can't let you do that, for her sake..."

"Ugh, would you please cut it out? We both know you want her for her hair, and if she loses her magic, you'd be more than happy to leave her." Flynn interrupted the madwoman, grinning as she changed faces from motherly to confused and then angry.

"So, you know about Rapunzel's secret?"

"What, about how she's the lost princess of the kingdom and her magical life hair? Yep. I also brought the royal guards to this place, so they'll be here soon." Flynn said, grinning as he tried his best to escape the ropes he was trapped with.

Gothel's face turned sour. "Is that so? Well... I won't go down that easily." She declared, preparing a spell in her hand. "If they want me, they'll have me... A little illusion to make you look like me, that horse like Rapunzel, then... The nasty Gothel was caught by the royal guards after she killed the young princess."

She expected Flynn's face turning to shock and fear, but instead he kept smiling. "Why are you smiling? Are you that calm in the face of death?"

"No, I'm just seeing my wife Waking Up." Flynn declared. Confused, Gothel turned around...

And she got a punch-shaped hair filled with green energy to the face. Rapunzel sighed. "Did you really have to distract her like that?"

"Yes, I did. Thank you for not using the Drill though." Flynn said, finally breaking free from the knots. "You sure took your time escaping that illusion."

"Well, next time you could help me, you know." the princess said, as she tangled her "mother" in her hair. "And I just Awoke, unlike you who didn't escape sooner."

"Well, sorry for trying to be a hero on the first try with no out-of-loop abilities this loop." The thief muttered, as he heard the guards arriving to the tower. "And in any case, where did you learn to create that green energy? You never told me."

"I just have good friends." Was all Rapunzel said, winking.

* * *

31.16 (wildrook): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

"Adrien..." Marinette muttered, caught in an awkward place.

"Marinette..." Adrien said.

"YOU'RE CHAT NOIR/LADYBUG!?!" they both yelled.

Plagg and Tikki blinked.

"It had to happen sooner or later," the black cat muttered. "You know the terms of our bet, Tikki..."

Tikki gave out a sad sigh as she brought a slice of cheese to Plagg. "So much for the school figuring out before they do," she muttered.

* * *

31.17 (Luna Gale): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Danny Phantom]

"Doesn't Paris's skyline just lift your spirits?" Chat Noir commented, as he balanced on top of the Eiffel Tower.

Danny narrowed his eyes. Was this a challenge?

Not taking his eyes off Chat, Danny leaned back in the air, smirk rising on his face, "I'd say the view's purrfect, but I'd be lying."

Chat smirked, "Fe-lying?"

Danny snorted, "Of course, though," He continued, gesturing to the city of lights, "I may not be bright enough to appreciate this sort of thing."

"You have ghoulish tastes."

"Catastrophic even."

"Deadly."

"Clawful."

"Ghastly."

"Hissterically, pawsitively wrong."

Chat shook his head, trying to look serious, but his smirk ruined the effect, "Your mind must be phantasmal to not see the wonder and beauty of my lovely city."

"My mind?" Danny scoffed, dramatically placing a hand where his heart would be, "Well, excuse me, good neko, I may not be brilliant, but I am stable," He looked down to where his feet formed into a tail before looking back up, "Sort of. I'm sort of stable."

"Neigh!" Chat exclaimed, "Stables are for horses, and you, spirit, deserve the best beyond the grave! Not some mind, so transparent that it can not see the wonderful lights!"

"But what about ghost lights? They're beyond anything you could ever see."

Chat's ears went down, "No, fair, I just used the beyond pun."

"Yes," Danny said pointedly, "but you used it as a location. I used it as a concept."

"Still cheating."

"How can you cheat in puns?"

"When it 'tis a battle, any sort of fraud is seen as clawful!"

"..."

"..."

"You used that one didn't you?"

"Yep. You made a grave mistake."

"Fur real?"

"Dead serious."

The pun duo stared seriously at the Paris skyline for a moment, letting the mood settled in a semi-serious tone...before falling into a mess of snickers and giggles. If one were to look up at the Eiffel Tower at that moment, the residents of Paris would see two of their three protectors, laughing like school children, Phantom holding his stomach while he whirled around in the air, and Chat holding desperately to the tip of the tower, as he tried to catch his breath.

Overall, it was a pawsome, spirited night in Paris that evening.

* * *

31.18 (Hvulpes): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Marinette was working on a list of the Akumas and the people they evilized, seeking a pattern to avoid them from happening. Even with variations within the time loops she was stuck in, likely from some unseen akuma. What she was looking at both shocked her and didn't.

"Okay, I know that Chloe was good at turning people into akumas due to her meanness. But the person who makes the most people upset enough to be evilized... is me? How could I do that?" she said out loud in her despair, not expecting an answer.

"It's not your fault, Marinette. You're only human and make mistakes. The trick is learning from them. Which you have many times. You may have caused the situation in the beginning, but since the loops began you been trying to fix or avoid causing problems, right?" asked Tikki, the small ladybug kwami as she floated near her friend and partner.

"Yes... I've tried to avoid making those mistakes. Made new ones, but I guess that's normal too." said the young woman as she perked up a bit. She continued, "And Hawk Moth will still make more akumas since I can't keep everyone in Paris happy and positive."

"A hero is the person who when there is a problem or a mistake, tries to fix it or make things better. No matter what you do... you try to make things better again. Which allows you to make things better." with her magical friend's wisdom, Marinette smiled which was followed by a frown.

"So how am I going to stop Chloe from making akumas with her sparkling personality?"

* * *

31.19 (phantomdemon2): [Gravity Falls]

"Dipper, Dipper! I found a Ray gun that makes everything SPARKLE!" Mabel shouted as she waved around said ray gun.

"Sure, cool, Whatever you say Mabel." Said Dipper as he continued to read the number 3 Journal.

"Dipper, what are you doing, I thought you memorized that things ages ago, be more excited about **INFINITE SPARKLES!** " Mabel complained.

Dipper put down the journal. "Sorry Mabel, was just checking to see if they were any changes this time around. But about that Ray gun" Dipper gave a downright evil grin to Mabel. "What say you and I go give the Manitours a little color?"

"That's downright mean Bro-bro. Let's do it!"

* * *

31.20 (Hvulpes): [Gravity Falls]

"Mabel, remember that ray which made things sparkly? Well, for our birthday, I decided to do one better...

Behold! The Mabelinator!" said Dipper, as he pulled out a bright pink hand-held ray gun with rainbows, ponies and kittens on it.

"The Mabelinator? One, have you been spending too much time with Dr. D?" asked his sister, curious.

"I like mysteries and what is science but a mystery... with cools stuff like lasers and explosions. So I like spending time with crazy scientists... like Great Uncle Ford."

"And two, what does the Mabelinator do?" continued the female Pine twin.

"It Mabelinates people. Behold!" he said, as he fired it at a red car in town. As the beam it, the car shimmered and warped, till a new car emerged. The metal and paint looked like it was made of glitter, the shape was now more like a kitten then a car, with sparkling big anime eyes for headlights. A brilliant rainbow from nothing shined over it.

Mabel eyes widen as did her smiled, as Dipper added, "Just try to avoid using it around me, Grunkle Stan or the Shack."

"I make no promises!!!"

* * *

31.21 (Hvulpes): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Wreck-It Ralph]

Chat Noir sighed again, which caused Ladybug to ask, "What is it?"

The blond hair boy in a mask answered, "It's just, I am getting tired of always being the destructive one. Even if it's my power, I would love to have a more constructive power like yours in creating things. Just once I would love to loop as a maker not a wrecker."

"Don't worry, Chat. I know eventually you'll get the powers you want." said the black haired girl as she smiled at her friend, crush, whatever.

One loop later...

Marinette, now named Rachel, glared down at Adrien. Who also had a different name. Her huge, ham like hands clenched in fists as she growled at him.

Adrien, now known as Felix, chuckled a little in his cap and overalls. He knew he wouldn't be keeping the big noise, but that magical golden hammer was going into his pocket so he could keep it forever.

* * *

31.22 (ScyBlade): [Transformers] / [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Optimus Prime Awoke, and promptly Pinged. He received a large number of replies, as was more common in his Loops. They did have a fair number of Loopers due to their Loop's nature. And that would be the Code for Megatron being awake, and which Decepticons were also awake. Things were looking up.

He began looking around to visually identify any important details, such as Awake Autobots and Variances.

Speaking of Variances, he sighted in one potential Visitor. "Black Cat, you're looking out of it. Are you fully Awake or not?" he queried.

"Huh, oh yeah. Just a little Loopy. Know who I can use as an Anchor?" the black Autobot with feline suggestive decorations replied.

Optimus took a moment to review his Loop Memories. "Vector is unlikely to be available to talk to, but perhaps I can be of assistance." he answered in a jovial manner. "Just follow me so I can help you get your bearings."

* * *

Inside of what was normally Wheeljack's R&D Lab, they began their discussion.

"Huh, this place feels familiar." Black Cat started.

"It should, your unAwake self based it on his personal lab back on Cybertron. He invented many things there. Hopefully you will continue." Optimus explained. "Mind telling me somethings about yourself. It will help me refine my explanation of what goes on here."

Black Cat slowly walked around, confirming where everything was and what he could remember about his stuff, and that there were many explosions. He began his explanation, "Normally I'm just Adrien Agreste, model, until I meet Plagg. Then I get a cool ring that turns me into the superhero Chat Noir, or Cat Noir. We're not sure why that varies."

Optimus nodded. "That would explain your name here."

Black Cat shrugged, and continued his explanation, "We team up with this girl I like, Ladybug, our Anchor, and fight against Akumatized people. They're mostly normal people who've had the worst day of their life, and our villain, named either Hawk Moth or Le Papillon, takes advantage of. He uses their negativity, for lack of a better explanation, to turn them into monstrous versions of themselves." He sighs. "After we beat them, Ladybug does her thing, restoring the physical form of everything to before the Akumatization. Memories are left untouched."

Optimus had that look. The one indicating concern over what happens if the problem is left untreated. "What happens if she doesn't?"

Black Cat got a sad look. "The butterfly used for Akumatization will begin turning others into copies of the Akuma that are under the original's control."

Optimus nods. "I think that's enough for now. As you are replacing our local Mad Scientist, I am curious as to what you'll make."

"Interested in new ways of blowing up the local villains?"

"Megatron is awake, as well as some other Decepticons. We may be in for a relatively quiet Loop."

"Wait, based on my memories, isn't he the main Big Bad right now?"

"There are versions of our Loop where he is a powerful force for good. Sometimes he starts that way, others he comes around to our way. Now onto what goes on here..."

* * *

31.1: I don't blame her.

31.2: Redwall may have its ways, but don't assume things are the same everywhere.

31.3: Friendship between cops.

31.4: Redwall Loopers are apparently still inherently suspicious.

31.5: Dipper's real name is Mason, by the way.

31.6: And the Loopers from Mighty Ducks (1990s animated series) continue their adventures.

31.7: Stan must not be Awake this Loop.

31.8: Nice way to derail the bad guy's plans.

31.9: Yep... their Loop's preparing to expand.

31.10: ...

31.11: Nice to see those two as friends.

31.12: Yes, I can safely say he would _not_ like that song.

31.13: And she's not kidding.

31.14: Picking up on the previous Loop's reveal... and Nick is friends with the fox Robin Hood from the 1973 film. And a bunch of other foxes.

31.15: Yeesh, that is a bad way to Awaken... good thing he had help.

31.16: Marking the first Loop of this series in this compilation... (Disney has most of its broadcasting rights outside of America and the compiler for Nickelodeon, where it used to be broadcast, didn't want it; that's why it's here.)

31.17: Punny.

31.18: Eeyup, she tries to plan ahead.

31.19: Ai yi yi...

31.20: See previous comment.

31.21: I fully understand your desires, Adrien.

31.22: And a new friendship begins.


	49. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Two

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-02-03. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Two**

32.1 (wildrook): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Marinette had Awakened that night, still trying to figure out how to manage her life in a constant time loop. At least, not one that involves an Akuma or, as Adrien would call it, Chloe managed to ruin someone's work and now we have an Akuma running around.

Speaking of, she was waiting for him to show up, regardless of whether he went as himself or Chat Noir. In public, they just went Baseline, but at night, it was the perfect time to be themselves.

"Sorry I kept you waiting, my Lady," a male voice said, appearing as himself, Plagg sticking out of his head. "There was a last-minute photoshoot when one of the guys got sick, so I had to step in."

"You could have just called her," Plagg muttered. "Really, cell phones exist for a reason."

Marinette chuckled. "If it helps," she said to the cat Kwami, "I managed to get your favorite kind of cheese to make up for it, Plagg."

"Then again, I shouldn't be complaining if your host is offering snacks." He then sped towards the kitchen.

Tikki, from Marinette's room, sighed. "Always with the cheese, Plagg," she said, before looking at the two. "Although you guys are taking this whole 'non-Akuma Time Loop' thing pretty well."

"Kind of have to make the most of it when the two of us happen to be repeating the same events over and over," Adrien replied, looking awkward. "Still, why'd you reveal your identity to me when you said you didn't want to compromise it?"

Marinette just sat down on her chair. "I almost didn't," she replied, "but considering that the two of us were going to be stuck together for who knows how long until the next person Awakens and me being Anchor, I would have gone mad from the isolation until Ayla and Nino Awaken." She then gave out a nervous chuckle. "And now I'm imagining their reactions when they find out about us being superheroes."

Adrien was just chuckling. "Yeah, I don't know about Nino, but when Ayla has that website about you and only realized that until that point, she didn't think that Ladybug herself was going to be her best friend." That brought out a lot of interesting scenarios for them to consider. "Although now that we know each other for real, spending time like this is better than dealing with these repeats alone."

Plagg then floated upstairs with the cheese slice on hand. "So," he said, "is there a reason why you two decided not to pursue a relationship?" That caused both heroes to blush and slightly glare at Plagg. "What, I'm just wondering."

"Plagg," Tikki said, "keep in mind that everyone else would be suspicious about them if Marinette suddenly glomps Adrien in front of the student body."

"Tikki's right," Marinette regaining composure. "We only found out about each other being Ladybug and Chat Noir recently, and there'd be questions from everyone on how I'm very close to Adrien Agreste even before I met him and thought he was one of Chloe's underlings."

"That," Adrien added, "and...well...finding out that your personal Love Triangle isn't one from our point of view is still a bit of a shock. If anything happens, we're taking it slowly. Although, I can say that I've been progressing with...cat-like tread." There were three groans. "What? I only save the good ones for when I'm Chat Noir."

Marinette just looked at Adrien with a deadpan stare. "Speaking of, I'm aware that you and Chloe have a history together due to being, well... rich. Was there ever a moment when she was nice?"

"That's the weird part. I know Chloe tends to inadvertently cause Akuma to spawn, but when it comes to me knowing her, that kind of varies from Loop to Loop. She's still a fan of Ladybug, though."

Not a surprise. There have been instances where your high school tormentor happens to be your biggest fan without knowing it, but she was hoping that there would be good traits. Maybe when the Next Expansion comes out, she wouldn't have to deal with Antibug.

And that would mean Chloe would also have a chance of getting caught in the Time Loops.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Marinette said, looking at the others. "Right now, I'm checking Ayla's Ladybug site for any strange activity so Ladybug and Chat Noir can arrive on the scene."

"So, looking for Akuma attacks?" Adrien asked her, sitting on the bed. "I always thought tailing who Chloe angered would have been an easier method, but when some things don't act the same as normal..."

"Yeah, I'm trying to make sure I don't unleash Vulpina again." She gave him a look. "Now I'm wondering what would happen if Ladybug was her actual friend and she doesn't know it."

Adrien then shrugged. "You could always let her down gently," he said. "That, and she wouldn't be wrong since she's making friends with you."

"So," Plagg said, interrupting the two as he walked out of the closet, "is there a reason why there are several pictures of Adrien in here?"

That got them to stop in their tracks when they saw the open door of the closet, revealing the shrine. Marinette started blushing redder than a tomato as Adrien's thoughts were more of 'Wow, did I really impact her life that much?'

"Plagg," Tikki muttered, "start running. Now."

"Why, wha..."

And the night in Paris just had just got livelier as Marinette was chasing Plagg while Adrien and Tikki were watching with different expressions.

"So," Adrien said, looking at Tikki, "how long did she..."

"Since you gave her that umbrella," the ladybug Kwami replied. "We kind of forgot to destroy it after she Woke Up."

Adrien gave out a smile as the Ladybug in civilian form was chasing Plagg. ' _Well,_ ' he thought, ' _considering how things turned out, at least she's more civil than some of my more... disturbing admirers._ '

* * *

32.2 (Evilhumour): [Lion King]

Kovu looked at Kiara and then at their cub and tried not to show any negative reaction.

Kiara let out a tiny sigh, rubbing her face as Yggdrasil tried to be funny again.

Simba just enjoyed being a cub when he could. He was sure that Kiara would do a good job running the Pride Lands like other times.

* * *

32.3 (Evilhumour): [Lion King]

Simba let out a groan, stretching as he woke up in the normal sense, having Woken up as a youth with Timon and Pumbaa. That meant Scar was dealt with earlier, he was with Nala sooner, and Kiara was born -

There was some scratching from near the far end of the den, causing his ears to perk up. Padding around softly, he tilted his around the corner to see two certain cubs parting from each other, telling him both Kiara and Kovu were Awake and up to no good.

Puffing out his chest and screwing the best smirk on his face, he went over what he would say. He _had_ a fatherly duty to do, after all -

"No." He felt a tug on his tail. Turning back, he saw his mother grinning at him. "Allow _me_ ," she said, tilting her head for him to go back to the den proper. He began to do so when he heard Sarabi said, "Kiara, _there_ you are. And who is your little friend?" There was a pause, Kiara being too soft spoken for him to hear but Sarabi then said, "Oh what a nice name, Kovu. Come, let me introduce you to Simba; I think he is still sleeping, but I'm _sure_ he'd love to meet your new friend."

With a giggle on his lips, Simba darted back to his place and enjoying the fact his mom was still very good at embarrassing her granddaughter.

* * *

32.4 (Evilhumour): [Lion King] / [Star Wars]

Simba Plainwalker glared up at Darth Scar, his lightsaber pointed straight at the Sith Lord.

Darth Scar laughed darkly with his rebreather and said, "Simba, you do not yet realize your importance. You have only begun to discover your power. Join me, and I will complete your training. With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the Serengeti."

Simba Plainwalker growled at him, "I'll never join you!"

Tsking and shaking his head, Darth Scar replied, "If you only knew the power of the Dark Side! Rafiki never told you what happened to your father."

Simba paced around the small platform, his weapon still pointed directly at him. "He told me enough! He told me you killed him!"

The Sith seemed to loom in, his face hidden behind the mask. "No," Darth Scar said, almost purring with delight. " _I_ am your father."

Horror and fear struck the young Jedi, shaking his head back and forth. "No... that's not true! That's impossible!"

With an outstretched arm, the elder Plainwalker said, "Search your feelings. You know it to be true."

Simba was about to let out a massive cry of denial when he Woke up. He blinked, and looked around, quickly put two and two together and let out a cry of, " _AGAINNNNN?!_ "

* * *

32.5 (Awesomedude17): [Inside Out] / [Postal] / [Half-Life]

"So let me get this straight. Your emotions are sentient and are living inside your mind?" The trench coat wearing redhead asked.

"Yes." Riley confirmed.

"Sounds like a unique Anchor we've got here." Gordon Freeman rolled his eyes. "Unique isn't interesting though."

"This isn't the first time people were skeptical..."

"Skeptical?" The Postal Dude raised an eyebrow. "Have you even heard one percent of the things that happen in my world in Baseline? This is nothing."

"No, we're both in agreement that your condition isn't interesting." Gordon said.

"So, what now?" Riley shrugged.

"Well, you could check what's inside one of our heads. I'm pretty sure Gordon's not right in the head."

"Up yours, Dude. And do we even have a way to do it?"

"Phineas and Ferb managed. I've got a few copies." Riley held up a few devices.

"...Touché, young girl."

The three hooked up.

* * *

Riley looked around and saw the usual orbs that peppered memories. Something tapped on her shoulder.

"Ah!"

"Relax, I am not in the mood for killing random stuff... now."

Riley stared at the guy who clearly resembled The Postal Dude, but was off in more ways than one.

"I know what you're thinking and yes, I'm the evil voice in his head." The Dude(?) said.

"...Okay?"

"Anyway, looks like you're dicking around for the usual Looper stuff, let's get you to the good stuff." The Dude? moved towards a random direction. Riley, still wary of him, carefully followed.

* * *

"For Christ's sake Gordon, clean up up here. The Bitch wasn't this disgusting." The Postal Dude shuffled around some random booze and drug containers that littered the halls somehow. "Fuck. I'm going to have to complain to the bosses here. Where the fuck's headquarters?" The Dude walked to a random elevator, hoping that's the right one.

* * *

"Hockey girl, eh? She'd probably do well in Canada. God knows she'll need to considering who's going to take over the people. The answer, a giant douche. To be fair, his opponent was a turd sandwich, so it's not like he had to _try_. I'm rambling again, aren't I." Gordon blinked as he saw an elevator. "Let's hope there's no explosives blocking my way when I get off, again. Christ knows I get enough of that in Baseline."

* * *

Riley blinked at the surprisingly green headquarters that was The Postal Dude's.

"More disgust, because Gordon Freeman." A male voice said.

"Probably some more anger." A more gruff male replied.

"Isn't it weird that Fear and I don't do anything here?"

"Sadness, we've grown tired of the world. This Looping business is merely another reason to just accept the status quo." The first voice replied.

"Hehehe... Wait, I sense a disturbance." The five emotions turned to see Riley and The Postal Dude?. To Riley's confusion, they all wore shades and had red goatees.

"Great, he's back!" The Dude's Anger facepalmed.

"I take it you're The Postal Dude's emotions?" Riley asked.

"Yeah, I guess." Fear replied, seemingly bored.

Riley knew this would be awkward.

* * *

To say that the Dude was surprised would be a lie.

To say he was annoyed was more of an understatement.

"So you're the ones in charge of Gordon's emotions."

The emotions for Gordon Freeman were, to put it bluntly, even more immature than the actual man. The glasses and beards of the five clearly painted them as Gordon's for sure.

"Duh! We've been trying to figure out who will take the reins this time." Disgust said as he wrestled with Joy.

"And Sadness is pretty sure he's going to sit this one out." Anger replied as he wrestled with Fear.

"It is stupid to react to finding another's sentient emotions with sadness. As is fear, anger, disgust and joy."

"You're the only sane one, aren't you?" The Dude asked.

"Someone has to be."

"Fuck me."

"Yep. Fuck you."

* * *

Riley's emotions were all Awake. So when someone burst into headquarters, their reactions were clear cut.

"I'm here! What do I see? Surprisingly, nothing surprising." Gordon's presence alone made Anger growl.

"I really want to use that word."

"Hold out Anger, we can do this!" Joy reassured.

"Hey, we're seeing The Dude's headquarters." Disgust pointed out.

"And from there, we're seeing Gordon's headquarters! ... Wow, he really is nuts." Fear blinked at the sight of wrestling emotions.

* * *

"Uh, duh, no shit Gordon's nuts." The Dude? scoffed. He walked up to the terminal and pressed a button.

"So this is what his emotions look like? I'd say I'm disappointed, but then again, he always was one."

"Yeouch! Dick move." Anger remarked negatively.

"What was?" Riley asked.

"Well..."

* * *

"So this is what his emotions look like? I'd say I'm disappointed, but then again, he always was one." The Postal Dude coughed as his voice changed back to normal. "Sorry, not sorry."

"What was with your voice?"

"Oh, that was just my evil voice taking over briefly." The Postal Dude coughed again. "And let me tell you, I'm bored as hell. Riley, you can hear this, end this now before I strangle someone."

* * *

"Aw hell naw, Dude! You ain't talking shit about my sanity. My sanity is the best around! Nothing's ever gonna keep me down!" Gordon spat out.

"Yeah, nuts to this." Anger punched out Gordon, and then activated the comm to Riley. "Riley, this is pointless. Stop this now before Gordon comes to."

" _Yeah, I can see where you're going with this._ "

* * *

The device deactivated and the three woke up.

"Well that was a complete waste of our time." Gordon complained.

"Agreed."

"Eh, I'm sure we got some stories to tell from that." Riley replied.

"No we do not." The other two countered.

"...Yeah, you're right. That was pointless."

* * *

32.6 (Firehawk242): [Moana]

Moana stared at the all too familiar boat in the cave. Fine. She'd done this once before. She'd do it again. She go on this quest as many times as she had to until she finally made things right. She turned and headed for the beach.

* * *

"Grandma," Moana said.

"Yes?" the woman dancing with the mantas in the ocean said.

"I'm leaving the island," Moana said.

"Oh?" Tala said. "What for?"

"I'm going to find Maui and return the Heart of Te Fiti."

"So bold," Tala said. "So why are you telling me this?"

"Because I need the Heart," Moana said. "I know you have it."

Tala turned and looked at Moana. "Yes I do," she said with a smile, pulling her necklace over her head before handing it to her granddaughter. "The Ocean gave it to you when you were a girl you know."

"I know," Moana said, fastening the necklace and its precious contents around her neck. "The Ocean chose me to return it to its home."

"The Ocean knows best," Tala said. "Though I wonder how you know so much." She turned and continued her dance with the mantas. "When I die, I'm going to come back as one of these. Or else I chose the wrong tattoo."

"You didn't," Moana said. "Goodbye, Grandma."

"Good luck on your voyage, little one," Tala said.

* * *

Moana gathered food from the storehouse, then made her way to the boat, grabbing Heihei along the way. The chicken had been with her the first time. He might as well come along this time. She went for the boat and put her food in the cargo hold, stuffing Heihei in for good measure. A few quick pushes and the boat was in the water. She sailed through the waterfall and headed for the open ocean.

"Ocean, take me to Maui please," Moana said.

* * *

This time Moana managed to actually land her boat properly without nearly getting killed by a storm. She stepped off the boat a started looking for Maui. He wasn't exactly hard to find, what with being a boulder of a demigod.

"Hey, the Gods have sent me a boat!" he said upon catching sight of the boat. "And... a girl?"

Moana closed her eyes and breathed once. "I am Moana of Motonui. You will board my boat, sail across the sea with me to retrieve your hook, and then help me return the heart of Te Fiti."

"Oh, a fan!" Maui said.

Moana promptly smacked him with her oar. "Boat. Now."

"Hey, hey, sorry, but I think you meant to say, thank you," Maui said.

Moana whacked him with the oar again. "No. No I did not. Now get on my boat."

"Okay, okay," Maui said. "Yeesh, what is it with princesses these days? So feisty."

"I'm not a princess," Moana said. "Now get. On. The boat."

"Okay," Maui said. "But I'm not going back to Te Fiti, you got it?"

"Okay then," Moana said. "In that case, let's go back to Te Ka."

Maui turned and looked at her. "You're insane."

"No," Moana said. "Insane would be following the advice of a guy who tried to trap me in a cave, steal my boat, eat my chicken, throw me off the boat, throw away the Heart of Te Fiti, throw himself off the boat to get away, abandon me to the Kakamora, use me as bait for a giant evil crab, and then abandon me when I needed him most. Oh, and peed on my hand. But you're not that guy, right?"

"What are you talking about?" Maui asked.

"Just get on the boat," Moana said.

* * *

"Ocean, take us to the realm of Monsters please," Moana said.

"Do you even know where the entrance to that is?" Maui asked.

"That way," Moana said, pointing. Then she adjusted her aim slightly. "That way."

Maui stared at her. "Okay then. Let's go get my hook."

* * *

"Let's grab the hook and go," Moana said.

"What, you think I can't take Tamatoa once I have my hook back?" Maui asked.

"No," Moana said. "I don't."

Maui blinked. The tattoo on his chest pulled out a scoreboard and put a third line under Moana's name. Maui's side was empty. "Okay, where'd she get the other two from?" Maui asked. The tattoo shrugged.

* * *

"Okay, so we have my hook back," Maui said. "Thank you for that. I guess."

"And now you're going to help me give Te Fiti her heart back," Moana said.

"Yeah, no," Maui said.

"Yes, you are."

"No, I'm not. You're on your own, princess," Maui said.

"You know, you're just as annoying the second time around as you were the first," Moana said.

"What?" Maui said.

"At least this time I don't need you to teach me how to sail," Moana said.

"I taught you how to sail?" Maui asked.

"Yes," Moana said. "This is the second time I've done this. You were just as annoying then as you are now. I only managed to convince you to help me the first time by promising you you'd be a hero again."

"I am a hero!" Maui said.

"No," Moana said, turning to glare at him. "You _were_ a hero. Now you're just a selfish man too scared to fix his mistake."

"I-" Maui stopped, unable to come up with a response to that. On his chest, a fourth line was added under Moana's name. "Okay, seriously, where did she get those first two points from?"

"If you want to leave, go," Moana said. "I can return the heart to Te Fiti on my own. Or you can come along and be a hero again."

Maui sat there on the boat, blinking in shock.

Before Maui could answer, they were interrupted by a shark emerging from the water with a flying leap that cut the ocean's surface with unnatural grace. The great predator descended toward the boat, but before it could crash into it, the shape of it changed, like water melting into ice, to a man - old, but strong, and taller even than Maui. Maui scrambled to his feet. "Lord Kamohoali'i," he said.

Kamohoali'i ignored the demigod and turned to look at Moana who was too busy staring in shock. "What have you done?" he demanded.

"Um, I got Maui back his hook?" Moana said.

"Not that," Kamohoali'i said. "You live. You are mortal. But you have you have no end. _What have you done?_ "

"I... I don't know," Moana said.

The shark god stepped closer, looming over the girl. "You have not stolen my water. That much I am certain of. How is it that you have no end?"

"I don't know, lord," she said. "I just went to sleep one night and woke up a few years earlier."

Kamohoali'i stared at her. "You speak the truth."

"Yes, Lord Kamohoali'i," Moana said.

"You seek to return my sister's heart."

"Yes," Moana said.

"You know she is raging and will not hear reason."

"She heard me before," Moana said.

"Then perhaps you are special," Kamohoali'i said. He turned to Maui. "Help this human, and your crime will be forgiven."

"But I -" Maui began, only for his tattoo to jerk his body then glare at him. "Yes, Lord."

"Good," Kamohoali'i said, then jumped into the ocean, turning back into a shark as he did so.

Maui stared after Kamohoali'i as he cut the water again, barely causing a splash. Finally, he turned around to face Moana again. "So, looks like I'm helping you," he said.

"That's not good enough," Moana said. "If you're going to come with me, I need to know that you mean it. I need to know that I'm sailing with _Maui_ , not just some demigod with a magic fishhook. So, you tell me." Moana stared at the demigod, her eyes burning into him. "Are you ready to be Maui again?"

Maui blinked, then steeled himself. "Yes," he said.

"Good," Moana said. "Then let's go to Te Fiti."

* * *

"You said we did this before?" Maui asked.

"Yes," Moana said. "What about it?"

"Did we get along any better the first time?"

"Not really," Moana said, pulling on the rope. "Not until after we got your fishhook and you figured out how to shapeshift properly again."

"So I guess you know all about me at this point," Maui said.

"Pretty much," Moana said.

"You've put up with me twice now?"

"This time I hit you with the oar a few more times," Moana said.

"You seem grumpy," Maui said.

"I risked my life to find you, get back your hook, and return Te Fiti's heart. I go home. I lead my people back onto the ocean. A few years later I go to sleep and suddenly I'm right back where I started. Wouldn't you be grumpy?"

"Yeah, I guess I would," Maui said. "I have a question."

"What?" Moana asked.

"What will you do if you have to do this again?" Maui asked.

Moana looked at him. "I'll do it again. And again if I have to. I'll do it as many times as I have to to protect my people."

Maui stared. "Well. Guess we better get started."

"We'd better," Moana agreed.

* * *

32.7 (Masterweaver): [Moana] / [Bionicle]

Moana gave a sigh, sitting on the edge of her clan's canoe and staring into the starry skies. "Hey, Ocean?"

A tentacle of water jutted up, tilting curiously.

"You've been around a while. What would you do if... everything you worked for, all you loved, got erased?"

The water shivered. Then, slowly, it leaned forward, peering eyelessly at her.

"...sixteen. Sixteen times... After I restore her heart, it's different in some ways, but I always end up back on Motonui." She let herself fall back. "I don't know, Ocean, I don't know what's happening, I just... I wish I had an explanation."

Slowly, the tentacle of water slithered around her head. She felt the current stroking her curly hair.

"...I know you'll always be here. But I'll go to sleep, and when I wake up... you'll have forgotten everything. The world itself will have forgotten. I like exploring the changes, but..." She yawned. "...Ocean?"

The tentacle leaned back.

"Are you... a boy or a girl? I never thought to ask..."

For a moment, the water was still. Then it splashed her face indignantly.

"PFFFT--okay! Okay. Stupid question, I get it." Moana shook her head. "I dunno. I guess I just thought... I don't know what I thought..."

Her eyes slowly flickered shut.

"Back to the island... back again... Ocean... say hi to Maui..."

* * *

Her eyes...

Opened? No. They didn't quite--open wasn't a good word. They weren't working and then they were, but it was less as though they were behind lids and more like they simply surfaced...

She had eyelids, yes, but they weren't... part of her face. Except they were. It was like she had a second face... _over_ her face? A mask, except... she could move it. Make expressions with it.

Moana reached to feel at it--but stopped, staring at her hands. They were oddly shaped, her palms... almost angular, her thumb jutting from a sphere attached to one corner, and her fingers--partially fused, she could see they were separate, but up until the first knuckle it felt like she only had three digits per hand. An odd, blue carapace covered the core, but her fingers were... shiny grey? She could _see_ bluish purple muscles twitching in the gaps..

She patted herself, up, down, all over. The same blue carapace formed shells around her feet, her waist, her chest, her forearms. And stranger still, where they did not cover, it seemed as though her bone and muscle were exposed--but who had ever heard of shiny grey bones?! She felt... _something_ move in the bones when she moved, like, like... she didn't have the words.

Moana's eyes darted around the hut she'd found herself in. It was green, as though--it _was_ made of leaves. Leaves and seaweed, and how did she know that--why did she remember making this? Why did... memories. Memories of strange beings like her, with glowing blue eyes, working together to make this place, to battle away monsters, to... to gather food? But they didn't eat, they just absorbed... energy, what?

Letting herself fall back on the bed--bed, bed, why a specific place to rest, why not just a blanket on the floor like reasonable people--Moana tried to calm herself. It was... it was a new world. Yes. That was it. A new world, a new... adventure, yes. That was how she should approach this. Yes. She didn't know where or even _what_ she was. She had questions. And finding the answers...

"Okay. I can do this."

Pushing herself back up, she swung her legs out of the bed and let her feet hit the ground. It was only then Moana realized something important.

"...Why am I so short?"

* * *

Moana meandered through the village of odd blue crab-shelled skeleton midgets, nodding absently at the others milling around in their daily lives. She had looked at her own reflection in the water--her mask to feature a heavy ridges on the forehead and a powerful chin, though in the pale blue color it certainly looked more feminine. Shaking herself, she continued to where her... strange memories said the village elder was. Or was she the village chief? This Nokama filled both roles in her memory, which... couldn't possibly be as long as she thought it was. Still, she might have some way Moana could find answers.

Or at least a job.

"Um. Excuse me? Turaga Nokama?"

The robed figure turned from her tablet. She looked, at first glance, more frail then the others around, as though age had eaten at her shell and weathered her mask, but she was taller than Moana if only slightly, and something in her stance suggested that age had granted far more than it had taken away.

"Ah, yes... hmm." Nokama tilted her head. "Moana, I believe?"

For a moment Moana was startled... before she recalled that, somehow, her name had stayed the same. "Yes. I... I was wondering about something."

"Well, no matter how loopy your question might sound, I'm always awake to indulging curiosity."

"Okay..." Moana frowned, wondering at that sentence. "So. Do... do you think, in our dreams... it's possible to visit other worlds?"

"Hmm." Nokama put the tablet down on a nearby desk. "Perhaps. Although, the question then becomes, are we dreaming, or simply awake in another world?"

Moana swallowed, or tried to, before remembering she didn't actually have anything to swallow with. "Well, I... I've been having this recurring dream, where... I'm on the ocean. And I'm trying to return... a heart, to a goddess, and get a demigod to help me, and every time I do I come home and we all go exploring, but... it always starts over, you see."

"...How many times have you had this dream?"

"Sixteen times, turaga."

That seemed to get Nokama's attention. "Only sixteen? Well, well. You _are_ young, aren't you?"

"...what?"

"And the ocean would... yes, I believe I have the answers you seek." She glanced at the sun. "Though, perhaps, we should wait for nightfall. I do believe we are going to experience some excitement in a moment."

"Excitement? What do you--"

A giant lizard suddenly burst from the water, massive fists pounding at the bridges between the floating huts. Moana jumped, but Nokama merely chuckled. "Right on schedule."

"What - you were expecting this?"

"Later." The turaga jabbed her trident into a small stone, and a hole opened in the center of the communal lilypad they were standing on. "You _could_ stay and fight, but I suggest you join the others in the sunken chamber."

"But--" Moana looked from the stream of midgets clambering into the hole, to the wizened figure hobbling toward the dangerous lizard. "What about you?"

"Don't fret, young one, I've had many years of experience dealing with unruly rahi." Nokama straightened up. "Excuse me sir, do you have a demolition license?"

That bit of nonsense seemed to anger the lizard, and it lunged at her. Moana flinched, expecting to hear the crunch of carapace... and then gasped when she saw Nokama merely sidestep the attack and lightly poke her trident in the reptile's ear.

"Quite uncalled for. Proper documentation is important!"

For a few moments Moana could only watch as the elderly figure... _played with_ the giant lizard trying to kill her. Then a passing somebody grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the pit.

* * *

The time spent with the other crab skeleton midgets--matoran, they were called--was an experience. Trapped with them in an underwater chamber, until another matoran--a red one, and she realized the first male she had seen--fixed the gears, and then a giant splashed out of the water and drove the lizard away. Nokama seemed to _know_ this giant, they acted as old friends... Moana heard her name slip between the two, before the giant stood tall, twirling two fish-hooks (each only half as large as Maui's, but with a strange elegance his lacked) and moving to the shore.

The rest of the day was spent repairing their home. This, at least, was familiar to her--storms would sweep across Motonui on occasion, and while the materials were quite different, the methods were similar. Nokama passed by her as she made her rounds, pointing at a cliff-side telescope--"When the night falls, meet me there." And then swept on, as though she had said nothing. She didn't quite socialize with the other matoran. They noticed, but dismissed her reluctance as being unbalanced by the events of the day.

Sooner than expected, most of the villagers retired to their huts, granting her good evening and murmuring excitedly about the arrival of the giant, who they called Toa Gali. The words felt familiar, but they seemed strange to her, a reflection of the language she spoke distorted through a tumultuous sea. Moana's questions only grew more numerous when the stars came out--not the familiar stars that hung above her ocean, but a stranger pattern of lights and darkness, with a dull red speck oriented right above the island proper.

She could barely keep herself together as she crossed the green bridge to the beach, rushing across the sand and clambering up the steps carved into the side. When she reached the top, she took a moment to breathe, to stand, to look around.

Nokama was sitting on the other side of a sandpit, looking right at her.

"...So." Moana stepped forward. "Here I am."

"Here you are." The elderly figure gestured across the pit. "Please."

"Huh?"

"Take a seat, if you like."

"Oh." Moana stepped forward, sitting down across from her.

"...Might I ask your name?"

"It's... Moana."

Nokama sighed. "It's Moana _here_. What is your name in the world of your dreams?"

"It's still Moana." She fidgeted. "That much hasn't changed, at least..."

"...is it now." The turaga stood. "And you sailed across an ocean with... a demigod, you said."

"Yes. Maui. Have you heard of him?"

"Hmm. Yes, I... well. _That_ story is long, and is not the story that has the answers to your question..." She gave Moana a long look. "It may be presumptuous of me to assume, but..."

Silence descended for a moment or two.

"No. The basics, first, then we can talk." Nokama lowered the trident to the sandpit, smiling. "Now how would Vakama start this... 'In a time, before time.' Heh."

Moana watched as she sketched an image out, the points of the trident twisting and twirling with masterful elegance. "Um..."

"In a time before time, in a place beyond places, in a realm outside realms, there is a tree. A great tree. An ancient tree, known as Yggdrasil." Nokama backed off, nodding at the image before her. "It has many branches. The branches have many leaves. And each leaf... you don't have books, do you?"

"What?" Moana looked up. "I... don't know what a book is."

"...a scroll, then. Each leaf is a scroll, filled with the history and possibility of an entire world. And as leaves are alive, so too are the scrolls--they are not merely records of a reality, but the reality itself, they are the everything that the inhabitants know. This is the purpose of Yggdrasil; to be everything. To support everything. And were its purpose fulfilled, we who live in these worlds, these scrolls, these leaves, would notice nothing and live our lives oblivious to the greater scheme."

Moana frowned. "But... we _have_ noticed."

Nokama nodded, leaning on her trident. "Yes." Suddenly her foot shot down, kicking up the sand and letting it scatter over the tree's image. "Yggdrasil has fallen ill. Why, it is unclear, perhaps a cosmic lightning strike, perhaps sabotage, perhaps... something else. The gods themselves, who are as reliant on the tree as we are, work tirelessly to repair the damage, to heal the tree, but at the same time... they cannot let an infinity of worlds die. Which is why they have chosen a novel solution."

"The... reoccurrences? The repeats?"

"The loops, yes. Time, in any world, is allowed to extend and move up to a certain point--and then it is sent back, so that the leaf does not grow, but still lives." Nokama shrugged. "It has other advantages, it allows the gods to see if... the ink is marred, if the damage to the tree has caused problems to us. Of course, to sustain such a circle in time and space, one needs a center point. An anchor." She reached out, tapping Moana's chest. "And as it turns out, souls are pretty good at navigating a storm of what-ifs and might-have-beens."

Moana looked down at herself. "I... what? I'm the world's wayfinder?"

"Hmm. Yes, that is one way to look at it I suppose." Nokama walked around the sandpit. "The gods themselves chose you, Moana. To be the lynchpin around which your reality pulses and reforms. It is a great duty, I'll grant you, but a simple one; all you must do is stay... mentally stable, if not sane."

"...If I believe you," Moana said slowly, "that still doesn't explain what I'm doing _here._ "

Nokama sat down next to her. "Yggdrasil has been described as being both a tree and a computer. The problem is, you don't know what that word means, do you?"

Moana shook her head.

"I was a teacher before I was a turaga. Even I would balk at trying to explain _that_ concept to a complete newcomer, without an example at hand. Still..." The elderly leader stretched her hands. "You... are here because Yggdrasil got the scrolls confused. Because one story leaked into another. That explanation isn't nearly complete, but it is one I think you will understand. And there are computers in this world," she added, "though they're rather hard to get to at the moment."

"This world." Moana let her head fall into her hands. "This world, which isn't my world, which doesn't even have the same sky--where even am I?"

"The island of Mata Nui, on the... ocean of Aqua Magna."

"And why am I... why am I not me?"

Nokama shrugged. "There are no humans in this world. Yggdrasil let you become something that could exist here." She chuckled. "It's just as strange the other way--waking up with no metal, only flesh, and a maskless face... the hair, though. How do you handle the hair?"

She looked up at the leader, who gave her a gentle smile.

"...How long. How long will these... loops last?"

"I cannot say. Till the end of time, perhaps." She patted her shoulder. "It isn't all bad. You will see horrific terrors, but also amazing wonders. And... soon enough, you won't be alone."

"I..."

"People from your world, people you are close to, will Wake Up to the loops themselves. It's a safety net--rare is the mind that can stay sane without friends. And when they do, you can teach them what I am about to teach you."

Moana blinked. "What... you're going to teach me something?"

Nokama chuckled. "Did you think the gods would set us afloat with no gifts to weather the time? Now, to start, we must help you find your soul, and I believe learning to ping will help with that..."

* * *

A year and a half passed, and in that time Moana was continually amazed, astounded, and absolutely blown away by the crazy and unpredictable events that happened around her. Nokama helped, of course, continuously and patiently training her in both the looping arts and more practical matters that, she assured the girl, would be absolutely essential to surviving in the greater multiverse. One day, on a reforged planet--and that Moana could even _understand_ that was a testament to her studies--the elderly leader walked up to her. "The loop's ending tomorrow."

For a moment the girl said nothing. Then she blinked. "Oh."

"That's right. Soon, you'll be home again. With your family, and the quest to restore Te Fiti's heart, and all that..." She poked Moana's shoulder with her trident. "You won't forget what you've learned, will you?"

"No! No. I'll keep up the mental exercises, expand my Pocket, all that."

"Good. Very good. In that case..." Nokama produced a small object, handing it over.

Moana took it, looking curiously at the screen embedded within. "What is this?"

"A fount of knowledge. Far future technology, loaded with information from the Hub--the entire internet, on that tiny little screen." Nokama tapped it. "Waterproof, highly durable. Not very personal, but small, which means you'll have room for my other gift in your Pocket, I hope."

When Moana looked up, she couldn't help but gasp at the object Nokama was holding. "Is that--"

"A Great Kanohi Sanok. You've been wearing a powerless version for so long, I figured you might want to upgrade."

"...I thought only Toa could use great masks."

Nokama laughed. "Only beings with great strength of soul and will can use great masks, yes. And what do you think we loopers are? Go on, then."

Moana, cautiously, took off the mask she was wearing and replaced it with the one Nokama held. She took a breath, reaching out with her mind toward the power she felt inside it. "I... wow."

"Mmmhmm."

"...Why a Sanok? Why not a Kaukau?" Moana turned to Nokama. "Water breathing might be more useful to me than throwing things with innate accuracy."

"Well, it might," Nokama allowed, "in your baseline. If you weren't an excellent swimmer already. I suspect you'll end up with some sort of artificial gill anyway eventually. Besides, not every world has an ocean, I'm sad to say." She tapped the mask. "This, though, this is an edge that will be universal. Don't underestimate a well-thrown stone."

Moana nodded, slowly pushing mask and screen into her subspace pocket. It was a tight fit, but she managed it. Putting on her original powerless mask, she gave Nokama a small smile. "Thank you. For... everything."

"It was my pleasure. Though, I still don't understand why you turned down the opportunity to become a toa."

"...the ocean is alive." Moana shrugged. "I don't mean that like a metaphor, in my baseline the ocean is actually alive, with its own personality, its own... existence. I know that's not literally true here, or in other worlds, but... manipulating water directly like that, it wouldn't feel right to me."

"Ah." Nokama nodded. "Well... I suppose there's something to be said for relying on ingenuity. I know that the Anchor for the earlier half of the Avatar loop prefers not to utilize unusual powers."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes. Sokka of the southern water tribe. You must understand, his world is one of humans and spirits, not entirely unlike your own, but with elemental bending arts..."

* * *

Once again, Moana's eyes opened, and she was back on Motonui. She stood, looking around the quiet hut, and walking to the beach. The sun was rising, but the stars were still just barely visible.

On a whim, she held up her hand, looking for a hook-shaped collection of lights. When she had found it she picked up a pebble from the sand.

Carefully, she unpocketed the mask she had been given. It was evidence that her latest adventure wasn't a dream, that her life wasn't a delusion... she looked at it for a moment or two, before putting it on.

The power within curled and toiled. She focused, reached out, took it, channeled it down to the pebble in her hand.

Then, with a flick of her wrist, she skipped the rock out, across the lagoon, beyond, into the ocean itself.

Two weeks later, when she had her usual meeting with Maui, the pebble hit him square in the head, and Moana burst out laughing. She didn't stop for a whole day.

* * *

32.8 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [The Chronicles of Narnia] / [Lion King]

Aslan, the Great Lion, son of the Emperor-beyond-the-sea, Awoke with a start to find himself at a desk. Examining his surroundings, he smiled.

_Ah. Digory's office, again. And so it begins once more._

It had been quite a surprise for Aslan to find himself back at the dawn of Narnia all those Loops ago, and even more when he realized he had returned to that point a second time, and then a third. Time and again, he had Awoken at the creation of that world, breathing life into it, and witnessed its nine hundred years of peace before Jadis returned and ruled Narnia during the Long Winter, her reign ending when the Pevensie siblings arrived and Aslan himself had sacrificed himself to save Edmund, only to be resurrected by the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time. He had watched as they returned to Earth, as Narnia fell to the Telmarines, and as the Pevensies returned to help Caspian the Tenth assume his throne, and then the long years of his reign. Always, the Loops had lasted until the end of Caspian's reign, when Eustace Scrubb and his friend Jill Pole returned to their world, accompanied by Caspian for just five minutes before Aslan took him back to his own land as the Loop ended.

Then, one Loop, Aslan had Awoken to find himself somewhere different...

* * *

_The great lion Awoke to find himself standing atop a great rock as the clouds above parted, allowing a beam of sunlight to shine brightly upon a young lion cub, held into the air by a skinny mandrill._

_**Simba,** his memories told him, and he looked around in surprise to see a wide variety of animals bowing down before the young cub._

_As a female lion walked up and nuzzled him, one whom his memories told him was his mate and queen, he inwardly wondered what was happening. Was this setting, a world so different from any he had known before, a part of some test of his father's?_

_Answers would not come for months, when his son - his **son!** \- was to be shown the kingdom, and told that one day, it would all be his. Simba, for a young cub, was surprisingly well-behaved, keeping himself calm. Finally, as Aslan finished telling him about his responsibilities as king, the boy had spoken up._

_"Dad?"_

_"Yes, my son?"_

_"There's... something different about you." Simba's ears flicked. "I... I mean, you're my dad, and I love you, but... at the same time, you don't **feel** right. You feel like someone else in my dad's body, if that makes any sense."_

_Aslan frowned. "I am not entirely certain what you mean, my son. Just how am I different?"_

_"Well, you're... always so serious. The king I remember was serious a lot of the time too, but he had a sense of humor - I don't think I've heard you laugh since I Awoke. And you always seem distant, especially around Mom."_

_Aslan's heart skipped a beat. "Simba, I..."_

_"Good morning, sire!" a voice interrupted. "Checking in, with the-"_

_"Zazu." Aslan looked sternly at him. "I appreciate your promptness, but, if there isn't anything urgent, could you wait until my son and I are done?"_

_The hornbill was taken aback. "I - well, yes, sire. I'll just be over there." He flew off, leaving the two lions alone._

_Simba shook his head and sighed. "And there's another thing. My dad **never** sends Zazu away like that." He looked at the older lion. "You're a good person, I can tell. But you are **not** King Mufasa. So who are you, and what Loop are you from?"_

_Aslan's eyes widened. "Loop?"_

_Simba nodded. "Time Loops."_

_Aslan's thoughts raced - here, at last, was a possible answer. "Time Loops... do you mean a stretch of time, repeating for you, over and over?"_

_The young lion nodded. " **Yes.** My Loop almost always starts around the time Rafiki presents me, and ends sometime when I'm an adult. I guess something similar happens to you."_

_"It has," Aslan confirmed. "Until now, I thought I was alone in these... Loops, I suppose. I had wondered if my father was testing me somehow, but if I am not alone..."_

_Simba looked curiously. "I don't know who your father is, but we aren't the only ones Looping. There's a lot of different universes - yours, mine, and too many others to count. By going through these Loops, I help keep my universe stable, and I think you might be doing the same for yours."_

_Aslan regarded him. "I think, my son, that this is going to be a very long discussion. I apologize in advance if I have many, many questions for you along the way."_

_Simba smiled. "No problem."_

* * *

That discussion had indeed lasted for a very long time, and by the end of it, Aslan had understood the full implications of the Loops, and that it was no test by his father, but a means to preserve the multiverse.

Years later, after that Loop had ended (the two lions having neatly derailed Scar's attempts to overthrow his brother when Aslan went to the hyenas, approaching them to apologize for his shabby treatment of them and renegotiating the treaty that had kept them out of the Pride Lands for so long to make it fairer for both sides), Aslan had again found himself at the dawn of Narnia. Since then, he had experienced many Loops, both what he now knew was his _baseline_ and what he had learned were variants or Fused Loops. These included a handful where, as in this Loop, he had Awoken as Professor Digory Kirke, the grown man who had opened his house to the Pevensies and, as a child, had been in Narnia at its dawn and planted the Tree of Protection that kept the land safe from Jadis for nine hundred years.

Now looking out his study window, the resident Anchor smiled as he saw Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy approaching the house for the first time this Loop, and hoped, once more, that one or more of the quartet would Awaken soon.

Meanwhile, down below, Lucy Pevensie walked with her siblings and looked around in awe as she laid eyes on the house that had once changed her life... and would soon do so again.

_I don't know what's caused it, but it's so good to be back here,_ she thought to herself. _And soon, hopefully... to be back in Narnia._ Looking up to see the professor's study window, she was surprised as her eyes met Professor Kirke's... neither aware that the other was Awake.

But very soon, that would change.

* * *

32.9 (Awesomedude17): [Dresden Files] / [Moana] / [Half-Life] / [Bar Loop]

"Welcome to Mac's, our latest Disney Princess, on a technicality, of course." Harry Dresden chuckled. "Sorry, force of habit when it comes to new Disney Ladies. You'd have no idea how many times Mulan glares at me for saying she's a princess, chief's daughter."

"Right..." Moana said quietly.

"So, uh... take a seat anywhere, except near the guy in glasses over there." Harry pointed at a clearly intoxicated patron.

"Why?"

"He's a narcissistic jerk, and him being drunk and/or high makes him even worse."

"How bad could he be?" Moana walked up to the man, who looked up.

"Holy fuck, your nose ish big!" Gordon Freeman spat out, before feeling nauseous.

At that point, neither realized that someone was behind Gordon. A big meaty hand grabbed Gordon by the collar of his shirt, and lifted him up.

"How about you say sorry to the nice lady?" Maui said, holding up his fish hook.

"AH! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND, TAKE HER!"

"..." Maui tossed Gordon over his shoulder, crashing him into a dartboard, which was at the same being used by an overly drunk patron who thought he could bullseye a target three times at the same time, directly hitting the man in the ass in the process.

Harry stared at the sight that just unfolded before him, and sat down at the counter.

"Alright, big guy, you made your point. Now how about we just drink? The usual, Mac!"

Moana and Maui shrugged and joined Harry.

* * *

32.10 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Gargoyles]

"What a night," Goliath sighed.

"At least it's over," Hudson commented.

"N-n-not over yet," another voice gasped, as a man stepped in front of Goliath, carrying a heavy bazooka. "Can you believe it? Ah, this is the moment I've been dreamin' of! And now there is nothing to stop me from gettin' my sweet revenge! Gargoyle, prepare to get creamed!" Pulling the trigger, he fired.

Struck with a flying pie, Goliath just stared as the man sighed in relief. "Now, we're even." Abandoning his weapon and turning around, he walked away humming.

Grumbling as he wiped banana cream off his face, Goliath sighed as he turned to Hudson. "No matter how many of these Loops we go through, no matter how many changes we make, I _always_ get shot in the face with that pie," he told the older male. "Why is that?"

Hudson shrugged. "Quirk of the Loops, lad. Be glad you're not the Doctor - he always gets shot by a Dalek and has to regenerate into his tenth self a second time."

"There is that," Goliath acknowledged. "Still, it is annoying."

Hudson nodded. "Aye. So, you going to Pocket this one too?"

"Why not?" Goliath shrugged. "I've been building up quite the collection of them so far. I see no reason to stop now. And perhaps, one day, I'll find a good use for them."

"Just don't forget to have that handprint scanner disabled this time. You never know when he's had it rigged to backfire on anyone besides him again."

Goliath growled. "Considering I had to clean up the entire castle by myself the _last_ time I forgot and this thing sprayed pies everywhere, I have no intention of doing so again."

At that, Hudson just smirked.

* * *

32.1: Still relatively early for these two, and they're handling this relatively well.

32.2: Not the first time the parent-child positions have been swapped.

32.3: Nothin' like a grandparent.

32.4: Luke feels your pain, Simba.

32.5: Some minds are strange.

32.6: The Awakening of Moana...

32.7: Moana gets the Speech.

32.8: Aslan has made one or two appearances as a Looper before, but this is his first big appearance. And welcome to the Loops, Lucy.

32.9: Moana meets more Loopers.

32.10: There are worse things that could happen to a person every Loop.


	50. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Three

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-02-03. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Three**

33.1 (Boohoooo!): [Bambi] / [Inspector Gadget] / [Undertale]

Flower sighed as he awoke as an actual flower for the umpteenth time.

 _Why are there so many sentient plants in the multiverse?_ he mused.

Suddenly, a kid walked up to him. Flower checked His loop memories and felt slightly uncomfortable at what this demented flower, apparently named Flowey, did. He should probably see if this kid was loping.

"You feeling loopy?" Flower asked.

"Yes. Based on that question, I'm assuming you are too." The kid replied. Flower nodded.

"I'm Flower! What's your name?" Flower asked.

"I'm Penny. So, you're named Flower... and you looped in as a flower?" Penny answered.

"Yes. Apparently Yggdrasil has a sense of humour." Flower deadpanned. Penny giggled.

"So, I was just going to explore this loop. Want to come with Me?" Penny asked, pulling out a flower pot.

"Sure...but why do you just happen to have a flower pot?" Flower asked.

"That's a funny story really..." Penny began.

And so the adventure began!

* * *

33.2 (Custodator Pacis): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Winnie-the-Pooh]

"Come on, Pooh! It's your turn this time!" Sora called Pooh, offering the baseball bat to the Awake yellow bear.

"Are you sure, Sora?" Pooh asked. "I don't think it is a good idea for me to play baseball with you though. It's very unfair if you ask me."

"Don't worry Pooh, I'll go easy on you," the Anchor replied.

Something within Pooh changed, Sora can't tell exactly what. Pooh's posture and his expression didn't changed even in the slightest, but somehow the bear was now exuding a certain menacing aura that he almost can see it with his own eyes. Sora blinked once, the aura was gone like it never had been there when he looked again, but the yellow bear's unfaltering smile was giving him a small chill.

"Please give me the bat, Sora. And try to throw the ball at me," Pooh said.

"Err, yes. Here you are," Sora said uneasily, passing the bat to the yellow bear.

"Thank you. Now, throw the ball at me," Pooh said. "But make sure that you can replace the ball later if needed to."

"What?" Sora asked.

"Just... just watch," Pooh replied, lowering his posture into a ready stance.

Sensing a certain edge from the bear, Sora testing the water by pitched the ball in a lazy arc. The yellow bear's stance was relaxed and calm as it was flying halfway towards the bear.

It was when the ball got within the range of Pooh's swing arc that the bear's stance shifted radically like flipped a switch inside him.

The next moment Sora could only see the ball disappeared as the yellow bear swung the bat. Sora gaped slightly at that. Looked behind him, he see only a small path on the treetop that the ball had cut through branches and leaves.

"I've been getting slower these days," Pooh sighed. "I think I need to get back into shape real soon."

"Do you want to talk about it...?" Sora asked, warily, as now he knew that the bear had got a mean batter swing.

"Home Run Derby loop," Pooh said quietly. "It's not quite as bad as a punishment loop per se. Just very... frustrating."

* * *

33.3 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [The Incredibles]

Bob Parr, also known as Mr. Incredible, was inwardly rolling his eyes and groaning as he listened, yet again, to his boss's rant. _Why do I come to work here again every Loop, instead of for an honest employer?_ he asked himself. _Why?_

"We're supposed to help _our_ people! Starting with our stockholders, Bob! Who's helping them out, huh?" Mr. Huph was yelling at him. "Bob! Bob, are you even listening to me!?"

Just then, there was a knock on the door. "Gilbert Huph? Are you in there?"

Mr. Huph, glowering at Bob, answered the door. "This is Gilbert Huph. Can I help you?"

"My name is Mirage," the white-haired woman at the door replied back. "Mr. Gilbert Huph, on behalf of the law firm of Mull, Moote, Pine and Boyd, you are being served."

The shorter man looked outraged. "Served? On what grounds?"

She handed him a sheet of paper. "This is a class-action lawsuit for breach of contract, due to repeated and unwarranted denials of legitimate insurance claims." Mirage looked quite satisfied as he read the subpoena. "Your court date is in three months. See you then, Mr. Huph."

"I... you..." Sputtering and steaming, Mr. Huph failed to notice as Mirage left, or that Bob had slipped out the door as well, closing it behind them.

"Nice work, ma'm," he told her as they went down the hall.

"Why, thank you, sir." Mirage (who, along with Buddy, had actually found legitimate work this Loop as a paralegal and an honest lawyer, respectively) smiled, and walked away.

Watching her go, Bob resisted the urge to whistle happily as he turned and went back to his cubicle. _Oh yeah. That's why I come work here,_ he thought to himself. _To see proper justice done._

* * *

33.4 (wildrook): [Gravity Falls] | [South Park - non-Looping setting]

" _ **Time to go to work, work all night. Search for underpants yay! We will not stop 'til we get underpants. Yum tum yummy tum tay!**_ "

Dipper and Mabel had woken up to that, thinking that the gnomes were going to strike again. Unfortunately, they had encountered a different type of gnome instead of the type that tried to seduce Mabel.

"Uh, bro?" Mabel asked him, "are they stealing underwear?"

Dipper face-palmed. "I knew something was off when we Woke Up in Colorado," he muttered.

That caught the gnomes by surprise.

"Oh f**k, they're awake!" one of the Gnomes yelled.

"What the f**k do we do?" another Gnome asked them.

"Don't panic," Dipper muttered. "We come in..."

"I guess we have to kill them," the voice replied.

Dipper was not amused...he really didn't want to convince them otherwise. "Mabel," he said, "Release Restraint Level Five." Mabel gave out a really dangerous smile at that.

"Level wha..." the last Gnome asked him.

What happened next was either way too diabetic or way too gruesome... or in-between. Apparently, the Pines Siblings have had bad experiences with Gnomes.

* * *

33.5 (Masterweaver): [RWBY] / [Gravity Falls]

The multiverse was strange.

Really, that about summed up the situation. Every world had its own unique quirks, history, themes. Elemental bending, or galactic empire. Secret werewolf society, or teenagers experimenting with super-science. Most worlds had the decency to stick to only one or two kinds of weirdness at a time.

And then there were... places like these.

Glynda adjusted her glasses. "So... we have to keep the gnomes from raiding a ghost-infested manor, because if they do your sister might turn into wood, and on top of that a triangular demon unleashed a deranged yandere character from a visual novel early."

"Yeah, we usually don't deal with this all at once, but McGucket kinda left Bill linked to the internet, and..." The young boy shrugged.

"Right. Right." Glynda sighed. "Well, lead the way Dipper."

* * *

33.6 (Boohoooo!): [Bar Loop] / [Gremlins] / [Dan Vs.] / [Bambi]

Brain Gremlin drank some beer, drowning the memory from looping into the Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo branch.

"How does that pink-haired girl do it?" he mused.

"Tell me about. That Don Patch jerk turned my car into a salad and made me eat it!" Dan growled.

"You think that's bad? Bambi looped into the Rat-Man branch and met his undead mother." Thumper commented.

The trio turned to look at Bambi, who was whimpering and rocking back and forth.

"Yeah, that pretty much tops our loops in terms of awfulness." Brain Gremlin said.

"Eh, trauma builds character." Dan shrugged.

"You didn't have a very good childhood, huh?" Brain Gremlin drawled.

"No one asked you!" Dan snapped irritably.

Brain Gremlin chuckled and went back to his beer.

"BRAIN GREMLINNNNNNNN!" Dan roared angrily.

"Does he always do that?" Flower whispered to Chris.

"Yes." Chris deadpanned.

"Don't patronize me!" Dan snapped.

* * *

33.7 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Power Rangers] / [Frozen]

Dr. Tommy Oliver was surprised when he arrived at Reefside High for the first time this Loop.

"Principal... Haig?"

The blonde woman smiled. "Please, call me Elsa. And you must be Dr. Oliver, our new science teacher."

"Yeah. I am." Tommy held out a hand. "Nice to meet you, Elsa. And please, call me Tommy."

"The pleasure is all mine."

As they walked down the hall, she continued. "I must admit, I only recently arrived in Reefside myself, and I find myself in need of an Anchor. Preferably someone like my sister's beloved. Do you know where I might find one?"

"I know what you mean. A lot of people get thrown for a Loop when they first arrive here." Tommy smiled, and Pinged. Elsa smiled back, and a moment later Tommy felt a returning Ping.

"You know, I think I still have a few forms you need to fill out, Dr. Oliver. Perhaps we could continue this discussion while you're doing that in my office after classes."

"I look forward to it, Elsa."

* * *

That afternoon, once the students had been let out (and Conner, Ethan, Kira and Trent had let him know they were Awake and were going to retrieve the two Dino Gems that Mesogog already had), Tommy arrived in Elsa's office. "Elsa?"

"Tommy. Please, come in." He did, and closed the door. As she handed him a few forms, she gave him a serious look. "I've heard some interesting things about this town... and one some distance away, called Angel Grove. Would you care to enlighten me?"

Tommy nodded as he sat down and began scanning the papers. "Eleven years ago, in 1993, an alien sorceress attacked Angel Grove. In response, the sage Zordon formed a team known as the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers to fight back. Rita then caught me and turned me into her evil Green Ranger, until my friends freed me and made me the sixth member of the team. And after years of fighting, I was chosen as the Anchor for this universe."

"I see." Elsa smiled. "Well, I suppose my story, in its own way, is just as exciting. I'm Queen Elsa of Arendelle, and before I got control of my powers, I accidentally plunged my country into an eternal winter."

"The _Frozen_ universe?" Tommy nodded. "I've seen your Hub movie. It was really good."

"Thank you." Elsa bowed. "May I presume that a new team of Power Rangers will be active in Reefside soon?"

"Already got their powers," Tommy confirmed. Suddenly, he crinkled his brow.

"What is it?"

"Just... it's kind of odd. Your name, Elsa? One of our three main bad guys in this section of the Loop is also named Elsa, and you're actually in her place."

"Oh." Elsa frowned. "Well, I'm certainly not planning on being a villain this Loop. I had enough of just being misunderstood in my baseline."

"I know. But... well, you have ice and snow powers, and so does one of our team."

"And?"

"And, there was a Loop a while back... where she used them to defeat _our_ Elsa." He shook his head. "It's kind of ironic, now that I think about it."

"I see." She smiled again. "Well, I hope you'll introduce me to this person soon. I don't meet that many people with powers like mine."

"I'd be glad to. She's Awake, so... want to go meet her now?"

"Why not? As soon as we finish our paperwork, we can go."

"Just one last bit to sign, and here." Tommy handed her the papers. "Ready whenever you are."

"Good." Reading over the items he'd signed, she filed them and stood up. "I'm ready."

* * *

A short while later, the pair were in Haley's Cyberspace Café, and Elsa and Haley, having been introduced, were happily chatting away. Seeing the younger Rangers come in, Tommy signaled to them, and the five quickly found a quiet booth.

"So, how'd it go?"

Conner held up a case. "Got 'em all right here. Weird thing is, we didn't see Elsa this time. It was Scorpina instead. Didn't she get wiped out or purified or something when... well, the day after Dark Specter died?"

"Honestly, we never found out," Tommy told them. "Guess she survived it this Loop, and since Mesogog couldn't recruit Elsa's Replacement, he went for someone else."

"Yeah, I saw we had a different principal," Kira threw in. "So, who is she?"

"Elsa."

The four teens exchanged looks. "What?" Trent finally asked.

"She's Queen Elsa of Arendelle. The _Frozen_ Loop."

"Really?" Kira's eyes lit up. "I _love_ that movie!"

Tommy smiled. "Well, I'm sure she'll be glad to hear it."

As the teenage singer excused herself to go meet the other woman, Tommy, Conner, Ethan and Trent watched with amusement, Tommy shaking his head. "This is going to be one interesting Loop," he mused.

"No kidding," Conner agreed, and the others nodded.

* * *

33.8 (jxz): [Zootopia] / [Sing - non-Looping setting)

"A singing contest?" Nick asked his partner, the bunny showing him a sheet of paper about said contest that fell from the sky.

"Yes, a contest promoted by a koala named Buster Moon." Judy said. "I made some investigations, and the prize money, related to the theatre itself, gives me some sort of uneasiness."

"Are you sure it's not your mind giving you bad ideas from passing too much time helping me with my schemes?" Nick asked, going back to his book about how to scam an entire town, written by that Eddy guy.

"First off, it was only three times, and I've been working with you long enough to know when things are wrong, foxy." Judy retorted, giving him a folio full of papers. "Second, the theatre has never gotten a good show ever since it belonged to its old owner, and it seems it's in the reaches of filing for bankruptcy."

"So you think it's a Mass Scam?" Nick turned to her, smirking. "Are you sure he didn't ask for a mafioso of some kind?"

"Negative, I've asked too, and nobody knows. AND don't ask, you don't wanna know." Judy stopped the fox before he could say anything.

"Eh, fair enough. So, what's the plan?"

"We'll infiltrate the show and investigate. Worse comes to worse, we capture the producer. Otherwise..." She grinned. "Let's see who wins and if I win, no scams for the next three loops."

"Alright, Hopps. But if I win, Plan 'Bellwether in a Chicken Suit' is a go."

"What?! But that one is potentially speciesist!" Judy reclaimed. "C'mon, ask me for some other thing."

"Well..."

* * *

33.9 (lord Martiya): [Disney Comics - Duckburg] / [Star Wars]

"What?!" the Separatist Council shouted as one.

"I said get off my property, I've bought you out!" Scrooge replied. "You, the entire Confederation, and the Republic, all of this war! Should have seen Sidious' face when I told him-and after I had to forcibly evict him."

"I took pictures." Donald said helpfully.

* * *

33.10 (Luna Gale): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Danny Phantom]

"I'm worried about Adrien," Marinette confessed to Sam and Tucker. The three were cozying up at Sam's underground secret epic entertainment area. Wrapped up in blankets and holding hot cocoa, the three had decided to spend the time together while Danny and Adrien did who knows what.

The two exchanged glances before looking back at her.

"How so?" Sam asked.

"Yeah, it's Christmas, what's there to worry about?"

Sam looked at his pointedly, gesturing her mug at him, "Other than inexplicably evil snowmen."

"THAT WAS ONE TIME, SAM."

Marinette cleared her throat, quieting the two, "I mean, he's usually bad around Christmas. Sadder. I'm just worried about how he's doing is all."

She frowned at her hot cocoa and cuddled deeper in the blankets. There was a long pause between them.

And then Tucker snorted.

"Five bucks says he's brooding with Danny."

Sam snorted as well, "Loser's bet."

Marinette blinked and looked up quickly, "Don't tell me. Danny doesn't like Christmas either."

There was a growing horror building up in her as the two nodded solemnly. Sam pulled out a remote from the couch, "Danny is the worst around Christmas. He used to be okay, but with the Loops and all, that annoyance just turned to flat out hatred. He can't even stand to go to the mall this time of year anymore."

"Definite Scrooge."

Marinette's eyes widened, "Oh."

Tucker snorted, "Yeah, oh. The Scrooge Dudes can ruin Christmas all they want. Just leave me and my cocoa out of it."

Sam flickered on the TV, and said with a shrug, "They'll be fine. They're probably just brooding in Danny's room with his Anti-Christmas shield blaring around them. They'll be fine at New Years."

Despite their assurances, Marinette couldn't help but feel a great dread.

* * *

"Hey, Adrien."

"Yeah, Danny?"

"Next time we Loop together, let's be anti-Christmas super villains."

"Okay, but what will that do?"

"We'll conquer the world and make sure Christmas never exists again."

"..."

"..."

"...Danny?"

"Yeah?"

"You're a genius."

The two fist bumped with matching smirks.

* * *

33.11 (wildrook): [Zootopia] / [Die Hard] / implied [Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger]

"Out of all the cases we've been through," Nick said to Judy, "not once did I expect a corpse to fall from a building." He shook his head.

Judy gave out a cough. "My parents would have conniption fits if they found out I was doing something this dangerous," she replied, "but this is a lot more serious than disappearing predators. What the hell kind of..."

"WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PALS!" a voice yelled, catching Judy's attention.

Nick blinked as he noticed Judy's ears twitch. "Someone get your attention, Carrots?" he asked her.

"I think I figured out where this scenario came from," Judy muttered. "We might not be dealing with a terrorist plot."

"Ah, you saw that movie, too." He shook his head. "I wonder if that guy is Anchoring."

Sure enough, Judy's communicator was online.

" _And judging by you two,_ " the voice from earlier said, " _you're not exactly Al. Right now, keep things on the down low, Cottontail. Sly. From what I remember, we've got about thirty hostages and ten hostiles. Worse, I think I may have just p*ssed one off._ "

Both Nick and Judy blinked. "Anyone Awake?" Judy asked him.

" _That's the point of keeping things discreet. All ten of them have itchy trigger fingers. Also, if you're willing to get a name, call me Roy._ "

Both rabbit and fox knew where this was going. "Now I'm starting to see why there's an elaborate set-up," Nick said to Judy. "We're just lucky that there's two reasonable chiefs in the area."

"I wouldn't call it luck," the rabbit replied. "If we make a move immediately, the 'terrorists' are going to notice and try to bomb us from above."

"And this thing isn't exactly set with a good high speed. And judging by the corpse... it may be a mix of Predator and Prey, if the blueberries are any indication." He blinked. "Why is it that the terrorists in this world are more equal than the actual citizens of Zootopia?"

Judy gave out a stare. "Better not tell Gazelle that," she muttered before noticing the chief roll in... or rather, the one resembling a wolf. "And it seems like Doggie's here, too."

Nick blinked. "Huh, guess they must have stepped up their game," he said, before noticing his military-grade communicator show up, speaking in the closest thing to German. "If this guy has a brother, we may have to ask for a transfer to wherever 'Roy' was originally stationed. Just in case they're asking us for help." Judy got the idea. Whatever the gang is, they might be dealing with thieves instead of terrorists, if what Nick is speculating is correct.

And they're going to need to work quickly or else things are going to explode. And not in the good way.

* * *

33.12 (Shimmer712): [RWBY] / [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

"...Wait a minute..." Blake muttered, recognizing where she was.

"Ooh! We're back in the Ladybug loops!" Ruby chirped. "I can recharge from cookies again!"

"Why am I the Ladybug girl?" Blake asked. "I mean, the Plagg thing made sense. I mean, black cat spirit-god-thing, but the Ladybug girl? What the heck? And how am I supposed to use a yoyo to fight?"

Ruby shrugged. "Pretend it's a smaller, lighter Gambol Shroud?"

"...What?"

"Well, you do tend to swing around like a yoyo..."

"...I guess if we ever have a yoyo contest, I'm gonna win, huh?"

"I'll be sure to bet on you."

* * *

33.13 (lord Martiya): [W.I.T.C.H.] / [Winx Club] (also compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as Loop 26.3)

"Let me get this straight, Flora." Cornelia said to the visiting Anchor. "You told your Unactivated sister about the Loops, she asked you to get into your pocket to stay with you because she was under the impression the final Miele would have not been her, and you couldn't tell her no?"

"Pretty much." Flora admitted bashfully.

"In another situation I would have been in doubt between courage and foolishness, but not this time: this was the stupidest thing you've ever done."

"Maybe, but-"

"No maybes or buts. I have a little sister too - an adorable little pest - and sometimes I tell her about the Loops, but I would have never done that - after all, just like your sister, her appearance in the Hub proves she's still the same. No matter how Yggdrasil interprets them at time, under that they are the same, and will always be."

With that Cornelia hugged her fellow Looper, both to console her and help herself ignore the voice in her head suggesting that, maybe, the thing about Lilian being the same was a lie she was telling herself to cover her cowardice.

* * *

33.14 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Gargoyles]

Goliath sat atop one of the towers of Castle Wyvern, looking out over the city and contemplating, in a pose rather reminiscent of the one he had spent a thousand years in.

Behind him, someone cleared their throat to get his attention. "Father?"

"Angela." Goliath turned to his daughter, who had only recently begun Looping, and smiled. "How are you?"

"I'm doing well, thank you." The younger gargoyle climbed onto one of the parapets nearby. "Father... I have to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"Do you think Mother will ever Loop?"

For a moment, Goliath froze, then turned to look his daughter in the eye. "I have asked myself that same question many times," he said quietly. "And every time, the answer is that I simply do not know."

He paused to gather his thoughts, then began speaking. "Demona is... complicated. Even in our baseline, she knows she herself is responsible for much of the tragedy in her life, but is unwilling to admit it to herself. And she has been shaped by over a thousand years of negative experiences, driven by grief, anger and hatred." The lavender gargoyle sighed. "Even with our baseline though, and what I felt for a time before these Loops began, I do not believe she is beyond redemption. From what I have learned, both through my own interactions with her and what I have read when I Loop into the Hub, I think that, under the right circumstances, she could well finally see the error of her ways, but it would be very, very hard for her, and it could very well drive her to madness and back."

Angela bowed her head. "I see. And have you... ever told her about the Loops?"

"Sometimes. Her reaction to this varies. Sometimes, she does not believe me at all. Others, I think I have gotten through to her, at least somewhat, enough that she gives up on destroying humanity as a whole, though she has never given up her grudge against some humans, like the Quarrymen." He furrowed his brow. "In such matters, I cannot entirely blame her, for in moments of anger, I too have come close to killing those who harmed my loved ones, though as a rule I prefer to restrain myself."

Angela placed a hand on her father's shoulder. "I understand."

Goliath smiled at her. "Thank you, Angela."

"You're welcome."

Turning to gaze out at the city, Goliath sighed again. "I love Elisa now, but even so, some part of me still cares for your mother. And I hope, someday, that she may indeed find redemption for herself. And, Admins-willing, if she ever does... maybe then she'll start to Loop."

Angela gazed at him fondly. "Thank you father." Suddenly, a sound from behind caught her attention, and her eyes widened. "Look out!"

Goliath looked around in time to see what was coming, but not fast enough to avoid it.

_SPLAT_

"Hah!" a familiar voice shouted. "Creamed ya again, gargoyle!"

Wiping the pie off his face, Goliath groaned and looked up at the hot-air balloon that was passing by the tower. "Good _night_ , Vinnie!"

The former security guard just laughed, tossed his bazooka to Goliath, and quickly flew the balloon away. Catching the weapon, Goliath sighed.

Angela blinked as she watched him go, then looked at Goliath. " _How_ often did you say he does that?"

"Normally, at least once a Loop," Goliath told her. "But this time around, he's shot me with that pie gun at least once a month."

"Why?"

"I honestly do not know, Angela. I think he gets some sort of... catharsis out of it."

"Oh. Well, at least he isn't hurting anyone this way."

"That, Angela, is one of the reasons I just let bygones be bygones whenever it happens."

* * *

33.15 (Hvulpes): [Frozen]

Anna began, "So Elsa, when you went into the mountains and made your Ice palace, you somehow turned your clothes into a dress made of ice?"

Else said, "Yes, Anna. You know that, why are you bring it up?"

"Just checking... all of your clothes are made of ice?"

"Yes, Anna."

"So the first thing you did when you embraced your powers was to get naked and run around?"

"Get naked? Where did you get that thought?"

"Your clothes are made of ice! If I were to get naked and spray myself with water claiming it was a water dress, would I be naked? Cause isn't that kinda what you did?"

Anna smiled as her sister realized the fact, embarrassment followed, and vengeance for the prank Elsa did a few loops back was gained.

* * *

33.16 (Awesomedude17): [Disney]

"Mickey."

"Yes, Minnie?"

"Why's there so much Spam everywhere?"

"Because Spam, Minnie. Yggdrasil will latch a seemingly random thing and put it into a Branch."

"Oh... but why Spam of all things?"

"That, I'm wondering too."

* * *

33.17 (Boohoooo!): [Spongebob Squarepants] / [Dragonball] / [Bambi]

So, two talking sea creatures, a midget with immense power and a deer get stuck in elevator. No, this isn't the punchline to a corny joke.

"SpongeBob, how's it going up there?" Squidward asked, having given SpongeBob a lift to the top of the elevator.

"Not good! We're definitely jammed!" SpongeBob exclaimed.

"This is just great. I should've taken the stairs." Krillin muttered.

Bambi gulped and looked around. "Y-You guys hear that moaning?"

"Look, Bambi, I get you're traumatized from that Rat-Man loop, but-" Squidward began. He was promptly interrupted by a decayed hand breaking through the floor to grab him.

"AHHHH! KILL IT! KILL IT!" Bambi screamed. Krillin fired a Ki Blast at the hand. But more kept coming!

"Noooo! I have a wife and a kid!" Krillin exclaimed, getting overwhelmed.

"What's going on- OH BARNACLE!" SpongeBob exclaimed, looking into the elevator.

"Whyyyyyyyyy?" Bambi exclaimed, getting dragged down.

The remaining three continued to fight off the zombies.

"I hate zombie apocalypse variants!" Squidward whined.

"Who doesn't?!" Krillin exclaimed.

And so the trio fought for dear life.

* * *

33.18 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts]

Kairi looked around with a frown before tugging on Riku's shirt.

"We've lost Sora in the crowd."

Riku looked around, easily taller than most of the people in the crowd and he frowned at the lack of spiky brown hair.

"Alright, I have a plan," he said before clearing his throat and standing straight. Taking a deep breath, he bellowed.

"I'M GIVING IN TO THE POWER OF DARKNESS!"

From somewhere, a panicked voice shouted back.

"Riku, no!"

Riku grinned and pointed. "That way."

* * *

33.19 (Harry Leferts): [Frozen] / [Kantai Collection]

Walking into the room, Anna blinked for a moment and then paused as she listened to the song being played. There were no words to it, but it was purely instrumental. But it wasn't hard for her to know what she was listening to. "... Are the two of you really listening to 'Let It Go'?"

A smile on her face, Elsa just chuckled before sipping her drink. "Actually, Fubuki suggested it and... I quite like this version."

Blushing, Fubuki rubbed the back of her head before freezing the juice in her own glass to a slush. "Well... I found it once in another Hub loop, and I liked it." If anything, her blush grew at the slight smirk on Elsa's face. "What?"

Softly chuckling, Elsa shook her head. "You have ice powers as I do, and yet you use them for the most mundane of things at times."

With a blink, Fubuki eventually shrugged. "Well... it's one of my favorite powers."

Raising an eyebrow, Anna leaned across the sofa. "But making juice into a slushy?"

Fubuki though only gave a weak grin. "Um... it's frozen lemonade?" She then took a sip before clearing her throat. "Though I really do enjoy having the ice powers. it kind of suits me since I'm named 'Blizzard' after all."

Slowly nodding, Elsa leaned back. "It certainly does, I suppose."

Her head tilted to the side, Anna frowned slightly. "Wait a moment... this version of your song doesn't sound like the others in some places."

Just sharing a look with Fubuki, Elsa nodded some. "It certainly doesn't. These... Piano Guys took my song and merged it with a song by Vivaldi's piece, 'Winter'. I find it rather refreshing and nice."

Tilting her head back and forth, Anna slowly nodded. "You know... we could probably have some people in our Loop play this."

After a few moments, Elsa slowly nodded as she sipped her own drink, just enjoying the peace.

* * *

33.20 (Vinylshadow): [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts]

Aqua and Mickey were walking through the Realm of Darkness, having just defeated a horde of Heartless.

"Once we're out of here, what do you plan to do?" Mickey asked.

"Not gonna lie, as much as I want to find Terra and Ven... I _desperately_ need a bath," Aqua said, toying with a lock of her hair. "I haven't had one in over a decade."

* * *

33.21 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts]

"Gimme."

"Aqua, no."

"Give me the cat ears, Terra."

"Only when you give me back my pants."

"You first."

"Guys, what are you doing?"

"Ven, Terra's being a meanie."

"...You're threatening to set his entire parachute pants collection on fire over a pair of cat ears?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"No reason."

"Ven, don't leave me!"

"Sorry Terra, but I know a lost cause when I see one."

* * *

33.22 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts]

Sora walked into his Station of Awakening and clapped his hands.

"Alright, everyone living in my heart, listen up! Xehanort, stop conspiring with your twelve other selves, Sephiroth, stop strangling Cloud, Cid, stop trying to rewire my nervous system, Aqua, Ventus, Terra, stop trying to kill Xehanort and by all that is sacred, could someone give Xion and Roxas a hug?"

Sora shook his head. "Good grief, when they said my heart was connected to everyone I met, I didn't think they meant it literally. Perhaps I should start charging rent..."

* * *

33.23 (Boohoooo!): [We Bare Bears] / [Frozen]

Ice Bear looked down at himself, having looped in as Elsa.

"Ice Bear find being girl surprisingly not too uncomfortable. Ice Bear also like Ice powers." He mused, firing an ice blast... that hit a servant, freezing him.

Ice Bear stood there for a moment before awkwardly shuffling off.

* * *

33.24 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Lion King]

"Hey, Sora," Riku muttered, "Xehanort's on the move again, so we might need to..." He then noticed the layout of the Gummi Ship and blinked. "Okay, there weren't as many lions as there were last time, were there?"

"Hey, Riku," Simba said to them. "You're meeting the former Outlanders and my daughter's boyfriend, Kovu." Kovu waved as he looked at the new arrival.

Sora then chuckled. "Turns out that Zira kind of contracted Heartless and caused the world to end," he muttered, "so they decided to hitch a ride. Oh, and so did the Hyenas, too."

"Nice place," Shenzi replied. "Had we known you guys would have been loaded, we'd have stowed away years ago."

Vitani shook her head. "Is this what it feels like to be surrounded by idiots?" she asked herself. She then looked at Riku. "That your friend?" Sora nodded. "I wonder what he would look like as a lion."

Riku face-palmed. 'I think being hit on by a lion is rather tame in comparison to what we've endured,' he thought.

Zazu just looked around. "Well," he muttered, "I can see why you've never mentioned the whole world traveler thing. I will admit, that you're going to need help trying to adjust, and I'm a little outside my element, but I can manage. I've dealt with Mufasa and Scar's reign, and I can certainly handle yours, Kovu."

"I think the crazy part is that I'm well-aware of how Scar's reign on the Pride Lands led to ruin," Kovu replied. "Now I understand why other Loopers call it the Cult of Scar-O." If one would pay attention to Zazu, he gave out a chuckle.

"I don't get it," Banzai muttered.

"Let's just say that Zazu has a bit of a wry sense of humor," Nala answered, then looked at Timon and Pumbaa. "You two going to be okay?"

Timon gave her a small look. "We'll be fine once we're done mourning the family I was raised under," he muttered. "It might take a while in order to regain Hakuna Matata, though, what with all the things that have been happening."

"That's understandable," Kiara replied, knowing that look. "It's like Dad whenever he gets nightmares about Grandpa Mufasa's death."

"Kind of wish we met the guy in person before that happened," Pumbaa added. "But yeah, it never tells you how to deal with grief."

Riku then remembered something about Pumbaa that gave him concern. "Sora," he muttered, "I think you're going to need to drop these guys off at Traverse Town... or somewhere."

"Yeah, I know," Sora said, remembering Pumbaa's... gas. "But keep in mind that I'm not leaving them hanging... or throwing Pumbaa out the airlock." He then noticed Ed making a move. "Or Ed, for that matter."

Ed gave out a nervous grin. How did he notice that he was attempting to pounce.

"You're good," Banzai muttered. "I'm pretty sure you'd make a better king than Scar."

"I think anyone would be a better king than Taka," Shenzi commented. "Heck, even the Meerkat could head the Pride Lands."

"Eh, trust me on this one," Timon said, accepting the fact that they might be stuck together. "You don't want me in charge of a kingdom. Or anything."

Somehow, Simba did not want to know what happened during the first few years he was taking care of Kiara.

Sora then blinked. "So, what was that about Xehanort?" he asked Riku.

Riku looked at him. "I think we can wait until after we get the entirety of the Pride Lands to safety," he muttered. "And no, we can't keep them."

"I'm tempted to ask why not," Timon muttered, "but I have the feeling we might know the answer already."

"Probably because even though there have been cases of lions as domesticated animals, I'm pretty sure an entire pride would be overkill." He then noticed the looks on their faces. "I tend to do a lot of research on animals in my spare time. Some of them may not be up to standard, but I'm pretty sure your diets would cause havoc on Destiny Island's ecosystem."

Sora nodded. "Right," he muttered. "Traverse Town it is. Or Radiant Garden."

"So," Shenzi said, curiosity taking over, "who's Xehanort?"

* * *

33.25 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Beauty and the Beast] / [The Little Mermaid]

It was a cold, windy night, and Belle shivered as she wrapped her cloak around her, reflecting on how she had come to be in the middle of a forest this late: she had kept her father company on his journey to the fair where he would show off his new invention, making sure he would get there safely, and had then gone off on her own journey to the Beast's castle. She hadn't seen any sign of him being Awake this Loop yet, but hopefully she'd find out for sure when she arrived at the castle.

Finally, she reached the castle's entrance, making her way through the gates and crossing the drawbridge to the main door. Opening it, she peered inside. Seeing nobody about, she entered, closing the door behind her.

"Hello?" Belle called as she made her way through the main hall. "Is anyone here?"

"Belle!" another, familiar voice excitedly called from the top of the stairs at the far end of the room. "It's so good to see you! Come on up!"

"Ariel!" Belle smiled and hurried forward and up the stairs to embrace her friend. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a long story." Ariel blushed. "I only Woke Up a short while ago, and apparently, I'm... sort of Replacing your prince."

"Replacing..." Belle's eyes widened. "Do we..."

"No, we don't have to fall in love... it looks like that aspect of the spell skipped us again." Ariel blushed deeper. "Come on, I'll explain in the library."

The two princesses were soon settled in, and Ariel, once she was sure her guest was comfortable, began explaining what she knew. "Apparently, my dear _aunt_ Ursula took a cue from the Dresden Loop's wizards this go-round."

Belle winced. "It's that variant of your past again?"

" _Yes._ Both she and Morgana were Father's sisters this time." Ariel shuddered. "From what I found out, they used to be normal mermaids, but changed themselves into cecaelia later on. They were both banished for practicing evil magic long before I was born, but when I went to ask Ursula for help... I didn't realize how evil she was. Or that she and Morgana were on better terms than in baseline, at least enough to work together from time to time."

Belle reached out a hand and laid it on Ariel's shoulder. "It's okay," she said reassuringly. "You can't blame yourself for mistakes made when you weren't Awake."

Ariel smiled, and continued her story. "According to my memories, my baseline events went almost the same as usual, but when Eric ran her through, Ursula cast her Death Curse at me. She told us that I'd have seven more days with Eric, and then I'd spend a lifetime trapped in a place far from Eric and my father's kingdoms and the people who lived there. That curse is why I've been trapped in this castle for almost thirteen years."

Belle looked at her and smiled sadly. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," Ariel told her with a smile. "Besides, Father did what he could to help me. He couldn't get rid of the curse entirely, since she took precautions against that. Apparently, to make a spell long-lasting, she could anchor it to a blood relation like Morgana, and that's exactly what she did with this one. But Father did think of a way out for me." She smiled. "After he cast his own spell on me, he wrote down a part of it, and said it would tell me what I needed to do to leave here." Removing a scroll from her dress pocket, she unfurled it, cleared her throat, and began to read aloud.

" _Past darkest wood, a lady fair_

_Sings from her heart of a great wide somewhere_

_Her touch alone unbinds one door_

_A mermaid's wisdom breaks down one more_

_In hidden depths, the final key_

_Awaits a heart of land and sea._ "

When she had finished, she rolled up the scroll again and looked at Belle with a smile. "I know our Hub movies, and the song you sang. You're the one we needed to open the first door. Now we need to find the second so I can open it."

"And what about the third?" Belle asked.

"I'm pretty sure I know who it has to be." Ariel's smile grew. "Ursula's curse didn't take everything into account... it couldn't affect someone who'd never lived in either of our kingdoms when she cast it, because they hadn't even been conceived yet."

Belle's eyes widened. "Melody?"

"Born almost nine months after I came here," Ariel confirmed. "She's the only company I've had until you arrived, and she Woke Up about the same time I did."

"So where is she?"

"I sent her off to bed a little while ago. And speaking of which, let me show you to one of the guest rooms." She stood up, and Belle followed her.

As they headed through the halls, Belle smiled. "You are so lucky, getting to be a mother in your baseline."

Ariel smiled back. "Thank you. You'll get the same chance one day, I'm sure of it. After the Loops end."

"Technically, I already have some experience," Belle reminded her. "That _Descendants_ variant."

"Right, I almost forgot." Ariel looked around. "As soon as Melody's up, we can start looking for that door I'm supposed to unlock. I have the feeling it didn't appear, or at least wouldn't have unlocked, until you arrived."

"That would make sense."

* * *

The next morning, after the two women had awoken and spent some time making small talk in the library, a yawning figure in a white outfit wandered in to join them. "Morning, Mom. Morning, Aunt Belle," she said sleepily. Suddenly her eyes snapped open. "Aunt Belle?!"

Laughing, Belle held her arms out. "Good morning, Melody."

Melody grinned and jumped into her honorary aunt's arms. "I can't believe you're here!" she said excitedly. Then she turned to her mother. "Does this mean..."

"Yes," Ariel confirmed. "The first door is open. The curse is starting to break."

"So we can see Dad and Grandfather again soon?" Melody beamed. "Oh Mom..."

"I know, sweetie," Ariel told her. "I can't wait to see them again either."

Belle watched the interaction between the two and smiled. Ariel was one of her closest friends, and seeing she and her daughter together always made the other Anchor very happy.

A few minutes later, the trio were wandering the halls. "You know, the layout of this place changes from Loop to Loop," Belle told them as they explored. "Some rooms are always there, but they're not always in the same place."

Ariel nodded. "It's the same in my castle, and I've heard Jasmine has the same issue with her father's palace."

"So, where do you think this door might be?" Belle asked.

"Probably somewhere in the dungeons," Ariel told her. "Or..." her eyes narrowed. "Maybe _his_ room."

" _His_?" Belle looked at her. "Was there someone else in here?"

"Not this Loop, but a previous one. And his room is here again this Loop - I recognized the door. It was locked though, and I didn't want to go in, just in case he _was_ in there this time."

Belle's eyes widened. "Oh... _him_."

Melody looked at them curiously. "Mom? Aunt Belle? Who are you talking about?"

Belle's eyes closed sorrowfully. "There's a variant where... well, there's one member of Beast's staff who doesn't live to become human again. Forte used to be the castle's music conductor, but after being enchanted and becoming a pipe organ, he liked his new form better and was willing to do anything to stay that way. He even tried to destroy the entire castle to keep Beast and I from falling in love and breaking the spell, but he wound up destroying himself when he pulled himself out of the wall."

"Oh." Melody looked sad at the thought. "I'm sorry."

"So am I," Belle told her. "He may not have been the best person in the world, but he still deserved better."

"And we'd better check his room, just to be on the safe side," Ariel added. "It's in the West Wing." Taking the lead, she guided them to that hall, and pointed at the door. "There it is."

Belle nodded. Reaching out, she tried the door, and just as she expected, it was locked. "How do we get in?"

"Let me think." Ariel reached out to lean against the door... and quickly withdrew it, gasping in surprise as the door began to dissolve.

"You did it, Mom!" Melody looked at her happily. "You unlocked the second door!"

"And now there's just one more key," Ariel told her. "It's all up to you now."

Melody nodded and, a determined look on her face, walked into the room.

Across the room, where Forte would have been, was instead a staircase leading down, surrounded by smooth stone walls. With Melody in front, the three began descending, Melody muttering something under her breath.

"Melody? What are you doing?" Ariel asked.

"Counting the stairs." Melody shrugged. "It's something to do."

Ariel and Belle glanced at one another, then continued following her.

Five hundred steps from the top, the staircase ended. Fifteen paces ahead, the corridor ahead turned, and a soft, silvery glow could be seen. Peering around the corner, Melody gasped in surprise, then ran ahead, her mother and Belle hurriedly following after her, then stopping to stare at the source of the glow.

It was a solid crystal trident, effectively an exact replica of King Triton's save for the color, floating in midair.

"I think we've found our way out," Melody said quietly. "Mom, Aunt Belle? You may want to hold onto me."

The two women nodded, and Ariel wrapped an arm around one of her daughter's. Belle took the other, and carefully, Melody reached out and, with both hands, took hold of the trident.

Instantly, its soft light brightened, and the room began to shake, with a fierce drumming sound coming from under the floor.

Then there was a whirl of motion.

And in an instant, all three were gone.

* * *

Ariel opened her eyes, and immediately recognized her surroundings as the stairs leading from Eric's castle to the beach below.

"We're back..." she whispered. "We're really back! We did it!"

Melody, still clutching the crystal trident, whooped happily, as Ariel flung her arms around her friend and daughter. "Thank you both..." she whispered. "So much."

Belle hugged her back. "You're welcome."

"Ariel?" another voice suddenly interrupted. "Melody!"

"Dad!" Melody shrieked happily. Pulling out of her mother's arms and rushing forward, she threw her arms around him, with Ariel not far behind. "It's so good to finally see you!"

"It's good to have you here too," Eric told her happily. "You and your mom both. And Belle!" he added, seeing her for the first time. "You helped them break the spell, didn't you?"

"I certainly did," Belle told him with a smile. At Ariel's gesture, she joined the family's group hug.

When they finally parted, Eric smiled. "I had a feeling you'd be back soon," he told his wife. "I've been waiting for this ever since I Awoke a few days ago."

"So have I," Ariel told him, before she pulled him into a liplock.

Turning away with an amused look, Melody exchanged glances with Belle. "Let's give them a little space, okay?"

Belle nodded, and took Melody's hand, the two walking into the palace together, Melody still holding the trident.

A few hours later, the entire group was gathered on the beach, including King Triton, an unAwake Sebastian (who was looking quite exasperated) and, thanks to Melody teleporting them to France and back again with her trident, Maurice.

"I must say," the elderly man commented, "I wasn't expecting _this_ when I let Belle go off on her own yesterday."

"I quite agree," Triton told him. "But our daughters do appear to be very good friends. Why, Ariel seems closer to her than to any of my other daughters."

Maurice smiled. "My one regret with Belle was that I was never able to give her any brothers or sisters. It looks like your daughter has remedied that."

"She certainly has," Triton agreed, a proud smile on his own face.

"Now, if you don't mind my asking," Maurice asked him. "I saw your granddaughter pull her trident out of thin air when she and Belle came to get me, and hide it away again when we arrived here. How, exactly, did she do that?"

"It's something all merfolk and part-merfolk can do," Triton replied. "And one human, since I gave Eric the ability as well."

This wasn't exactly the truth, but it was as much as he was willing to say.

Maurice nodded. "Of course." He smiled. "Well, given Belle doesn't seem to want to leave, and I'm certainly not going back to France without her... I must say, this certainly looks like a very pleasant place to spend my retirement."

"I'm quite sure you'll enjoy yourself here, my friend." Triton looked at his daughter, her family and Belle, and smiled. "No question about it."

* * *

33.1: A skunk, and Inspector Gadget's niece... this should be interesting.

33.2: Even Pooh has Loops he doesn't care for.

33.3: I don't know if this kind of lawsuit would stand a chance in real life... but it was fun to write about anyway, because Huph deserves to get the unabridged dictionary thrown at him for his actions in baseline. (And just because it needs to be said, neither Syndrome nor Mirage are Looping, here or at all as of this writing. Bob just likes the variants where they're nicer.) (Also by the way, the law firm here shares part of its name with one from the John Bellairs/Brad Strickland book _The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge_ \- I just added Syndrome's surname to it.)

33.4: Yeah, not a setting you ever want to awaken in.

33.5: The multiverse is strange, indeed.

33.6: Trading stories.

33.7: Elsa's surname this Loop comes from her _Once Upon a Time_ actress Georgina Haig. Also, they talk about not knowing Scorpina's fate at this point, but it's actually been revealed in the "Soul of the Dragon" graphic novel since then.

33.8: They run into some interesting things at times.

33.9: You go, Scrooge.

33.10: The origin of the Christmas War. See Loops 38 for the actual event.

33.11: More adventures from these two.

33.12: They can be surprisingly effective.

33.13: Yeah. This is part of a bigger storyline over in Winx, and it's an interesting one.

33.14: I'm not surprised Angela would wonder about this... but no, I wasn't aiming to get Demona Looping. Yet. It's always a possibility if she reforms first.

33.15: Fridge logic! (Though I seem to recall that she actually just covered her existing clothes in a layer of ice, rather than outright replacing them.)

33.16: Another gag loop.

33.17: I don't blame you, guys.

33.18: Simple, but effective.

33.19: Mundane Utility in action, people.

33.20: Quoting Vinylshadow: "Sure, time doesn't flow in the RoD, but it's still funny to think about."

33.21: Ah, those three...

33.22: This made me laugh.

33.23: Ice Bear needs to work on his aim. And control.

33.24: Given matters, I think they could easily get some interesting allies out of this.

33.25: I was inspired to write this after skimming the novelization of the live-action _Beauty and the Beast_ film from 2017. Also included: references to the direct-to-video midquel _Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas_ , which I've only seen bits of but enough to understand, and the second Little Mermaid movie (for some reason I really like Ariel and Melody). On a related note, Triton is currently pretending to be just Loop-Aware rather than a Looper himself. And Melody's keeping the Crystal Trident.


	51. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Four

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-02-10. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Four**

34.1 (Hvulpes): [Gravity Falls]

Dipper awoke as he got out of the Greyhound bus, noticing the unique difference of the vehicle. As well as his sibling. Followed by the people around him. The fact he didn't have hands wasn't a problem, given memories and experiences as ponies. The problem would come if his sister ever enter this loop... or even heard about it. Since she would drive Dipper insane about it.

In his mind, Dipper swore, 'Mabel must never find out about the _Gravity Paws_ loop for as long as possible.'

* * *

34.2 (wildrook): [Zootopia] / [Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger]

"I may have noticed a lot of things in my day," Nick Wilde said to Judy, "but a giant cube is new to me."

Sure enough, they had noticed something off when they saw the thing in the middle of Judy's carrot farm.

"Oh that thing?" Judy's Dad asked him. "That's been there for quite a while. We kind of use it as a marker for our crops. It's quite a tourist attraction."

"It says something when they're comfortable around you before Gideon decided make amends," Judy muttered, "when they use it for a conversation piece. Besides, I think Commander Kruger warned us about something like this."

Nick nodded. "Uh-huh," he muttered. "Did he mention anything about it moving on its own and acting like a Rubix Cube?"

"No, why?" Nick just pointed at the cube which did that, and when it opened, two individuals came flying out and landed...on one of the crops.

Nick and Judy just looked at the two, surprised.

"You lost?" Nick asked them.

"Maybe," the one in red muttered. "Are you guys Zyumen?"

"No," Judy answered, noticing her Dad scurry away. "I'm Judy Hopps, and this is Nick Wilde. We're from the Zootopia Branch."

"So we're Awake... but still puzzled." He then groaned as he got up. "Yamato Kazakiri, and this is my friend Misao Mondo," he said. "We're Zyuoh Eagle and Zyuoh The World, respectively."

"And I really wanted to see Tusk again," the identified Misao replied. "Maybe next time, Yamato?"

Yamato smiled. Misao hadn't gone into one of his depression fits ever since he first Awakened, showing that his desire to change was set. "If we can avoid the Zyumen trying to kill us." He then looked at the cube. "I'm just glad that the Dethgaliens were already taken care of by Flashman."

"Dethgaliens?" Judy asked them.

"They're basically hunters of planets," Yamato answered. "Micchan and I tend to run into those guys a lot more than we should, and he tries to make sure the Zyumen whose powers were forced into his body try not to die. Earth would have been their 100th."

"World destroyers," Nick muttered, sitting down. "Quite the nuisance, aren't they?"

"I'm more concerned about how Zootopia as a whole would react to humans," Judy replied.

Misao tried not to go into a depressed state, but he bowed anyways. "We apologize for the inconvenience," the man replied. "But we can go back through the cube at any time."

Yamato nodded. "And in case we decide to stay," he added, "we can help around the farm. I've done the same for those who end up at my place."

Judy and Nick looked at each other before nodding.

"Alright," Judy replied, "but try not to scare the kids. I've got several different siblings running around and they barely know what a Night Howler is... nor do we want to know how they affect humans."

"I think we can explain when we get inside," Nick added. "Until then, welcome to... well... Judy's place."

* * *

34.3 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. The Forces of Evil] / [Moana - no Awake Loopers]

Things had been going pretty Baseline this loop for Star and Marco...

...Until Lobster Claws turned out to be some crab with an addiction to shiny stuff.

As Tamatoa sang his trademark song, with Ludo and his henchmen as back-up singers and dancers, Star and Marco just stared.

"I... just... why..." Marco stammered, unable to form a coherent sentence from the sheer weirdness.

Ludo then ripped off his clothes, revealing a swimsuit underneath.

"MY EYESSSSS!" Star screamed.

And so the song and dance continued, with Star and Marco continuing to stare.

* * *

34.4 (Vinylshadow): [Kingdom Hearts]

Eraqus and Aqua watched Terra and Ventus leave the chamber.

"Now that you're a Keyblade Master, you will have new responsibilities," Eraqus said. He snapped his fingers and a huge pile of papers appeared.

"...What's all this?" Aqua asked.

"Taxes!" Eraqus said cheerfully. "Training wielders is expensive, so King Mickey set up a system to make it easier. Why do you think we encourage you to pick up as much munny as you can while defeating Unversed?"

"...This is not what I expected," Aqua said as she sat down and began working.

* * *

34.5 (Awesomedude17): [Snow White] / [Mulan] / [Frozen] / [Rick and Morty] / [Bar Loop]

"Welcome to the newest Princess Summit, one and all." Snow White said. "How has everyone been?"

Many of the Disney Princess spoke in a generally positive manner, except one.

"What's wrong, Mulan?"

"Someone's been following me for quite a while this Loop."

"And who's that?" Elsa asked.

The doors burst open.

"Him."

Everyone stared as Rick Sanchez, known by many as the most scientific of all Loopers, and one of its biggest jerks. Everyone braced themselves for impact.

"Mulan! You-you better get McDonald's to bring that-that-that fucking! Delicious! Szechuan teriyaki Mc-McNugget *urp* dipping sauce back because it's fucking awesome, Mulan! It's like... sooooo fu*uuuurp*cking gooooood and-and-and I won't stop until-until I get my McNugget... Szechuan sauce, Mulan. Mulan, you have to get that Szechuan sauce back because-because fuck me, it's good!"

As Rick began to ramble on, Mulan gave a pleading look towards the others, who only responded with sympathetic stares.

"Rick & Morty, th-the search f*uuuuuuruuuurp*r the Sze-Szechuan sauce! Coming this summer on [adult swim] on-on-on Cartoon Network! Nine seasons of the search for sauce. Nine whole seasons of Szechuan madness! Ninety-seven whole years!"

* * *

34.6 (Saphroneth): [Kingdom Hearts]

"Let the keyblade choose its true master," Riku said, softly, reaching out his hand.

Sora felt the pull on his Keyblade, and knew he could resist it - but decided not to. Opening his hand, he let the Kingdom Key disappear into Riku's grip.

"Sora?" Donald asked, baffled. "What just-"

"Looks like you were just the delivery boy," Riku said, dismissing the Keyblade and throwing a wooden sword to Sora. "Go play hero with this."

"Sure," Sora replied, readying the sword. "Tell you what, Riku - if I beat you, then I get the Keyblade back!"

"Sora, are y' sure this is a good idea?" Goofy asked.

"You bet," Sora grinned.

So Riku couldn't see, he shot the knight a wink.

"Hmph," Riku snorted. "If you're so eager to lose."

He resummoned the Keyblade, and took on a ready stance - planning to show Sora how outmatched he really was.

Sora pointed his wooden sword at Riku, and Riku had just enough time to notice it was glowing before a torrent of Firagun magic blasted into him.

Summoning the Darkness, Riku produced a shield - letting most of Sora's magical attack splash off to one side - then had to dive out of the way as a Thundaga flashed down from overhead.

"What?" he demanded, baffled, then raised the Kingdom Key to block as Sora flourished his wooden sword again. "How are you doing this?"

He rushed forwards once the Blizzara spell had faded, but his Keyblade hit a glowing barrier of transparent hexagons. The barrier brightened, then exploded out in all directions, and Riku bounced off the stone of Hollow Bastion before flipping around and driving Soul Eater into the ground as an anchor.

"I picked up a few tricks," Sora replied with a grin. "I guess being a delivery boy is a harder job than you realized?"

Riku growled, summoning the Darkness again, and stepped through a portal to emerge directly behind Sora. Soul Eater in one hand and Kingdom Key in the other, he lashed out at Sora's unprotected back-

* * *

When Riku jolted back to awareness, he was lying at the bottom of the Rising Falls.

"Sorry about that," Sora said, chuckling nervously as he floated down to join Riku. "That spell reflects back the power of the attack, and I guess it was a pretty strong attack you used on me."

Riku groaned, thinking homicidal thoughts.

* * *

34.7 (Saphroneth): [Kingdom Hearts]

Kairi took the handle of her keyblade in both hands, and swept it at the nearest Shadow. It exploded in a flash of light, sending a heart flashing upwards for a moment before it passed out of sight.

Another one jumped at her from the side, and she swept Destiny's Embrace to her right - catching the Heartless in the chest, making it thump against the wall and dissolve.

"That's the last one," Riku said, his voice gruff. "Good work."

Kairi panted, unused to that kind of exertion, then a smile spread over her face. "Thanks. And - thanks for helping, Riku."

He didn't reply, and she glanced back at him. "Riku?"

Riku tapped the side of his hood, about where his ear was, and Kairi fell silent to listen.

She could hear the sound of combat through the nearest door. Thumps and crashes, a yelp, and then Sora shouting something.

Then there was a final concussive BANG that made the door resonate, and near-silence - though she could still hear Sora, Donald and Goofy talking.

It sounded as though Donald was upset about something.

Smiling fondly, Kairi remembered belatedly to let Destiny's Embrace dissolve - knowing, deep down, that she could summon it again whenever she wanted.

Then the door opened, slowly and ponderously.

Riku was the first to react. "...what."

* * *

"This is your fault, Sora!" Donald said, watching as the other two strained to push the door open.

"Hey, these clothes didn't come with an instruction manual!" Sora protested. "And I can't exactly fix it now, can I?"

"Why not?" Donald demanded, keeping a careful grip on his staff.

"It ain't like he can get at 'em now," Goofy pointed out, lowering his head and pushing. "Okay, Sora, on three..."

"One, two - three!" Sora agreed, and pushed. The door ground open, and then - when the leaves were about a foot apart - Sora's grip slipped. His paws scrabbled on the door as he tried to regain traction, then he somersaulted over Goofy and landed in a heap on the far side of the threshold.

"...what," Riku asked flatly.

"Riku?" Sora asked, brightening, and rolled back to all fours. "Hey, do you have any idea how magic clothes work? I think mine shorted - whoah!"

Kairi swept Sora up in her arms, giving him a cuddle. "Sora, I didn't realize you'd gotten so cute!"

Riku began to chuckle, overcome by the absurdity of the situation.

"Kairi - ack!" Sora protested, tail twitching. "I'm only a lion cub like this - agh - don't squeeze so hard!"

"It's yer own fault, Sora," the tortoise-Goofy said sagely. "We could'a gone back to the Gummi Ship to fix your clothes."

"Yeah, but that would mean waiting to meet Kairi again," Sora pointed out matter-of-factly. "Besides, hugs are hugs."

It had taken a dozen loops to work out how to break his clothes _just right_ , but he wasn't going to say that.

Kairi giggled. "How do you even fight like this, anyway?"

"Somehow, I imagined our reunion to be more... thematically appropriate," Riku sighed.

* * *

34.8 (katfairy): [Batman Beyond] / [Moana]

He wasn't afraid of storms. In fact, he liked them. But he hadn't felt like getting soaked today, so he waited this one out in his favorite cave, the one where he worked on his statue. It wasn't a very good statue, but it had been a way to pass the time, and it amused him to think what someone might think about it if they wandered by this place a few hundred years down the road. After he'd escaped. Which he would. Really.

He'd just finished buffing up a ridiculously over-developed pec on the statue when he noticed sun slanting through the opening in the cave's roof. A glance upward showed blue sky; the storm was over.

"Well, time to see if anything interesting washed up."

He wandered down to the beach, not bothering to rush. After all, it wasn't like there was anyone else around to yoink all the good stuff before he got to it. Then, as he came around a rock, he froze. He couldn't possibly be seeing what he was seeing.

There, on the beach, was a fully-functional, not totally destroyed boat. He rushed toward it, a small part of his mind aware that a female voice was yelling something about fish peeing somewhere a lot, but the rest dismissing that in favor of ZOMGAFRIKKINBOAT. He reached it and lifted it into the air with a whoop of joy.

"Yes! The sea has sent me a boat! --And a girl!" Her existence only filtered through to him when he actually saw her, but he wasn't so out of touch that the look on her face didn't tip him off. "No! Not what I meant! I didn't mean the sea sent you-well, I did-but I didn't-not like-Uh, can we take this from the top? And can we maybe forget the last few minutes actually happened?"

The girl was starting to grin, but it wasn't as reassuring as it should have been.

"Of course-on one condition."

"Sure! Uh, what?"

"Put down my boat. Without destroying it. Or me."

"Put... Oh! Oh. Yeah. Sure. I can do that." He set the boat down gently, then smacked the heel of his hand into his forehead a few times. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"I can hear you, you know."

"...Of course you can."

He sighed, then straightened up, put on his most charming grin, and walked around the boat as though nothing had happened. Which was, of course, the cue for both of them to Awaken. He froze in place, reviewing the last few minutes, while she blinked a bit before the grin returned.

"Wow. I really just did that, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did."

"And you're not going to forget it any time soon."

"Nope."

"Fair enough. I'm Terry McGinnis, from Dick Grayson's Loop."

"Moana. I'm the Anchor of this one. And that's Heihei trying to nuzzle your ankle, which is weird even for him."

Terry looked down at the brightly-colored chicken, sighing in relief.

"Well, if that's how the usual random being getting a crush on me is going to be handled this Loop, I'm not going to complain."

"Happens a lot, does it." Moana looked as though she was trying to make up her mind whether he was being a macho jerk or just stating a fact; Terry knew which line of thought he wanted to encourage.

"Yeah. The tree seems to think it's funny, but it's gotten ugly more than once. Been to Hogwarts yet?"

"Who hasn't?"

"Bellatrix."

Moana winced, but thankfully didn't ask for details. That had not been a fun Loop, and the next, rather than sending him home to Gotham, had dropped him in a nice, quiet, surf-friendly world with Hank and Abby Sciuto. Terry was about to change the subject when the Loop memories hit, changing it for him. "Seriously? How dumb was unAwake me anyway? Okay, let's get that heart back where it belongs."

"Maui had good intentions in baseline, even if his ego was pretty wrapped up in it," Moana said. "And we have to get your fishhook back and get you back up to speed in using it first. Do your Loop memories include the fact that Te Ka and Te Fiti are the same?"

"No, but it makes sense. I've seen that sort of thing before in the Loops. When it happened, I was a little preoccupied."

"Running for your life will do that." She raised an eyebrow at him; she seemed to be friendly, but was waiting to see how he did before making any final judgements. He was okay with that, although he found he had a disturbing inclination to want her good opinion. He hoped that was just a lingering artifact of his unAwake self, or at worst a crush of his own.

"Also, Maui mentioned it when I ran into him. On Maui, ironically enough."

"Oh, you're _that_ Terry." Moana relaxed a little, her smile becoming less guarded. "He mentioned you; said you were a good waterman and that we'd probably see you here sooner or later. I was kind of looking forward to helping teach you our methods of navigation, but I guess you got them the easy way. Too bad; I think you'd have enjoyed it."

"Yeah. Sometimes I don't mind learning things this way, because they aren't a lot of fun, but then there's times like this. Not much we can do, though."

"Well, except get off the island and start setting things right."

"Details, details."

She laughed and Terry felt a worrying bloom of pleasure at the sound. It didn't help that she was kinda hot and only a year younger than he'd been at the start of his baseline. The baseline his fiancée lived in. The fiancée that Grayson had started spending time getting to know when they were in Terry's home Variant, in hopes that just maybe they might be able to game the system and get her Looping. At which point he planned to propose again. And actually marry her, this time. So there would be no falling for attractive, intelligent, badass girls from other Loops. At all.

* * *

Terry looked at the giant hole.

"I have to jump down there."

"It's even deeper than it looks."

"Well, that's comforting."

Moana grinned, but looked sympathetic.

"It took me a long time to be able to just jump in without having to really psych myself up for it. Just think of it as extreme cliff diving."

"Ah, slaggit, let's do it." And he jumped. It was long enough to be... well, he'd admit to worrying if anyone ever asked. The last time he'd dropped this far hadn't ended well. In fact, it had ended in Eiken, and it hadn't even been his fault. Plunging into the water came as a relief, even when he punched through and saw the brightly colored (and highly deadly) realm underneath. He did manage to stick the landing though, allowing himself a brief moment of smugness before Moana showed up. "Okay, not as bad as I thought, but I really hope I don't have to do that again any time soon."

"Oh, would you rather play distraction for an angry giant lava goddess?"

"Actually, yes."

"...You Gotham people are strange." But she was still smiling. "Speaking of distractions, I don't play distraction for Tamatoa anymore. It's best to just grab the fishhook and go, because that crab is really good at getting under your skin. He knows things he shouldn't be able to, and he'll use it. Don't let him start talking if you can help it, and if you can't, don't listen, just power on through."

"Déjà vu," Terry muttered.

"You fought a giant crab with tendencies toward mental and emotional abuse in your baseline?"

"No, just the Joker. But Bruce's advice for that was almost word for word what you just said."

"How did it work?"

Terry started to answer, then hesitated, blushing. He couldn't figure out how to tell her what he'd done without sounding like he was bragging. And while he did want to impress her, he'd figured out pretty quickly that bragging was the wrong way to do it. She'd heard enough of that from Maui. Although, when he thought about it, he shouldn't be wanting to impress her anyway, as that could lead to awkwardness. Not that she was showing any indication of feeling anything more than vaguely friendly toward him. Which was good. Really.

"Uh, earth to Terry?"

"Oh! Uh, sorry." Terry's blush deepened, although it might not be noticeable in the odd light.

"You know, when you Northwestern European types blush, you really blush, don't you?"

Then again, maybe it was.

"Yeah," he admitted. "I've never been able to shake that, which has led to some pretty embarrassing situations in some Loops."

"I can imagine. So, I'm guessing that run-in with the Joker-and yes, I have been to your Loop, although before your time and not in Gotham-anyway, I guess it didn't end well."

"Uh, well, actually... I kinda psyched him out then hit him with his own joy buzzer when he tried to strangle me."

"Nice." Moana's grin bordered on the feral; she clearly approved. Terry squashed the warm glow that caused. "Oh, we better quiet down now, we're getting close."

Terry nodded, motioning for her to lead. In theory, he was supposed to be the expert here, but it was her home Loop. She'd probably memorized the layout long since, although he supposed there could be some differences from Loop to Loop. It took some time, and Terry saw a few things he knew would be featuring in his nightmares later, but eventually they found a pile of gold that was probably impressive to someone who hadn't replaced Bilbo Baggins one Loop; Smaug's was still the best hoard in his opinion. He raised an eyebrow at Moana, who nodded, pointing at the oversized fishhook lodged at the top. He debated using his Animagus form to get there, but decided that would be too risky; he had no way of knowing how the two different forms of magic would interact yet. In fact, he decided against using any magic at all for that reason. Luckily, he'd never let his baseline skills lag, and he'd always been good at moving quietly. And unlike the man he'd replaced, he wasn't an over-muscled giant. He might be able to reach the top of the hoard/shell without Tamatoa even knowing he was there. If he was extremely lucky, he might even be able to retrieve the hook and get out unnoticed; it would depend on how deep the hook was lodged.

Very, as it turned out. The second he reached it, he knew there was no way he'd be able to remove it with anything resembling stealth. He shot a look at Moana, shaking his head. She grimaced in reply, adding a what-can-you-do shrug. All right; one possibly emotionally scarring confrontation it was.

"Oh, just yank the thing out already, Teri," Tamatoa grumbled. "I suppose you're going to yank off one of my other legs while you're at it? Or-"

"You know, the leg would grow back if you just shed your shell," Terry said, interrupting the crab before it had a chance to get rolling. "And if you'd done it just after it happened, which you know perfectly well was as much your fault as mine, it would have grown back before you picked up all this gold. In fact, you'd probably be even bigger, which would give you more room for that gold you're so obsessed with. Compensating for something? Like maybe the fact that you know you're just a bottom-feeder scavenging for second-hand versions of what you don't have the guts to get honestly. Or maybe it's because you need something to brag about and looted gold is all you'll ever have." He jerked the hook free while the crab was gawking at him; he knew Maui had probably never talked like this, which meant Teri, his unAwake self, probably hadn't either. He just needed to keep it up for a few more minutes. "Look, you stole my hook, and now I've got it back. I'm willing to call it even, since leaving me stuck on a rocky island for a thousand years has to be at least the equivalent of lopping off a limb that can grow back. Don't push your luck; you have no idea what I've learned on that island. I'm nowhere near the nice guy you used to know, and these days I don't let my ego get in my own way either. So if you think you're hard enough, we can dance-but I really wouldn't recommend it."

The giant crab continued to stare at him as he jumped off, landing so he could keep an eye on it. He had no intention of turning his back until he was out of range. It took longer than he liked to back into the shadows where he could be comparatively safe. Once there, he did turn, and as he'd half-expected, heard Tamatoa coming after him. He whirled, blocking a blow with the hook, not even trying to access its magic; he knew that would be a bad idea.

"You've gotten even mouthier since your little timeout," Tamatoa said. "Did you actually think while you were there? Did it hurt? I know you humans ache after using unfamiliar muscles. Oh, you _di_ d think; how amusing! Did you think about how your father left you to be raised by strangers who were too busy arguing over whose fault you were to actually do their job? Did you think about the fact that all you ever were was somebody's science experiment? Or maybe you thought about how you'll never really get to see your sweetheart again, and even if you did, once she learned the truth about you, she wouldn't want you anymore. After all, you're a killer now, aren't you?"

Terry stiffened, but didn't let himself drop his guard. Moana had been right, not that he'd doubted her; the crab was good at knowing weak spots. Unfortunately for it, Terry had actually thought about most of these things, over and over, and while they still bothered him, they were bothers that he was used to. And Tamatoa has badly misinterpreted Terry's family situation, although it could have been a deliberate attempt to plant new doubts into Terry's mind.

"Guess I am," Terry shrugged. "But maybe that should make you even more nervous. After all, if I've killed before, what makes you think I can't do it again?"

It was the crab's turn to freeze, the expression on its face making it clear that it hadn't thought of that. Terry, knowing he might not get a better chance, used both the fishhook and the unexpected strength he'd gained as a demi-god to snare one of Tamatoa's legs and flip it into the air. Before it landed, Terry was on the run, Moana right beside him at first before she took the lead, showing him the best way out.

* * *

Hours later, they lay back on the boat, finally convinced that they were clear.

"That... was not fun," Terry said. "I hope that crab never starts Looping; he'd be an MLE for sure, and we don't need any more of those."

"Here's hoping. That got a little intense down there; I haven't had too many Loopers replacing Maui, and none of three who have ever talked back to Tamatoa that way. They just grabbed the hook and took off-which didn't work too well, honestly. He actually managed to kill one of them; I didn't hear what he said to Tony, but it really threw him, and, well..." Moana grimaced. "I wasn't fast enough. But it barely seemed to faze you; I guess that's the Bat-training. Or maybe because you've been Looping so long."

"Bit of both," Terry said. "He hit some sore spots, yeah, but I have run into his type plenty of times. The key is to not let them know they hit you. And I think I hit a few nerves myself."

"You did; I'll have to tell Maui about that, he hasn't tried doing that yet."

"Yeah, well, he seemed like a decent guy, just not too big on thinking sometimes."

"You _have_ met him."

Terry and Moana locked eyes, then collapsed laughing. It was mostly reaction to the stress, both knew, but it still felt good. They laughed themselves out, laying on the deck under the sun.

"So, now we go return the Heart, right?"

"One more thing first."

"Oh?"

"Tomorrow, you're going to learn how to use that hook."

"Oh."

* * *

"Okay, that didn't work either."

"I'm not even asking how you ended up as a platypus."

"Well, there was this whole thing with Agent P and one of Doofenshmirtz' -inators; it's kind of a long story, along with why I kept the tooth."

Terry sat on the raft, legs dangling in the water, hook well off to the side. He was having more of a learning curve than he liked, but Moana had assured him he wasn't doing any worse than Maui had, and better than the other two Loopers who had replaced him. Tony DiNozzo, of course, had died before he got the chance to try, which Terry planned on asking Abby about to see if it was safe to troll Tony later. He was absolutely going to rag on Ash for repeatedly turning into various Pokémon. The third guy he'd never met, which took half the fun out of hearing just how badly he'd screwed up; of course, if he ever did meet this Sebell guy, all bets were off. Not that using his ineptitude with the hook as a distraction hadn't been pretty smart.

"I haven't met anyone from that Loop yet, but I've heard stories," Moana said, sitting down beside him. "I hope I get there someday; it sounds like fun, even if it is a bit landlocked for my tastes. And cold. I know it's kind of a cliché, but I really don't like your winters. It's pretty in pictures, but the real thing is too cold, and the snow melts and gets in everything, and if you go outside with wet hair in subzero weather, it does not end well."

"Everyone has to learn that one the hard way," Terry assured her. "Pretty much everyone I know who grew up where that's a thing has done it at least once, even when they knew better. Of course, there's these hot springs in Canada where people will do it on purpose for some contest, but that's different. On many levels. Anyway, do you know how to work this thing? Re-learning on my own would be best, I know, but I don't want to take all Loop doing it. Besides, my ego isn't so insecure I'm afraid to ask for help when I need it. Usually."

"I've switched with Maui a few times, but I'm no expert. And since I am a native of this Loop, it might come a bit easier to me. Wait-you said you'd been to Hogwarts? Are you an Animagus?"

"Yeah, actually. The last few years of my first Loop there, I had to spend my summers in Hogwarts because... well, that's another long story, but some of the Professors decided to give me special tutoring as a way of killing time. So I managed to get that one done pretty early. It's come in handy a few times, although I don't use it too often. It's a Bat thing."

Moana rolled her eyes.

"I know he's important to you, and I know he's basically a good man, but he really makes me want to smack him with an oar sometimes."

"Oh, you have met him then." Terry laughed at Moana's stunned expression. "Look, nobody in the Loops is going to argue that Bruce Wayne has more issues than _National Geographic_. And you won't find too many who will disagree with you that he is one of the good guys, and most of the ones who don't have only met the unAwake version, probably during a Crazy Steve Variant. There's a lot of Loopers out there who can't decide whether to salute him or deck him or both, me included. And I'm his son, sort of. So don't worry about it. Anyway, how is being an Animagus going to tie into using the hook right? Is it a similar type of transformation?"

"Maui said it was, and he'd know. So try your Animagus form, and concentrate on how that feels. Go back and forth a few times doing that, then try the hook again, keeping that in mind. I can't promise it'll help, but it's worth a shot."

She patted his arm, and he ignored the warm feeling that persisted from the contact. She wasn't interested, and he shouldn't be. And he had more important matters to think about. He stood up, readying the spell that would transform him, concentrating as Moana had suggested. He could feel the magic gathering around him, then start to shift inside him. Unlike in a lot of cheesy movies, the transformation wasn't slow and painful, but he could still feel the entire process; it really was like a full-body sneeze, like he'd read somewhere. He felt his legs and arms shrink; his head, neck, and torso condensed into each other although not entirely; his hair split and branched, turning into feathers. The weirdest part was always feeling the webbing grow between his toes. And then there was the waiting for the inevitable jokes.

"Well, you're definitely some sort of water bird, but not one I know," Moana said, tilting her head to look at him. "But that would make sense; it's probably from your Loop, and probably not too far from where you grew up, and I haven't had a reason to study up on Gotham's wildlife yet. Try flying and swimming like this, then change back and try doing the same with the hook."

Terry slipped into the water, ignoring Heihei's attempts to snuggle and the subsequent squawk from Moana when the idiot chicken tried following him into the ocean. One of the drawbacks of his Animagus form was that it needed considerable runway space, but that was less of a problem at the moment; he just pointed himself away from the raft, giving himself a tailwind, and started speeding toward takeoff. The moment he left the water always seemed to take too long, but eventually he was airborne, flapping madly still but less frantically than before. He wasn't built for gliding, but once he was in the air and settled into a rhythm, he could keep going for hours. Not that he'd try that today. Instead, he concentrated on how flying felt in this body, the way the wind slipped through his black and white feathers, the smells and sounds that human senses couldn't detect, until he felt he had a good enough grasp on the fine details. Then he landed again, paddled around for a while, and dove. It was easier for him underwater; he noticed again how his streamlined body cut through with less effort than when he was human and how much longer he could hold his breath. He stayed down a bit longer than necessary because he was having too much fun, but eventually he resurfaced and flopped ungracefully back onto the raft. He reversed the transformation, paying so much attention to how it felt that he forgot one minor detail until Moana squeaked.

"Gah! Sorry! I always forget that part!" Terry dressed quickly, grateful that his outfit for this Loop made that easier. He could feel himself blushing again, although Moana was right there with him this time. "Okay, I'm safe again. I'm guessing Maui's transformations don't have that problem?"

"No. I'd never considered it until now, and now I'm going to need several Loops to _stop_ considering it."

"Oh, good; it's been way too long since I've given an Anchor any lingering mental trauma."

Moana tried to give him the stink-eye, but he saw the grin she tried to hide. Once again he squashed the warm feeling that caused, which was starting to be accompanied by a sinking feeling that this was more than just a crush. Well, he'd just have to deal with it. Later.

"Okay," Moana said, shaking her head, "now try the hook. Concentrate on how it felt to be that bird. Flying, swimming, just being in that body in general. Then try transforming. With the hook."

Terry nodded. Picking up the hook, he did exactly as she instructed, not allowing even the concept of failure to cross his mind. He concentrated on his other body, but kept the Animagus spell just as firmly locked away as any other distraction. The hook began to feel warm in his hand, and he felt himself shift. A second later, he was back in the water, webbed feet paddling away.

"It worked! Oh, hey, I can talk this way!"

"That was one of the drawbacks of Maui's transformations," Moana deadpanned. "How does it feel? The same?"

"Yep, still a loon."

"Terry, be serious!"

"Uh, that's what I am right now. Seriously."

"That's what a loon is?" Moana blinked. "I've heard of them, but I don't remember ever seeing any pictures. Now, try changing back, paying attention again, and use that for a different form."

Terry changed back, more than a little relieved that this version at least let him keep his clothes, then aimed for a shark.

"Uh, Terry..."

"Yeah, don't tell me. Sharkhead. Maui warned me that was inevitable, but I had to try. Hey, I wonder..." Terry's rueful (and pointy) grin turned manic as he hefted the hook, concentrating hard on a form he knew he had a tooth from. This change didn't feel like the shift into his Animagus form, either using the spell or the hook, and it didn't feel like sharkhead either. He felt himself growing, expanding, scales forming, wings sprouting, bone density increasing... "Oh, crap, Maleficent can't swim!"

He shifted straight to loon form as the weight of his dragon form dragged him down, popping up to the surface in time to keep Moana from diving after him.

* * *

"Well, that's two forms you can do, but maybe keep the dragon for when you're not in the middle of the ocean."

"Not arguing. Maleficent is not aquatic. Who knew?"

"Probably Maleficent."

"Point."

Terry was flopped on the raft, Moana sitting next to him.

"But did you notice how easily you switched to your Animagus form without using the spell?"

Terry's eyes shot open. He hadn't noticed; he'd been busy _not drowning in the most embarrassing way possible_. She was right, though-he hadn't used the Animagus spell. Which meant...

"I used the hook right?"

"You used the hook right. And you did it instinctively. Now you just need to figure out what other transformations you can do, and we've got a bit of time before we really have to get to Te Fiti. What other teeth do you have?"

"You know, in some places, that would be a really weird question."

"Terry, you're changing into a bunch of non-native species using a giant magic fish hook. And you dress up like a bat to fight people who think nerve gas is a fun party trick."

"Yeah, but that's normal."

Moana pushed him off the raft.

* * *

"Okay, there's the half-crazed lava demon. This should be fun."

"Well, you have learned to use the hook properly, anyway. Be careful with the dragon form; the ocean won't let you drown, and she's less annoyed with you now that she understands what's going on, but..."

"No need to make her job harder, right?" Terry nodded, understanding. "You be careful, too, okay? Loops can turn Variant without warning sometimes-"

"I know, and I always am. At least, I am since that one Loop where Te Ka and Te Fiti were separate and Te Ka was keeping Te Fiti captive. That got scary. That's why I always go to the island first; to check for that."

Terry nodded again, then dove into the water as he shifted into his loon form. He'd never admitted it to anyone, but he enjoyed shapeshifting. Exploring the possibilities of each new form, testing new sets of limits, discovering new senses... it never got old. He sometimes wished he had more opportunities to do it, but also knew that the simple fact that those opportunities weren't too common kept them special. After all, if he got to do it all the time, it could possibly get boring.

Possibly.

He stayed underwater for as long as he could, swimming toward Te Ka. He'd have to time this carefully; he needed a long stretch of water for a runway, as one of the drawbacks of the loon was that it was not good at takeoffs. If he moved too early, Te Ka would spot him before he was ready; too late, and he could end up parboiled. Neither was favorable. When he did pop up to the surface again, he let out a small sigh of relief; he'd nailed it. He shrugged his wings, limbering them up, then began paddling his webbed feet, building momentum. This was the tricky part, since the splashing could draw Te Ka's attention, but he got airborne with no problems. Once there, all he had to do was keep Te Ka distracted for at least half an hour. Oh, and not get baked by a blast of lava; that was important too.

"Hey, lady, this is a No Smoking area!" And it was on. Te Ka whirled, spotted him, let out a scream of rage. Perfect. Well, for a given value of perfect, anyway. This was another delicate balance: be annoying without going so far that she ignored everything else in her efforts to swat him. He dodged a lava blast, transforming as he did so. And learned that when a whale belly-flops, it has a lot more surface area to sting. "Ow. Note to self: don't do that again. But have you mist me yet?"

He expelled a gout of spray from his blowhole, wondering if the look of disgust on Te Ka's face was from the water vapor or the admittedly lame pun. He dodged another lava ball, swimming at an angle that drew her eyes away from where Moana would be sailing, dove underwater for a few seconds, then breached, splashing back down again a lot more carefully than the first landing. Not wanting to overuse the trick, he transformed again and began to sing, not even trying to stay on key.

" _Narwhal, narwhal, swimming in the ocean, causing a commotion, 'cause they are so awesome!_ "

Now that was an expression he would cherish: complete and utter bewilderment. And it gave him a better idea. If he could keep her confused instead of annoyed, she would be in a more receptive mood to hear Moana. Time to give his improv skills a workout. Not to mention the hook. When he'd checked his Pocket, he'd discovered a surprising amount of teeth in there, some of which he had no memory of getting, and if Moana was right, he could change into anything he had the tooth of. Time to see just how true that was.

"Shoo-be-doo!" Terry snickered, becoming a seapony, one of the where-the-frilly-heck-did- _that_ -come-from teeth. Te Ka's expression was almost identical to what Moana's had been when he'd first taken the form. After a few well-timed and well-placed explosions, he changed again, this time to a strangely boxy cow, bobbing along in the water. There wasn't much he could do like that, so after giving her a few seconds to realize that cows don't generally consist of right angles, he shifted to the Maleficent-dragon, splashing as melodramatically as he could. "Ahhhh! Wrong dragon! Wrong dragon! Gimme a second!"

He shifted to a Skyrim dragon and took to the sky, and once he was there, shifted to Tiamat.

"This should help me keep ahead of you."

Te Ka flicked a smaller lava ball, and from her expression, it was definitely a reaction to the joke. Terry responded with a five-headed smirk; it was working better than he'd expected. Not only was Te Ka focused on him, but her anger was diminishing, replaced by confused exasperation. He could work with that. He shifted to a llama, making sure he hovered in space for a few seconds before looking down, doing a wild take, and beginning to plummet.

"Bad plan!" He changed into a turtle, slowing his fall dramatically. He supposed using out-of-Loop magic to do so was cheating, but it did the trick. Te Ka's jaw dropped, gaze switching from him to the ocean; he could almost see the calculations going on in her head as she tried to work out the logic behind what he'd done. The minor detail that there wasn't any would make her job harder, but that was okay. As he landed, he switched forms once again, to a goofy-looking sea serpent, one that looked more like foam rubber than anything living. Terry wondered once again what the Zygons had been drinking when they'd come up with this one, but he was glad he'd kept the tooth Benton had carved. "Ach, lassie, ye're lookin' a wee bit fashed noo; time fer-"

" _I have crossed the horizon to find you;_

_I know your name._ "

Terry stopped as Moana began to sing in the distance. Te Ka whirled, and both she and Terry saw the path that had opened between Te Ka and Te Fiti's island where Moana stood, holding the Heart. Terry watched, nerves singing at a much higher pitch than Moana's voice, as the giant humanoid pyroclastic flow raced toward the green glow; like he'd said earlier, it was never too late for a Loop to go haywire. To his (and probably Moana's) relief, Te Ka stopped just short of the girl, although a cloud of ash and soot blasted past her, causing Terry one very bad moment. But Moana came through unharmed and unfazed, still holding up the Heart. Terry switched to a marlin, slicing through the water at top speed, hoping to get close enough to help just in case.

Unnecessary, as it turned out. He was nearly there when Moana reached up a bit higher, placing the Heart where it belonged. Green light flared out, blinding but somehow not painful, and when he could see again, Te Fiti's island was restored, as was Te Fiti. Terry sighed in relief, swimming the rest of the way at a less frantic pace. A few minutes later, he stood next to Moana again, looking up at the beautiful green face of the goddess and trying very hard not to think of Poison Ivy. Te Fiti raised an eyebrow at him, silently reminding him of what he'd done before he Woke up.

"Uh, sorry about the Heart thing," he said, more than a little awkward; in his opinion, one of the biggest inconveniences of Looping was having to fix screw-ups he'd never have made if he'd been Awake. He could screw up enough without that, thank you. "It was a really stupid thing for me to do, and if I could go back in time and smack myself upside the head for even considering it, believe me, I would."

He had done just that in a few Loops where it was possible. Not too often, but there had been times when he just had to if he wanted to keep his self-respect. Some of that must have slipped into his tone or expression, because Te Fiti smiled. But then she looked back and forth between him and Moana before raising the eyebrow again, her smile growing as he turned scarlet.

"You really can blush, can't you?" Moana was laughing at him again, not that he could blame her. She looked up at Te Fiti, their smiles unnervingly similar. "Sorry, but there's nothing like that. He's a nice guy, believe it or not-"

"Oh, hey..."

"-but I don't think I could get between him and his true love." Moana's smile changed to a smirk as she looked down to where Heihei was again nuzzling Terry's ankle.

"I hate you so much right now."

* * *

There wasn't much more to the Loop. He went to Moana's island with her, using the excuse that he could help her teach them to become voyagers again; every time another reason popped into his mind, he squashed it. He kept the hook in his Pocket, as Moana had warned him that the Loop's ending was a bit fluid, and he wanted to keep it. It turned out to be a good idea; the Loop ended a little over a week after they arrived. He Awoke in Gotham, flopping back on his bed, feeling like an idiot for missing her already.

* * *

Maui strode forward, looking forward to chatting with Moana again. She steered her boat onto the island, waving.

"So, anything interesting happen while I was in Chicago dealing with one really strange Mountie?"

"That guy you met on your namesake replaced you last Loop."

"And...?" Maui waggled his eyebrows at her; he wasn't big on the whole matchmaker thing, but he'd thought the two might hit it off.

"And he's a nice guy. His fiancée probably thinks so too." Moana's raised eyebrow, a little too much like Te Fiti's, told him she'd figured out his cunning plan. She didn't seem mad, though, so he took that as a good sign. At least, he did until her words soaked in.

"Fiancée?"

"Yep. She's not Looping, but..." Moana shrugged. Maui sighed; if he'd known about the fiancée, he wouldn't have talked up the guy so much. Moana elbowed him lightly. "Hey, don't feel bad. I might have given it a thought if he hadn't mentioned her, but at least I got a new friend out of it. Just double-check next time."

"What makes you think there'll be a next time?"

"Because I've met you."

Maui just grinned in response. This meant he'd have to do some more matchmaking, of course, but next time, he was going to have some fun. He wondered if he could convince their Admin to get Ron Weasley to drop in for a Loop, or maybe that Saotome guy; he'd have to make sure to have a camera ready if it happened while he was around. He didn't notice the evil grin on his own face warning Moana of his plan, nor did he notice her shaking her head. Instead, he focused on the brilliance of his plan and the opportunities for trolling that could arise, never once considering that the troller could himself get trolled.

* * *

34.9 (Mirror Mage) (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Pokemon]

Terra had nearly passed the scene when he first came across it--though you kind of had to wonder how he needed his Larvitar to point out something that obvious.

"Guys, are you seeing this?"

"Seeing wha...?" Aqua paused for a moment, her Brione tilting its head at the sight. "...You're not the only person, that's for sure."

Ventus twittered assent, retreating into the "Fluffy Hat" Position he'd established atop Terra's head. A queen-sized Shuppet pile was kind of hard to miss.

...Especially when they weren't supposed to be on this Route. Or have a suspicious red-and-black-gloved hand sticking out of the pile, twitching every so often as its owner attempted to get up.

(Keyword: attempted.)

"...Mickey's the Pokémon Champion this loop, isn't he?" Terra asked as the Shuppet victim let out a string of curses, failing yet again in his attempts to wiggle out of the overbearing pile (or even shift to a new position).

"I think so, but I can't remember which Region," Aqua muttered, brow furrowed in thought. "We haven't heard from him this Loop yet."

* * *

Elsewhere, Mickey sneezed.

"Gesundheit," Cynthia told her fellow Champion, who was sitting across from her in the living room of her Undella Town villa.

"Thanks," Mickey replied, before he shook his head. "Why do I get the feeling someone's talking about me?"

"Believe me, I get that feeling all the time," Cynthia told him. "I'm just better at controlling the physical reaction."

"Right."

* * *

"They seem to be holding him pretty well, though." The pile glowed, the curses petering out into a series of quiet grumbles.

"We should still keep an eye out in case things go wrong."

"Swablu." Ven nodded.

"I'll see if I can contact anyone via the Pokedex."

"I'll take the first watch."

"Blu?"

"...Okay, you can watch with me." Ven nodded and shifted into a more alert stance, his wings puffed up in a failed attempt to look imposing. He never thought he'd say this, but--well, time to babysit a Vanitas.

* * *

34.10 (lord Martiya): [Winx Club] / [W.I.T.C.H.] (also compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as Loop 29.6)

"What do you want?" Icy bluntly asked Cornelia when she showed up.

"I have an offer for a truce." the visiting Looper said. "I guess you know what I've been doing?"

"You mean completely sealing Tritannus' cell, collapsing Darkar's lair on his head, robbing that warlord Yoshinoya blind, and stealing our fun with Mitzi?" Stormy asked, a bit bitter since she had realized WHO had ruined Mitzi before they could.

"I have a younger sister. But I take you know I'm tackling all the bullies of this Branch-and I believe you'll be interested in helping with my next target: Lightrock. After all, you haven't found anything bad enough for them yet..."

"And what would a little HERO like you know about making them pay?"

Cornelia simply smiled and gave the Trix some papers. She remained like that as the Trix read them, then incredulously re-read them multiple times until they accepted that Cornelia had done just that.

"And you call yourself a hero?!" Darcy asked, trying, and failing, to hide her admiration for what Cornelia had pulled.

"A very efficient one." Cornelia confirmed.

"Then how did YOU come up with this when WE couldn't?!" Icy demanded.

"Perspective: you are relatively hands-on people who never had many resources besides your own magic, while I am the daughter of a bank director. That's why I robbed Yoshinoya to begin with." she explained as she offered Icy her hand. "So... Truce for this Loop?"

Icy didn't answer, just shook her hand.

* * *

The throne room of Lightrock was in complete silence, except for Stormy snickering, as the Lord of the Knights and his closest assistants digested what Cornelia and the Trix had just announced them.

"What the-Could you please repeat that?" the lord said after a few minutes of shock.

"I said I've bought Lightrock out and you're fired. You and most of your torturers, but some I may keep if you haven't corrupted them enough." Cornelia replied as she showed him a copy of the relevant documents. "Now get out before I have you arrested for trespassing."

In the following months as "patients" in the new and reformed Lightrock, the Lord of the Knights and his closest assistants would regret having attacked the Loopers to try and keep the Fortress.

* * *

34.11 (Awesomedude17): [Gravity Falls] / [Rick and Morty]

"RIKKI TIKKI TAVIIIII!!!"

"Grunkle Rick!" Mabel hugged Rick.

"Hey there, little scamp. Ignore my plus one."

"I will destroy you, Rick!"

"Yeah yeah, keep saying that, Lincler, and maybe I will actually give a crap."

"Rick, how're ya doin', old pal?"

"Eh, still the same. This is Abradolf Lincler, my failed experiment at creating a morally neutral leader. He's a wurrrrss."

Lincler growled.

"Really?"

"So you're still crazy coot, I see. Well, you feeling Loopy?"

"I'm well Anchored. So Stan, about those... magical crystals I got..."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, I couldn't get them."

"Let me guess... Jerry?"

"Nope. Mr. Meeseeks."

"Oh."

"I'M MISTER MEESEEKS! LOOK AT ME!!!"

"I want to find a rainbow!" Mabel shouted.

"Can doooo!"

"I'll just follow her." Dipper followed Mable out with Mr. Meeseeks.

"How's she going to screw this up?" Rick asked.

"Hey! That's my niece you're bad mouthing!" Stan shouted.

Rick rolled his eyes.

"It's going to rain in an hour or so, so they should find one easily when it's over."

"Right then. Anywho, see ya later jackass. Here's my end of our deal." Rick shoved Lincler into Stan's hands.

"Wait, you're just going to give a clone made of Lincoln and Hitler DNA?"

"Yes, you're going to give me away... to a sideshow shack?!"

"Yes. Later." Rick left.

"Wow, what a jackass." Stan remarked.

"Tell me about it."

* * *

34.12 (Hvulpes): [Gravity Falls]

The population of Gravity Falls were hidden in the underground bunker Ford had created, hiding from the monster which had taken over the town.

"How long do we have to wait down here, Dipper?" asked Soos, as they guarded door way out.

"Till Mabel runs out of Unicorn Frapps... or Mabelcorn Frapps using her new recipes. So a couple of days at least." said Dipper, as he turned to the being next to him, "Right Bill?"

"Made sure all deliveries are diverted. I have to hand it to your sister. I've seen chaotic madness, but this takes the cake... Then everything made of sugar and goes crazy. Broadway Style!"

* * *

34.1: Riiiight... (Note: I added to this one to clarify what was being referred to.)

34.2: Zootopia in place of Zyuland. Interesting version.

34.3: Oh-kay...

34.4: One of the scariest things you can ever face.

34.5: Princess Summit interrupted by bizarre tangent.

34.6: Sneaky one!

34.7: That's actually a useful form to access.

34.8: New cross-loop friendships are always good to see.

34.9: Interesting. (Note: the scene with Mickey was me, Anon e Mouse Jr. - the original posted version requested a cutaway gag here, so I wrote one.)

34.10: Note from lord Martiya: "So... Disney Loopers buying out problems. I accidentally started a running gag..."

34.11: Strange...

34.12: Also strange.


	52. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Five

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-02-10. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Five**

35.1 (Saphroneth): [Kingdom Hearts]

Goofy looked around at the winding streets of Traverse Town. "So, uh, where d' you think this Key is gonna be, Donald?"

"It'll be obvious!" Donald replied. "Just follow me, and don't mess up!"

"Sure thing, Donald!" Goofy agreed.

Mere seconds later, Donald turned a corner and froze. Goofy did not, and tripped over him - resulting in the two ending up in a heap.

"Uh, sorry, Donald," Goofy said, getting up and helping his friend to his feet. "I didn't think you were gonna stop..."

"Look!" Donald interrupted, pointing.

Goofy looked, and saw something that made him stare.

Three people, probably humans, standing just inside the entrance to the Second District. They were looking around at the sights, but - more importantly - they were all clad from head to toe in shining metal armour.

Looking a little closer, Goofy saw that each suit of armour had unique patterns to it - marked out by differently coloured segments, and by things like the shape of the gloves or of the helmet. The helmet itself was an odd thing, opaque from the outside, but the human inside seemed to be able to see just fine.

Little things about the armour suggested to him that there were two men and one woman, or two boys and one girl - he wasn't very good with human ages.

"Who d' you think they are?" Goofy asked, glancing down at Donald.

Then space rippled, and a Heartless appeared in front of the group.

In less than a second, one of the three armoured humans blurred forwards. Something flashed into being in her hand, and by the time she stopped moving the Heartless had shattered into a wisp of darkness and a Heart went floating upwards.

"Look!" Donald cried, pointing at the weapon.

It was highly stylized, seeming to be constructed from flowers, but it was unmistakably in the form of a key.

Then the two realized that the humans were all looking at them.

* * *

"Your king sent you to look for a key," said one of the three armoured warriors. "Well, you certainly found that."

"Not just one, either," the second added, summoning his own key. "You found _three_ keyblade wielders."

"I dunno, Donald, the King said only one Key," Goofy fretted. "Do you think he meant something else?"

"If he wanted one, then three's even better!" Donald countered. "We need to get going!"

"Going where?" asked the one who had destroyed the Shadow in front of them.

"To bring the Key to the King!" Donald answered. "He needs your help!"

"Sounds good to me," one of the warriors agreed, the tallest of them all. "Come on, let's go!"

He summoned his key, and threw it into the air. There was a brilliant flash, and all of a sudden they were standing atop a large construct - like a motorbike, but with large flat areas for the rest of them to sit on and a pair of wings out to the side.

Goofy noticed that one wing was black-and-red, and like a bat's wing, while the other was like a white bird's wing.

"You might want to hold on," the Keyblade user added, gripping the handlebars.

Then the whole vehicle went rocketing out towards the sky, and a second later they had left Traverse Town entirely and were looking out over the Sea in the Sky.

"Wait!" Donald complained. "We left the Gummi Ship behind!"

* * *

Some minutes later, as the Keyblade Glider hovered just outside the main entrance to Traverse Town, the shorter of the male Keyblade wielders sat down next to the taller.

"Well?"

"You were right," the taller one agreed, touching the pauldron of his armour and making it vanish. "That _was_ kind of hilarious."

Sora dispelled his own armour, and beamed.

"How long do you think we can keep it up?" he added.

"I don't know," Riku replied, shrugging. "How long until we meet someone who might actually recognize us?"

They both turned to Kairi.

"If you boys want to keep this up, I'll have to stay in my armour," Kairi said. "I'm pretty sure a lot of the bad guys know what the Princesses of Heart look like."

The Gummi Ship came floating up next to them, and Sora waved.

"Hey!" he called. "Race you to the next world!"

Riku grinned, and Kairi shook her head before grabbing the back of his seat for support. Then Riku's Keyblade Glider set off so fast it left Sora behind, and he flailed for a moment before summoning his own and giving chase.

* * *

"Are y' _sure_ the King wanted us to find them?" Goofy asked.

"I... don't know," Donald admitted.

* * *

35.2 (wildrook): [Disney] / [Bendy and the Ink Machine - non-Looping setting]

"Oswald," Mickey muttered. "Was this thing... always here?"

What both the mouse and rabbit were looking at was a giant ink machine.

"No, Mickey," Oswald replied, "I don't remember Old Man Yen Sid making a giant Ink Machine for the Wasteland."

Mickey looked at it. "I'm just getting a bad feeling about this thing. Like it's holding something on par with Chernabog."

Oswald gave him a deadpan look. "You're a Keyblade Master on par with the Wayfaring Trio. And those three that came after them can knock out Chernabog in three hits in baseline."

"I know that. It's just... I've had a bad feeling about this... almost like staring at a container of DIP that's just standing there, waiting to be activated."

And that's when they heard a clanging noise, startling them. Immediately, Mickey's golden Kingdom Key had appeared, Oswald using the paintbrush.

"Now that you mention it," Oswald muttered, "am I the only one that's freaked out by the cardboard cut-outs around here? It's like they're just... staring at us. And originating from pen and ink means that there's usually something else that's following us."

Mickey nodded. "They do tend to pop up when you least expect them," he replied... his eyes widened.

"Wait, wait, wait," Oswald said. "The freaked out eyes, the ominous dripping, and the fact that you look like you're about to strike me... something horrible is behind me, isn't it?"

He didn't need Mickey to answer that question.

"Well, well, well," a demonic voice said, catching Oswald off-guard. "Oswald. Mickey. It's been a long time. And you two look like you've taken quite the limelight."

Oswald slowly turned around, paintbrush in hand as Mickey took a battle stance... and yet, both of them couldn't make out the figure, despite the memories being hazy.

"What, you don't recognize me?" The figure looked at himself. "Well, with this much ink, it's understandable, but you've seen my face around here through the cardboard cutouts. It's me... your old pal... Bendy. Bendy the Dancing Demon."

"Oh..." Oswald muttered. "Well... sugar honey iced tea, now the Chernabog comparison is rather apt."

Mickey growled. "Why is it that every time we get involved with the aftermath of deals with the occult," he said, "the results tend to find us in the alps?"

"Oh, come now," Bendy said, a little hurt. "Is that any way to greet an old friend? Well, no matter. This reunion wasn't meant to be long. After all... we've got all the time in the world after I take both your hearts for stability... AND THEN TAKE YOUR PLACE AS THE MOST POPULAR CARTOON!"

Oswald and Mickey just stared at each other.

"So," the Lucky Rabbit said to the Mouse, "Plan A or Plan B?"

"Plan A involves brute-forcing the situation," Mickey replied, "and I'm pretty sure that he's had several years to figure out how an Ink-Based form works, not to mention he's stuck in toon form."

"So, Plan B, then."

Mickey placed a shoulder on Oswald. "STOPZA!" he yelled, stopping time before Bendy could strike them both.

And that's when they both made a strategic retreat.

To Bendy... as he hit them... he noticed they weren't there anymore.

"Ah, the oldest trick in the book," Bendy muttered. "No matter. This isn't a big place, so it's only a matter of time before I find you both."

As he left, he was unaware that Mickey and Oswald were both hiding on the ceiling.

"I really hate incomplete Baselines," Oswald muttered. "We don't even know the full story, so he and his lot are blank slates."

Mickey nodded. "And that's why I'm hesitant to strike him down," he replied. "Only thing we can do is make sure we don't run into..."

As they saw, the ink left behind had changed into something that was akin to Heartless, only made up of ink.

"...minions."

The looks on their faces were a mix of annoyance and resignation.

"I am getting sick of ink monsters in cartoon studios..." Oswald said. "One is bad enough. But him spawning minions from his own ink... it's like something out of a horror movie."

The fact that Mickey shared his sentiments concerning the Phantom Blot added to it. Whatever they were, they seemed to be tied to Bendy and the Ink Machine.

Once they had the full story could they act in front of Bendy. But for now... they have to settle for the small fries.

* * *

35.3 (smxsonic): [Star vs. The Forces of Evil] / [Slayers - mentioned only]

**Star vs. The Dragon Slave**

Marco thought something was strange when Star wanted to go Baseline through this loop. The Energetic princess would try to do ANYthing other than baseline when she was Awake. So here he was, trying to stop his glass container from crushing him as Toffee told Star to destroy her wand. Then Marco saw Star smirk slightly.

_Darkness beyond twilight_

_Crimson beyond blood that flows_

_Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows_

"Star... what are you doing?"

Toffee quirked an eyebrow, wondering what his enemy's daughter was trying to pull.

_I pledge myself to conquer all the foes who stand_

_before the mighty gift bestowed in my unworthy hand_

The star in the wand started to glow red, as magical energy started to surround it.

_Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed_

_by the power you and I possess..._

Star stood up and pointed her wand skyward.

**_DRAGON SLAVE!_ **

The entire castle exploded, leaving Marco laying the shattered remains of his container and Star standing in the crater.

"MARCO!" Star shouted running up to her best friend, "I did it! I actually did it!"

"Slayers loop?"

"Star Inverse, at your service." Star answered with a curtsey, " And Look! My wand isn't cleaved!"

"That's great Star."

"What if I tried the Giga Slave in the Next loop?"

"Pretty sure that would crash the loop and neither one of us is ready for Eiken."

* * *

35.4 (lord Martiya): [Winx Club] / [Frozen] (also compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as Loop 34.8)

Icy Awakened in a rather comfortable bed. At first it wasn't bad, then the Loop memories hit her.

"I've replaced an idiot..." she whispered. "And I feel like - singing?"

Remembering the warnings from those who had already passed from there, Icy let the song go on while she thought at the situation, both positives and negatives.

On the positives, she was about to be crowned absolute queen of a small but very rich kingdom, had new ice powers that, while inferior in raw power to her current ones, had characteristics similar to the Dragon's Flame, and the imagine spot of how the fairies would have reacted to her with those powers in the old times was rather funny.

On the negatives, she had been cooped in the castle for years, had replaced an idiot who somehow misinterpreted the troll's advice and decided to try and suppress those powers and thought that staying away from everyone she loved was a good idea, and had a rather hyperactive little sister/heir to the throne that, having been cooped inside the castle but away from her, was both extremely inexperienced in the world and likely to hold some grudge.

She was the responsible sister, just how Darcy usually was... And she just realized why her sister could be so cranky at times. Better find the Anchor, and soon.

* * *

The crowning ceremony had been nice. A bit formal, but she was now an "undoubted queen". It came with a "protector of the dominion" bit, but she didn't mind: she liked her own things, and her pride demanded nothing less than her best.

The party, too was going well. She had been connecting with her Loop's sister Anna, had taken a measure of the Duke of Weselton, most likely opponent this Loop, and she knew she could deal with him easily even without the powers, and the food was good.

And then Anna dropped the bomb: she wanted to marry a guy she had just met. The fact it was a prince only made it smell worse. Something was rotten in the Southern Isle.

"Anna, you can't marry someone you've just met." she tried to explain.

"You can, if it's true love."

That would have been hard to reply, if it hadn't been for a few talks with Diaspro.

"Anna, that's not the problem. The fact you're royalty and the heir to the throne is."

"Uh?"

Icy made a mental note to strangle whoever she had replaced at the first chance. That, and arrange a good pneumonia to Anna's teacher for not explaining her the relevant bit. If nothing else the Duke was looking at them-and, judging by his reaction, could read lips. She could use the greed of one problem to deal with the unforgivability of the other.

"I am the queen of Arendelle, and you, as my sister, are first in the line of succession until I have a child. And, being the queen, I won't have the chance to marry for love. It will have to be a diplomatic match, carefully chosen to preserve our kingdom - and, as my sister, you would be expected the same. Let me finish. You would be expected the same, I said, but as you're the little sister, I have a bit of leeway. I can't let you marry him now - but I can allow him to court you, and make sure it's the one meaningful match."

Thankfully, that was acceptable to Anna. Who Icy was pretty sure wouldn't take long before she realized that Hans should have known, she was naive, not stupid.

As for the Duke, she knew he would help her ruin Hans: the Duke wanted Arendelle's riches, or at the very least an increase of the trade, and whatever Hans was trying with that stunt was bound to be a danger for his plans or, if exposed, a boon.

* * *

"And now you know: your sister may be stupid, but she loves you." Icy told Anna after revealing the ice powers to her and why exactly she had kept away. It had not been difficult being self-deprecating; after all, it was the one who she replaced, and not herself, who had missed the obvious.

And, as expected, Anna had hugged her. While crying. And as NOT expected, after a while Anna asked confirmation on not planning to tell Hans.

"There's something strange with him." she admitted. Earlier than Icy expected. "I mean, he should have known about the problems with our wedding... You were trying to warn me, weren't you?"

"Anna, before anything else, I am your older sister. The world will freeze before I allow anyone to hurt you again."

It took only ten seconds to Icy to understand why Anna didn't take the statement well.

* * *

"My my my... You are rather inexperienced, prince Hans. Gifted, but inexperienced." the Duke of Weselton told Hans after tricking him into admitting he was after Arendelle's throne. "People wiser and more experienced would have already understood that Princess Anna is to be admired from afar lest the queen's wrath is turned upon them, and they should instead curry her majesty's favor and take what she gifts them."

"You should keep the secret, Weasel Town." Hans replied. "Who do you think they'd believe? You, whose greed is well known, or the charming, innocent suitor to the princess?"

"You, of course." the Duke answered, without rising to the provocation.

Instead he lifted the curtain near him, revealing queen Icy, Anna, and a dozen guards.

"As I said, you are too inexperienced. Or you'd know it's Weselton... And that you just provoked two furies worse than a hundred witches: a-"

Weselton couldn't gloat anymore. After all, it didn't make any sense while his preferred audience was sleeping, courtesy of Anna's surprisingly strong right hook.

"Arendelle is in your debt, Duke." Icy said. "I am sure we'll be able to show our gratitude, once we've seen that this insulter to anything royals and nobility stand for is sent back whence he came for his brothers to punish - and please, make sure his horse is fed during the voyage."

Weselton and queen Icy understood perfectly each others' message: Weselton didn't want to take any risk, just increase their commercial exchanges, and Icy was more than willing to do so, and make him wish he died if he tried anything, especially toward her sister.

* * *

"You know what, Anchorman? Now I get why most monarchies aren't absolute." Icy said to Kristoff during a rare pause. "This is hell! Overwork, almost no fun, not a chance to get dirty... It's horrible!"

"I thought most villains would enjoy supreme power." Kristoff teased her.

"Not if they have any pride. Only good thing is that now I get why Darcy is always so cranky! I mean, Stormy and I always go doing what we want, and - Oh. Oh, dammit."

"Any problem?"

"Darcy's holding a grudge about Tritannus. A rather vile guy from our Branch, got me to choose him over my sisters in the baseline... And she's not over it, at all. I-I think I should... Is there an easier way to say 'say sorry?'"

Kristoff slapped his forehead.

"Oh, and given I have no idea when the Loop ends and you just said you're usually with Anna, a little warning: she's been my sister for this Loop, treat her well or, Anchor or not Anchor, what I'll do you will make DIO Brando tell me off for getting overboard, and that's only if I have to do it alone." she threatened him. "Because if my sisters decide to join in, he'll be too scared to dare."

* * *

35.5 (Awesomedude17): [Disney] / [Winx Club] (also compiled in _Winx Club Loops_ as Loop 35.5)

"Welcome to my Branch, Flora. Nice to meetcha, ha ha!" Mickey Mouse smiled.

"Thank you, Mickey. It's been a long time since me and the others had a Loop with zero troubles. Nabu especially seems happy to not deal with anything like Stands."

"Oh geez. Which part?"

"He said it was Morioh."

"WHEW!!! That could've been worse for the guy."

"Yeah. He could've faced off with DIO."

Mickey cringed at that thought.

"Yeah."

"Wow. Anyway, how're the others?"

"Great. Techna and Musa are hanging out with Goofy, and Bloom seemed really excited to hang out with Donald for some reason."

"Does your Branch have any connections to Italy?"

"Our show was made in Italy. Why?"

"Ah! Donald and the ducks are absurdly popular in Italy. What's a good comparison... uhh... It's is like David Hasselhoff and Germany."

"Uh?"

"Knight Rider?"

"OH! Now I remember. Heh. Techna really likes that show."

"Huh." Mickey got silent in contemplation.

"So, what else is there to talk about?"

"I suppose I can tell you about that time where Spam was everywhere."

"UGH! Tell me about it. Fand said that the Hackers were involved."

"That explains that episode."

* * *

"Ah-hyuck! Gawrsh, it sure is nice ta meet all of y'all." Goofy said as he took the new visitors on the road.

"Likewise." Techna replied.

"So, where are we going?" Musa asked.

"Nothing special. Just some ice cream." Goofy replied.

"Goofy, are you sure this is the right way?" Techna said, realizing that something was off.

"I'm sure of it!"

"Well I suppose I should ask how we ended up on top of the construction site for a high-rise."

Goofy blinked, and then looked out the window.

"Uh oh. Somethin' wrong here."

Musa sighed. "Thank goodness I went to the restroom before we left."

"Hang on, girls."

Techna and Musa sighed. "Bring it."

Goofy floored it.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

"YAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HOOOOEEEEEEEY!!!"

* * *

A car flew by, chased by a wrecking ball that Oswald was desperately trying not to fall off of, Pete angry that the wrecking ball was wreaking havoc, Scrooge McDuck angry that Goofy nearly ran over his number one dime, and a taco truck covered in concrete and salsa.

Donald merely ignored it as he drank his coffee.

"It's way too early for this."

"Yeah. It is." Bloom remarked.

"So, how much of my stories have you read?"

"All of them. Carl Banks, Don Rosa, Al Taliaferro, Romano Scarpa, Marco Rota, Tony Strobl, Vicar, Daan Jippes, William Van Horn, Fecchi and Silvia Ziche."

"Wow. You really are a fan."

"Yeah, I know."

"...So, enjoy my autograph?"

"YES!!! Can I have another... or 50?"

Donald internally sighed. Bloom was nice, but she is definitely asking for a lot from him.

* * *

35.6 (Boohoooo!): [We Bare Bears] / [Gravity Falls]

"...Did you have a hub loop?" Chloe asked Ice Bear.

"Yes. What tipped Chloe off?" Ice Bear commented.

"...You're wearing a Bobby Flay shirt and have a bunch of Inspector Gadget figurines." Chloe pointed out.

"Inspector Gadget treat Ice Bear well. Get Ice Bear out of Colombian prison." Ice Bear shrugged.

"...Do I even want to know?" Chloe asked in amusement.

"Nope!" Stanley Pines shrugged, walking out with Panda's life savings.

"...Has anyone seen my life savings?" Panda called out.

Chloe and Ice Bear looked at each other before awkwardly shuffling off.

* * *

35.7 (BIOS-Pherecydes): [Admin Shenanigans]

**The End of Slenderman**

"So that's that hm?" Urd wondered aloud as she left her father's office.

Belldandy frowned quietly. "I still think it's a little harsh."

"C'mon Bell, it's a punishment. That's the whole point."

Belldandy nodded reluctantly. "Yes. I know."

"And don't forget what he did. He nearly destroyed everything all for some juvenile joke. _I_ think he's getting off lightly. If for no other reason than all the crap he's put Skuld through."

Belldandy's face darkened momentarily at that, before she sighed and nodded again. "Yes, you're right."

Urd hesitated for a moment, before a sly smile made its way over her face. "Well, I know just what'll cheer you up. Why don't you go pay Keiichi a visit, hm?"

"But, what about—"

"Ah bup bup! Don't you worry about it, I can cover for you for a little bit," Urd said, before letting her grin widen suggestively. "You just worry about making up for lost time."

Belldandy's face reddened but she smiled and, giving her sister a quick hug, she ran off to see her husband.

Urd shook her head in amusement before heading to back to her own workspace. Surely she could take care of things for one afternoon right? What was the worst that could happen?

A vision of Slenderman's fate popped into her head at that, and she shuddered. Right, nevermind. Question answered.

* * *

"Slenderman, get me some coffee. Slenderman, rub my tentacles. Slenderman, go muck out the Shoggoth pits. Fuck those guys! When this is over, I'm gonna shove their tentacles so far up their own orifices there'll be enough hanging out the other end to do it again! I'll—"

"You'll what?"

Slenderman jumped at the voice, and turned to see the glowing eyes of his 'boss' as they popped into and out of existence staring into and beyond him. "Uh, nothing Yog. Anything I can do for you?"

"You can start by taking your nose out of my ass."

Slenderman twitched, but didn't respond to the jibe. "Did you need something?"

"Yes. You've been our butt-monkey for the past few hundred years now while we decided your fate, and we've finally agreed on your punishment."

"Wait, I thought this was my punishment!"

Though Yog-sothoth didn't have a face or a visible mouth of any kind, he somehow managed to convey the sense of a wide grin. "Nope. This was just us amusing ourselves while the trial was going on. Technically, you could have just ignored us the whole time. Though we really appreciate the coffee. Good job."

Slenderman's normally pure white face turned red in fury. "WHAT?"

"Oh yeah. You can thank Hastur, it was his idea. But, back to the point. We finally came to a decision."

Slenderman's rage was cut off as a cold hand dropped onto his shoulder. Turning he was met by the darkly grinning figure of Yana, backed up by Hel's cruelly amused figure. Slenderman's face invented a new shade of pale at the sight.

"Wait, what's going on? Why are you two here? Yog, what's happening."

"Judgement, that's what's happening." Yama said in a harsh voice.

"Indeed. Thanks to your screw-up, we were called in to come up with a fitting punishment. Ever since Fenrir got free, we've had nothing to do with Gleipnir and it's just been sitting in storage gathering dust. So when Yama here came to me and asked to borrow it, how could I say no?"

"I've got a special place in Maharaurava set up, just for you slendyboy." Yama said as he grabbed the back of Slenderman's suit and began pulling him down the hallway.

"Wait, no! Nononono! Yog, you can't do this! You need me!" Slenderman cried, reaching out desperately to slow his movement; to no avail as Yama's two dogs bit his tentacles causing him to let go.

"We really don't. You've been nothing but trouble ever since you joined the Mythos, and we're washing our hands and/or tentacles of you. You fucked up one too many times, and now the piper's come calling. Once the Loops end, if Yama decides you've repented enough to be allowed to be reborn maybe we can talk. Goodbye Slenderman. And good riddance."

* * *

35.8 (wildrook): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

"I get that the fashion industry tends to be stressful on the stomach," Marinette muttered, "but do you have to overdo it on the snack foods?"

"I have several reasons for that, Marinette," Adrien replied, "and this is because it's rare for me to be a normal teenager, so I have to enjoy it when I can. Besides, we're joining Ayla and Nino on movie nights..."

Marinette got the idea. "So, some of them are for Plagg?"

"Some of it is the cheese he likes."

Plagg just went up in his cheese wedges as Tikki face-palmed.

With that, they arrived at their destination as Ayla and Nino has waved... and noticed the mountain of snacks Adrien managed to bring.

"Isn't that a bit much?" Nino asked them.

"I'm just wondering if he's sharing," Ayla continued.

"You're not touching my cheese," Plagg muttered.

Adrien and Marinette just sweat-dropped. Really, Plagg?

* * *

35.9 (Awesomedude17): [Moana] / [Crash Bandicoot]

Moana Awoke, taking in the unfamiliar village she was in.

Apparently, she was the daughter of the chief, Papu Papu, who repeatedly expressed his frustrations about the mad scientist and that orange bandicoot mutant that terrorized their people on occasion.

He also ate his entire weight in fruit and pigs, but that was besides the point. What was the point is that no one would try and stop them unless they deliberately trespassed on their home.

Moana, looking at the tower that pierced the sky, realized that perhaps it was time for a direct approach.

* * *

"So we are all in this time loop?" Aku Aku asked.

"Yes, we are. Thank goodness Uka Uka isn't with us in our time shenanigans. If he was, he'd blame me and try to kill me. Over and over again." Cortex shuddered.

"Well, we need to figure out what's happening." Coco said. "And obviously, N. Tropy isn't involved."

"Thankfully." Aku Aku remarked.

"Ugh, but we have no leads! If only someone could explain to us what is happening!" Cortex pleaded.

Immediately after, Crash was tossed through the window and splatted against the wall. Shortly after, one of the tribesfolk jumped into the castle, spear in hand.

"Okay, I'm going to make this clear. You're not welcome in our village-"

"Yes, we know. They tied me to a totem pole." Cortex waved off the intruder. "Now if you'll excuse us, we're trying to figure out why the three of us are in a time loop."

"Time loop? You're Looping?"

"Wait? You too?" Coco asked.

"Yeah, I am." The tribeswoman hopped down. "I'm Moana. Let me explain everything I can."

After giving the 'Welcome to the Multiverse' speech, Cortex then gave the obvious question.

"Who is the Anchor? Is it me?"

"Of course not. You weren't Looping a few times I was Awake." Aku Aku noted.

"But neither were you or the girl."

"Then who is the Anchor?"

"Generally, it's the one who has the closest connection to you three."

"But who?" Coco asked.

And then they turned their looks to Crash, who grabbed one of Cortex's experiments and tossed it over his shoulder, causing it to explode and purple stuff to stain Crash's fur.

Cortex's jaw dropped. After a pause, Cortex began to sob.

"UUUUUAAAAAAGH!!! IT'S NOT FAIR!!! I AM STUCK WITH THIS STUPID BANDICOOT FOREVER!!! I BA AH BAY DA MU DA BAAAAAAAH!!!"

As Cortex continued his tantrum, Aku Aku turned to Crash.

"Well, congratulations, Crash. You're an Anchor. How does that make you feel?"

Crash grinned.

"I see. Well, thanks for explaining everything, Moana. We'll be sure to keep in touch."

"We'll see. In the meantime, I better get back to the village. My dad this Loop is Papu Papu, and he gets really cranky if I am not home for dinner. Bye." Moana left through the window.

"Well, that explains everything." Coco said.

"Yep. It certainly did."

Cortex let out another loud sob.

* * *

35.10 (Shadow Wolf75): [Mighty Ducks] / [Warcraft]

This 'Azeroth' Branch was rather enjoyable indeed, even if Wraith had ended up looping in as one of the native races. Blood Elves were more human-like than he preferred, but at least they had more than enough magical potential. The glowing green eyes were also a nice touch, though he wondered if there was some way to shift the color to red. He was currently an older example of a Blood Elf, with long white hair. He wasn't used to having hair, mind you, but it made him look more regal so that was fine, even if it was annoying.

He was an adventurer here, a fire mage, who happened to be journeying across Pandaria. Things were going great, there were almost too many creatures and other enemies to roast to cinders, few things could make an old predator like himself so contented. In more scholarly pursuits, he found the world's schools of alchemy well worth looking into.

It was wonderful, and he almost didn't want the loop to end... until he was asked to escort a group of Pandaren up the Veiled Stair and onward to Binan Village.

The Brewmaster of the Pandaren group spoke up. "Get ready, Mr. Mage; the reason we hired you is probably lurking just up ahead. Damned Saurok, anyway..."

Wraith arched one very long eyebrow. "Saurok? What in the world are those?"

"You don't-- oh right, you're not from Pandaria. Well, if there aren't any along the path, then there's definitely some in the Ancient Passage. This would make a good trade route if those filthy lizards would just move out of the cave, or if more adventurers like you came along and cleaned them out."

Lizards, eh? Perhaps even something like distant cousins to Sauriankind, given the name? This could prove very interesting, though it was unfortunate he wasn't in his true form for this. It might've made negotiating easier.

Looking back on it later, he should've gotten his first warning about the Saurok's nature by the fact they were living in a cave to begin with.

When they reached the passage entrance, the awful smell hit. It was only a little further inside that Wraith spied his first Saurok. Bipedal, humanoid lizardmen with tails, very similar to the average Saurian, but their frames were the only thing they had in common. These things were primitive, tribal brutes, perfectly content to live in the squalor and filth of this narrow passage under the mountain. The intelligence in their beady eyes was more like that of a clever animal's, and their weapons were makeshift and shoddy at best. Even worse, it seemed they'd been living like this for a very long time.

Wraith let out a low growl, fire magic already gathering at his fingertips. How dare these things not rise above like the Saurians had! So much could fall within their grasp, and they were content with living as wild beasts. No, no he couldn't allow this . . . he couldn't allow this at _all_.

He flashed a vicious smile at the nearest Saurok when it noticed him, then let loose a barrage of flames, roaring out the first thing that came to mind in his rage. "BY FIRE BE PURGED!"

* * *

It was much much later when Nozdormu ran across the Saurian turned Blood Elf, in the heart of the Throne of Thunder. Namely, Wraith was looting the still cooling corpse of Lei Shen when the Bronze dragon soared into the room.

"While it was not a loss at all, you killed every last Saurok on the entire planet, because...?" The guardian of Azeroth's timeline honestly thought the lack of foul lizards was a good thing, but he still wanted to know why.

Wraith half-glared up at him, the green glow of his eyes flaring a bit brighter. "Those _things_ were an insult to all Saurians everywhere! I was doing this loop a favor by destroying them all." He looked to Lei Shen's dead body and spat on it in disgust. "And this monster deserved to die for creating them, let alone all of the other sins he committed."

The Bronze dragon tilted his head quizzically at that, then let out an amused chuckle. "My, since you were so thorough with this, how do you feel about murlocs?"

* * *

35.11 (Hvulpes): [Phineas and Ferb] Re. Milo Murphy's Law

"So Phineas, Ferb, do you know how this keeps appearing in our loop?" Candace placed the CD in front of them.

"Well, as you know sis, for some reason in recent loops we have had two issues. An increase in the timeline till after school starts, even if it doesn't see like we're doing anything which seems baseline. Every extension seems to be different. The other is the increase in bad stinkelkrampen from what Dr. D says. But I have no idea what an expansion, bad luck and a lumberjack themed boy band has to do with each other?" answered Phineas as he looked at 'Chop Away at my Heart" by the Lumberzacks.

"Why would anyone outside of the pacific northwest want a lumberjack themed boy band? Or Canada?" asked Ferb before going silent again.

* * *

35.12 (Saphroneth): [Kingdom Hearts]

"The Keyblade is why those monsters were attacking you," Leon explained patiently. "That's why we had to separate you from it. Without that the Heartless would have kept coming for you until you were exhausted."

"Heartless?" Sora repeated, tilting his head a little. "Why are they called that?"

"Heartless are monsters which seek hearts," Aerith explained. "The Keyblade is a manifestation of the heart, so they seek it."

"Huh," Sora mused. "I just thought it was better at hitting things than my wooden sword."

Leon rubbed his elbow, which was faintly stinging even after the Cure spell Aerith had used on him. "You're telling me..."

"So... does that mean I can get better at using the keyblade by expressing my heart?" Sora asked.

He closed his eyes, and reached out his hand.

There was a sudden brilliant flash, and both Leon and Aerith threw up their hands to block out the bright white light.

When it faded, they stared.

Sora was at least a few inches taller, at first glance, and his clothes had taken on an unearthly quicksilver light which shifted moment by moment. Two handles stuck up over his shoulder, rotating steadily, and Leon noticed that the single simple keyblade Sora had used had been replaced by two much more ornate ones - one looking like a sword coated in opalescent filigree, the other with a long chain-adorned haft and a bat-wing motif.

Oh, and Sora was floating.

"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Sora asked, spreading his hands, and the keyblades flicked out to the sides of the room before returning to hover protectively over his head. "If I'd known that it would have been much simpler!"

* * *

35.13 (b-wolf95): [Zootopia] / [Persona]

Akira Woke up in the attic to find a fox in the place that Morgana usually occupied. The fox smirked at him and said, "Judging from your face, I must be throwing you for a Loop."

"Yeah, but I just Woke up too."

"Nick Wilde, visiting Looper from Zootopia."

"Akira Kurusu, local Looper. So I take it you're replacing Morgana this Loop."

"Yep. Don't worry, I've had my own share of adventures in the Metaverse before this Loop, so I've been doing a good job of being the mentor in his place. Check your Loop Memories if you want to."

Akira did just that and found that Nick was true to his word. Outside of Mementos being more tiring than usual ("foxes turning in cars" isn't exactly a common thought among the people of Tokyo), Nick was keeping close to what Morgana was doing in baseline. However, there was something about Nick's Persona that made Akira ask what was, in hindsight, a stupid question.

"So, you're a girl, right?"

It took Nick a few seconds to process the question. "Excuse me?"

"It's just that you have a female Persona and all..."

"Do I sound like a girl to you?"

"Well, no, but Morgana sounds like a girl while still being male and has a male Persona as well."

"...You know, I was going to let you leave tonight, but," Nick leaped off the dresser and stepped in front of the stairs. "Judging by what you're saying, you're clearly way too out of it to anything other than go to sleep, so I'm going to make sure you don't take a step down these stairs."

Akira grimaced, until he was struck by an idea. He smirked and said, "Okay." He then made a mad dash to the window...

...until an elephant tranquilizer dart hit his butt and he collapsed onto the floor.

Nick put the dart gun back into his Pocket. "Gotta remember to thank Judy for that."

* * *

35.14 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Mega Man X]

_This,_ X decided, _is the strangest reploid I've ever seen._

Indeed, the newest member of the Maverick Hunters was incredibly unusual. He(?) was only two feet tall with green and white horizontal stripes, stubby cylindrical limbs, no distinct head, and a simplistic face plastered across his front. One could be forgiven for considering him unintelligent, what with his vacant eyes and tendency to only say "Nang" over and over.

Still, no-one could argue with his track record. So far he'd managed to take down more mavericks than half the force _combined,_ both due to them underestimating him and because of that overpowered freeze ray of his.

As Klimpaloon ran rings around an increasingly frustrated Sigma, X made a note to ask one of the Danville Loopers if their little Himalayan friend had Activated at some point.

* * *

35.15 (Hvulpes): [Moana] / [My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic] (not yet compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ )

Moana had just gotten to the point in her loop where she she met Tamatoa, the giant bling covered crab. Again her emerged and took a look at her and say, "Are you feeling Loopy? 'Cause I am."

For a moment the chief's daughter wondered how the monster villain crab had started to loop, only to realize it wasn't the normal crab. A replacement. She answered while keeping Maui hidden in case of trouble, "I'm well Anchored. My name is Moana. Who are you?"

"A victim of a bad pun and a tree's demented sense of humor."

"A pun? What do you mean?"

"A mix of my second name and my sister Twilight's nickname for me." he said mentioning the anchor of the Equestria loop. He continued, "As she might call me, my name is 'Shiny' Armor."

As Maui emerged he answered, "Yeah, that pun is bad."

* * *

35.16 (wildrook): [DuckTales] / [Jojo's Bizarre Adventure - implied]

"I may have seen a lot of things in my day," Scrooge muttered, looking at the abomination that was following them, "but I don't remember Merlock doing THAT! Did he always have the ability to transform into octopi?"

The Genie groaned. "This was his second wish," he said. "To gain the powers of the Ultimate Life Form known to all kind in case someone DOES steal his Talisman."

Somehow, Huey and Dewey looked horrified, but Louie just muttered "Cool," earning looks from the other two and Webby.

Scrooge knew what to do at that moment. "Launchpad, send us to the nearest volcano!" he said, yelling at his pilot. "Do NOT put down the landing gear. In fact, make a crash course to the Lava!"

"Why the change of pace Mr. McD?" Launchpad asked him.

"Because that thing following us is going to kill us faster after stealing that thing."

"Are you insane?" Genie asked him. "We don't have enough parachutes for the kids."

"I know," Scrooge said. "You're putting them in the lamp. Launchpad, too. He's going to be after the lamp and the talisman, and I'm going to use that to my advantage."

Genie groaned. "That's even worse," he muttered. "And I've seen Collie Baba posing as a prince in order to impress a Sultan's Daughter. Let's hope it works."

As Genie made the planning, Scrooge had managed to make a decoy with a gravy boat he took from the party and what looked like a painted teacup lid in order to lure him away...even if the Piranhas were trying to bite him in the shoulder.

He didn't have much time knowing his ruthlessness.

And Merlock saw what looked like the man jump out with a parachute.

"Well, either he's trying to save his own feathers," he said, "or he put everyone else in the lamp. Either way, I'm going to get my power back." As he flew over to them, he had noticed that he was fooled. "A decoy? But that must mean he's still in the plane."

It was at that moment that Merlock realized that the plane was meant to hit him towards the volcano.

"Scrooge, have you forgotten that my first wish was to be immortal?" he asked him.

"Aye, I haven't forgotten," Scrooge said. "In fact, I still haven't made my second wish." 'This time,' he thought.

Then the realization hit Merlock at that moment.

"You're not thinking..."

"Genie," Scrooge said, holding the lamp, "I wish Merlock was sent into the outer reaches of space, far from any planet! Use this Volcano to accelerate the propulsion if you must!"

At that moment, the plane had split open with Scrooge and Merlock on a bit of debris that was split open via Genie's magic... with Scrooge just holding on for dear life.

"It's a decent attempt," Merlock said, "but I'm not leaving without the Lamp and my Talisman! Either way, goodbye forever, McDuck!"

Unfortunately for Merlock, Scrooge had inherited one of his associates' crazy luck as the cane at that moment had managed to hit the immortal's throat.

"Ha, who's laughing now, Merlock!" he yelled.

And just to add salt in the wound, Scrooge had decided to put the final nail in Merlock's coffin just to take advantage of the confusion.

"Now ask yourself this, Merlock!" he yelled. "Did I manage to plan this out just to get rid of you? Answer me!"

Merlock was utterly distracted. "How did you figure..."

That moment had sealed Merlock's fate as rocks he would have dodged had entered his system, pushing him upward into the higher reaches of the atmosphere.

"You managed to plan this out just to make sure I never returned, didn't you? ANSWER ME!"

"Did you even need to ask?" Scrooge yelled, with mirth in his voice. "Of course I'd use this opportunity to get rid of you, and I managed to stack the deck like clockwork!"

Inwardly, Scrooge was smirking.

'Although I kind of copied a friend's method out of universe,' he thought, 'but where he's going, he doesn't have to know. He'll just go insane just thinking about it!'

Combining magic with physics (and a bit of luck) gave Scrooge the advantage as he knew nothing on Earth would kill him, but the immortality wish had bitten Merlock in the rear end as Merlock was flung into the far reaches of space.

"Agh! CURSE YOU, MCDUCK!"

He also didn't know what he used the Talisman for, but Scrooge had thought that it wouldn't have anything to do with space... so he spent the moment as he re-entered the atmosphere just resting.

Luckily, it kept him alive for a search party to show up. Especially when the fleet was a familiar face to the McDuck family.

"Uncle Scrooge!?!" Donald yelled, surprised. "How did..." He then shook his head as he remembered protocol for stuff like this and rang the alarms. "MAN OVERBOARD!"

The naval officers on duty got the idea as they noticed him in the area. Scrooge was lucky this Loop... he didn't know how lucky, either.

* * *

35.17 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb]

For one reason or another, Phineas, Ferb and their friends had decided to go to the museum. It was honestly fairly calm and peaceful for once, since there was nothing planned today.

Until an old-timey out of control fire truck rammed through the doors and into the T-rex.

Unlike most people, the group decided to go after the rampaging vehicle rather than run away. However, the resulting dodging and climbing of debris meant that they only got to the eventual stopping point well after the dust had settled.

When they looked up at what appeared to be the truck locked in combat with the dinosaur - still inanimate and frozen respectively, thankfully - only Buford had anything to say, "You know, that really does seem to bring the whole courtyard together."

There were staggered tones of agreement, which were abruptly cut off by a beeping noise from Phineas's pocket, "Wow, the Stinkelkrampen Detector is going crazy. Maybe the source of all these weird expansions is nearby!"

Candace grinned "You heard the man! Let's go see what's going on!"

And so the group ran off, forgetting one crucial fact; when you are running towards a focal point of bad luck, it becomes much easier to get caught in the crosswind. This was why one of Phineas's shoes was conspicuously untied. And why he was wearing tie-able shoes in the first place.

Time seemed to slow down as Ferb and Isabella reached out to keep Phineas from hitting the ground and Buford took a sliding dive to do the same for the Detector. This meant he got a very close and surprisingly cinematic view of the machine shattering into a million pieces.

"Shoot!" Phineas snapped his fingers, "It'll take forever for us to get this close again."

This confused Isabella, "Didn't you guys make a spare?"

"That _was_ the spare," Candace groaned, "The main one got trampled by a llama herd. I still don't understand why we have a llama-based theater district."

"Well, at the turn of the century -"

"I know the story, Ferb."

Baljeet mulled it over, "Perhaps we are simply not meant to know yet."

Buford scoffed, "And when has that ever stopped us, brain boy?"

"Point taken."

* * *

35.18 (lord Martiya): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Sailor Moon]

Ladybug was still getting used to many things in the Loops. Thus why her night patrol being interrupted by the sudden appearance of Sailor Venus, imprevedibile and lustful prankster extraordinaire and the self-proclaimed "Oldest Superhero in the Loops", had caught her by surprise. Still, she sent out a ping, and the older Looper sent one back-confirming she was Awake-and looked at her with a stone face.

"Not fair." the older superhero said.

"What do you mean?"

"How can you be so badass and yet so darn CUTE?!"

"What? And when did you glomp me?!"

"Can't help, you're just so cute!"

"Just let her." a white cat, Artemis, if Ladybug remembered correctly, said as he arrived from above. "She'll do that for a while, and then she'll insist in helping you and your friend with your relationship. We call her the Goddess of Love for a reason, you know."

"We'll be taking things slow, and-"

"Friendship is a form of love, Cutey." Venus said. "What's with you youngsters and always thinking about sex when someone says 'love'? You're perverts!"

* * *

"Damn Ladybug! It's three in the morning!" Papillon shouted, having been awakened by her scream.

* * *

"Kidding, kidding!" Venus said after Ladybug stopped screaming at being called a pervert by Sailor Venus, of all people. "On the pervert, not the love thing. Now a picture, and later we meet with Adrien! Artemis?"

The alien cat simply took a picture, having already prepared everything.

* * *

35.1: The core trio playing as the prequel trio... and confusing the heck out of Donald and Goofy.

35.2: Yikes.

35.3: Giga Slave... not a power you want to mess with.

35.4: Clever of you, Icy.

35.5: Bloom's a Disney fan, apparently.

35.6: Eeyeah.

35.7: Compiled here due to Slenderman's involvement in the _Mega Man: Inside Out_ loop. And yeah, he deserved it.

35.8: Apparently, Plagg really loves his cheese. I know the feeling.

35.9: I'll admit, I'm not familiar with the _Crash Bandicoot_ setting. But apparently it worked here.

35.10: Eeesh.

35.11: The expansion continues to come closer... but they still don't know what's going on.

35.12: Sora, you troll. (grins)

35.13: Good thing to have on hand.

35.14: ...

35.15: (groans)

35.16: Merlock is still a highly dangerous foe. Too bad for him that Scrooge has the brains to counter him.

35.17: Milo is getting close. Very, very close.

35.18: When Magical Girls meet.


	53. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Six - The Pyre of Shadow

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2018-02-17. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Six**

36.1 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 1**

The problem, of course, was that Earth was pretty big.

Like, tremendously big.

Sure, it had been explored, mostly, and sure there were people everywhere, but that was the _point_ , there were people _everywhere_. And while fused loops usually had the decency to put visitors near the location of the native loopers, the more like the Hub the world was the more likely two loopers would miss each other in the crowd of basically everyone.

And Riley's version of Earth had, essentially, one difference. And it was in her own head. And technically that of every living being on the planet, as far as she could tell. Still, it wasn't physical.

The car rolled in front of the Andersen family's new house, and Riley let out another ping as she swung out of the car. Again, she received one ping back - and no indication of who was sending it.

 _"So no go on the other looper..."_ grumbled a voice in her mind.

 _"Maybe whoever it is doesn't want to talk to us?"_ suggested another, hesitantly.

 _"They're probably just somewhere vague,"_ a third voice assured them brightly. _"And anyway, it's not like we can't find them if we need to!"_

Riley gave a quiet sigh, even as her parents discovered (for the umpteenth time) that the moving truck had somehow gotten lost. "Well, it's not like they're just going to show up."

There was a knock at their front. Riley's mother shrugged and turned. "I'll get it." She swung open the door---and froze.

"Hello, are you the new neighbors?"

"I... y-yes." With a breath, Riley's mother regained her composure. "I mean, we're still moving in, but the truck apparently got lost, so--"

"Oh, that must make you just loopy with frustration."

Riley's eyes went wide, and she rushed up beside her mom. "Yeah it does, but we're well anchored."

The six-foot tall woman on the porch chuckled at the interjection. "Oh, that is good to hear." She nodded and pinged at the same time. "As a matter of fact, I live just across the street; I could certainly put up with all of you for as long as it took your moving truck to arrive."

"That'd be pretty cool of you," Riley replied, pinging back with a wide grin. "I think I saw a dead rat in here."

Her mother cleared her throat. "I'm not... sure that's the best idea, Riley. No offense, miss...?"

"Fall. Cinder Fall." The woman sighed. "Is it my eyes? I know gold's unusual, but I can't help being a mutant."

"Er, no, it's just we don't know you that well."

"Honey, who's at the--oh." Riley's dad blinked, taking in the woman. "Uh. I... think you might have the wrong house, miss?"

"I'm just greeting the new neighbors," Cinder replied with a friendly smile. "Whatever did you think I was doing?"

"Yes," Riley's mother deadpanned, "what did you think she was doing, _honey?"_

Riley stepped between them, hands up consolingly. "Hey, she's a new neighbor just saying hi. And I kind of like her dress."

Cinder smiled, even as Riley's mother flushed. "Thank you! I made it myself." She twirled, showing off the shoulderless red gown that cut itself just above the thigh--and quite a bit higher up her right.

"The golden spirally stuff on your sleeves is super cool." Riley tilted her head innocently. "But don't you get cold without pants?"

"Oooookay." Riley's dad put his hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back. "It was nice meeting you, miss, but my boss just called and I kind of have to do a thing at work. I'll be back tonight."

"What?" His wife blinked. "So soon?"

"Your wife and I were just discussing hosting your family in my house until your moving truck came," Cinder interjected. "I live in that house right over there--"

"Oh, uh, you know what? I'll call Jill when I'm headed back, and we can talk about what you two decided then." With a quick kiss on his wife's cheek, the man rushed out the door, past their guest, and back into the family car.

There was a moment or two of awkward silence.

"It really isn't any trouble at all," Cinder eventually assured the other woman. "I mean it is a bit of a tight fit, I suppose, but I live alone anyway."

Riley's mother looked from her, to her still smiling daughter. "...You know what, let's... I don't know, go out and find something for dinner? Maybe we can talk it over then."

"Of course. I know a lovely little noodle shop down the way, as a matter of fact..."

* * *

36.2 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 2**

While Jill Andersen had initially been hesitant about Cinder's motivations, the woman had quickly won her over with a discussion of varying sporting events and the revelation that she, herself, had once been a contender in what she described as an international sword-fighting competition. From there, the conversation had moved through to Riley's own skill in hockey, to Cinder comparing her favorably to her sister, and then to swapping stories about the pair of them. By the time they'd finished their meal--some actually quite good asian dish--the two of two of them had exchanged phone numbers. Even now, walking home, they were laughing over some crazy story.

"...and then. And then Ruby turns to me, with that wide smirk, and she says, she says... 'I want to use ALL MY FATE POINTS.'"

_"No."_

"Yes!"

"I don't even know what that means, and I know it's bad."

Cinder snorted. "Bad? It was the most gorgeous train wreck you could imagine! I had spent two whole months coordinating this thing, building the world, and planning this campaign, and she demolishes the entire setting in a little under twelve minutes!" She burst out laughing. "Gods, I didn't know whether to be angry or impressed."

"Wow. She sounds like quite the troublemaker." Jill grinned, nudging Cinder playfully. "Must have been hard growing up with her."

"We... didn't grow up together, actually."

Jill blinked. "I... oh. I didn't mean to--"

"It's fine, you didn't know. I was..." Cinder sighed. "Well, I don't even know where I come from, if I'm honest. I did get caught up in a bad crowd, and I lived with them for a while, and then--well, then Ruby found me, and she and Yang just took me in as their sister."

Riley nodded. "They sound pretty cool."

"Oh, they're fairly awesome. Although I don't think you can call Yang _cool,_ she has far too _fiery_ a personality."

 _Ha!_ said one of the voices in Riley's head.

 _Boooooooo,_ jeered another.

_Come on, Disgust, it's a pun!_

_Puns are the lowest form of humor._

"Is something wrong?"

Riley refocused on reality and gave Cinder a wide smile. "Just listening to my emotions."

"...always important." The woman nodded. "Good to know why you're thinking what you're thinking..."

The trio fell silent, Jill looking between her daughter and the strange woman with an odd expression.

"...So!" Cinder clapped her hands together suddenly. "There's your place, and there's my place. The offer to stay over is still open, of course--"

"How about we just visit right now?" Jill suggested. "I'd rather wait until Bill comes home to finalize any decision, but seeing your place--"

Cinder smiled broadly. "Of course, of course. A fair warning, my decor is a little... macabre. I had a vampire phase and never really grew out of it."

"Vampire phase."

"Oh you know." Cinder shrugged as she led them to her house. "I wanted to be strong and feared and powerful, and I thought getting myself a set of fangs would do it." She opened the door. "I've grown up since then, but the aesthetic of fear as power still appeals to me."

_I wouldn't call myself powerful HOLY CHEESEBASKETS WHAT IS THAT._

"Uh, what's that?" Riley asked, pointing at the painting on the wall.

"Hmm? Oh, that's Kevin."

Jill blinked, glancing from Cinder to what could best be described as a mutant dragon made of shadow and bone. "Kevin."

"Yes, yes. Destroyer of Beacon, doom of Vale--part of my control fantasy, I would set him loose on the innocents and cackle at their demise." Cinder chuckled wryly. "I was one seriously messed up girl back in the day. Still am, in some ways..."

"I'm... pretty sure that's a little beyond a usual vampire fantasy," Jill noted, carefully maneuvering herself between the woman and Riley.

Cinder chuckled. "Don't worry, Kevin's not really... really a part of my life anymore. Heck, Ruby slew him long ago." She shook her head. "Where are my manners. Are you tea sort of people, or should I get you juice?"

"What," Riley quipped, "no blood?"

A joking smirk formed on Cinder's face. "Blood is an acquired taste, I don't think you'd appreciate it."

Jill frowned. "No, we really wouldn't."

"More for me then. How about orange juice?"

* * *

36.3 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 3**

Despite Cinder's casual dark side, she was eventually able to convince Jill to accept her offer of temporary housing. Riley was of two minds on this--Joy was happy that they had a reason to stay around and talk to the new looper, but Fear was adamant that something was definitely _wrong_ with Cinder Fall, and her other emotions kept joining one or the other in an uneven conflict. Still, by the time her dad arrived home, Riley decided to just roll with the new standard.

The next few days were a combination of the usual settling-into-school fare and finding out more about her neighbor. The first was simple tedium by now, a side effect of simply living through the same few years again and again and, really, not even needing the schooling; she did befriend a few of her classmates, since their histories tended to be loop variable, but for the most part she had to admit she was preferring the second pastime. It was quite clear from the start that Cinder Fall was a villain in her home world--yes, she talked fondly of her 'sisters', and just as fondly of bringing foes to heel. Of course, her parents assumed all that was talk of fictional role-playing scenarios, a lie the woman encouraged. Riley wasn't sure they'd let her hang around her neighbor otherwise.

And therein lied the issue. Neither Riley nor Cinder had broached loop topics around her parents--not directly, anyway, bringing non-looping members of the family into this nonsense was always a problem--and it was difficult to get the woman alone. Or, well, it was difficult for Riley to get to her alone--her parents were still feeling out Cinder's trustworthiness, even as they accepted her offer of help. It made sense, honestly, no matter how kind Cinder was there was something distinctly... devious about her, a sense that she loved to play with people's lives as easily as their thoughts.

Speaking of which, in her mind, five distinct voices began to talk.

\----

"Look, all I'm saying is that she's got some seriously screwed up interests," Fear pointed out. "I don't think we should be hanging around her."

Joy rolled her eyes. "She's a looper, and she knows Riley's the Anchor. We're perfectly safe."

"Physically, maybe, but it's not inconceivable that she could traumatize Riley!"

"I mean, sure, but that's true with anyone. Look, I agree that we should watch our step around Cinder, but finding some place to talk to her--"

Anger growled as he scrunched up his newspaper. "You two have been going back and forth on this for a week and a half! Honestly, this is almost as bad as the intimacy issue."

"I thought we agreed NEVER to bring that up again," Disgust grumbled.

"My point is, you're stuck in a cognitive loop. You," Anger pointed at Joy, "want to make a new friend, and you," he pointed at Fear, "want to keep away from a dangerous person. And neither of you are intense enough in your want to overwhelm the other."

Joy sighed. "Well, what do you think we should do?"

"Honestly, at this point I don't care, I just want you to make a decision!"

"If you ask me," Disgust offered, "Cinder might be very dangerous, but it's not something we could _accidentally_ trigger. I mean, sure, she could have some berserk button, but it strikes me as unlikely. So long as we watch our step around her, Riley should be safe. Plus she does have a good fashion sense."

Joy nodded. "THANK you, Disgust. Sadness, what about you?"

Sadness tapped her hands together nervously. "...well, she's... I'll be honest, she seems the kind that cares very deeply about a very few things. She wouldn't want to hurt us, but I don't think she would mind if we got hurt. So... I don't know, I think we need to know more about her, but I don't think it would be good to just ask her about things--she's very good at sneaking around in her words."

Anger snapped his fingers. "Why don't we just follow her around, then?"

"Wait, what?" Fear blinked. "Are you saying we should stalk her?"

"Yep."

"Wow." Disgust smirked. "It's usually the creepy woman who stalks the twelve-year-old, flipping the formula sounds interesting. You know what, I support this plan."

Joy gave her a look. "Wait, seriously?"

"What? Just because I have to think our reputation doesn't mean I never want to have any fun."

"You call stalking a self-admitted vampire with a fascination for the dark side of humanity 'fun.'" Fear threw up a hand. "And if she catches us, what then?"

"Well, we'd just have to make sure she didn't catch us," Joy said.

Fear gave her a flat look. "Oh, yes, obviously, and as a twelve-year-old--"

"Riley is the anchor." Joy shrugged. "If she did get caught, all we have to do is say 'hey, I was looking for you, wanna pull a loop prank,' and voila."

Fear held up a finger, paused, and sighed. "I feel like I should be able to argue that, but somehow I can't. Sadness?" He turned to the blue emotion. "You have anything to say?"

"...It's basically the same for me. Cinder wouldn't care whether or not we got hurt, and stalking her doesn't change anything, as far as I know."

"Right." Joy put her hands down. "So are we all agreed? The plan is to follow Cinder at a distance, observe her, learn more about her, and then figure out what to do next."

"I don't think I'll win this one," Fear sighed. "Well, let's run it past Riley and see what she thinks..."

* * *

36.4 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 4**

Riley, after some consideration, agreed to Anger's idea; it was certainly better than some of the concepts she'd entertained. Following Cinder around San Francisco was easier than they expected. The woman had a very typical daily routine: wake up, eat breakfast, do some (unsurprisingly aggressive) stretches, and head out for whatever. She didn't seem to have an official job, exactly, but she always had money to spare--easy enough to obtain as a looper, though, so it wasn't really that suspicious.

And her trips might have taken her unusual places by Riley's standard, but they weren't exactly all that surprising from what she knew of Cinder Fall; a glass-blower shop (Cinder complemented some of the work and purchased a rather dangerous-looking griffon figure), a gun shop (Cinder scoffed at some of the guns on display, decrying them as 'basic and bulky,' and only bought ammunition and empty shells from the annoyed storekeep); a gaming store (Cinder perused the miniatures, the books, and a few of the board games with a keen eye, selecting a dozen of each; she allowed herself to be talked into an impromptu card game challenge with a deck off the shelf and trounced her opponents with flawless tactics and a smug grin before making her purchase); a metal-smith (Cinder changed into a suit of her own and paid the usual keep to let her work on her own project, and took five hours to complete her forging of a complex pronged blade); and what Riley, thanks to an embarrassing loop some centuries ago, recognized as a more _mature_ entertainment club (for obvious reasons, Riley decided to wait until she came back out to continue tracking her actions).

By the end of the week, Riley thought she had a good read on her mysterious looping guest. A villain on vacation, essentially--one who had a devious mind, certainly, and a preference for that which both looked awesome and functioned well. She hadn't done anything illegal as far as the girl could tell, aside from maybe something in the club (which neither Riley or her emotions cared to speculate on). She did seem to have a way of simply... slipping into situations, confidently acting as though she belonged there and, somehow, convincing everyone that was true. Any attempt to cow her was countered by a few well placed words and a gesture.

Cinder Fall was, simply put, a master at being the master in any situation.

And yet...

There was something niggling at Riley's mind, which led to some issues when her emotions complained about the frequent power fluctuations in headquarters. Cinder wasn't just a two-dimensional lover of power, after all. She had sisters, adopted maybe, but ones she seemed fond of--even if she talked about them sadly. And the way she interacted with the Andersen family wasn't as... forceful, exactly. She was polite and helpful, even if she did play up her role as a 'vampire' from time to time. Once she spent an entire day sewing, by hand. Another time, she simply disappeared into her pocket for a good twelve hours, and when she finally emerged she had a frustrated expression. Those weren't the only exceptions to Cinder's mask of confident manipulation, by far.

Riley of course realized that a person wasn't just one clean-cut stereotype--after all, her baseline was almost entirely founded around the idea of growing more complex and therefore, more mature. But there was something about the divide in Cinder's public persona and the one she had at home. The more Riley watched Cinder the manipulator, the more she felt... like Cinder was, almost, sleepwalking. Like Cinder's touch of words and easy power was so deeply ingrained that she could have talked her way through the most decadent court without even being fully aware of it. It was only when she stopped being the master that she seemed... well, not normal, but more 'awake', more conscious of her actions.

And then, twelve days in, Riley tracked Cinder to an abandoned warehouse. The gates were locked, but the windows weren't. After some thought, she braced herself, climbed up the fire escape, and pressed her eyes against the glass...

...and nearly threw herself back, a shocked gasp escaping her lips.

* * *

36.5 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 5**

Anything but this.

Anything, she begged silently, but _this_.

Her emotions were freaking out in her mind, Fear and Anger and Disgust all battling for attention as Sadness kept Joy from collapsing in disbelief. Surprisingly, none of them touched the console, leaving her to act on logic alone as she took a trembling step back to the window, just to make sure she had seen what she thought she had seen.

Tall black forms, humanoid in outline but not in action, slithered and whipped around the appendages that only qualified as arms due to their relative location. Every last one of them had a single streak of red, descending from the neck down to the chest, in what would have been a tie had it been separate from the black miasma that formed their bodies. Every last one of them had a white, featureless head, all turned...

...to follow Cinder Fall, who batted away the dark tendrils that reached for her with a pair of obsidian blades.

Riley watched, her eyes wide, as the woman spun, her weapons impaling the creatures and slicing them as she danced through the crowd. A fire burned from her eyes, pouring out her hands as she danced through the gathering of monsters, tearing through them as her face contorted into gleeful, painful rage--

A white lack of face suddenly jumped at the window, and Fear drove Riley back again even as the thing scrambled through the glass. Fear made her reach into her subspace pocket for something, anything--the weapon she had made with Megaman all those loops ago rose up, even as the hunched creature turned to her, reaching its tendrils out--she shot at it and it screeched--

\--it screeched?

Something was wrong--

\--she shot it again, and it dissolved, but another was already crawling out the window--

\--and then an arrow impaled the thing through its white head, and she felt a sudden BURST of heat as flame raged out every window of the warehouse.

And then... silence.

Riley took a breath, and another, even as her other emotions pried fear away from the console. She slowly lowered the weapon in her hand, still dazed.

"...Riley?" Cinder's shout carried through the shattered window. "If that's you... you can come in. They're all dead now."

The girl swallowed, pocketing the weapon. "Just... just give me a moment, Cinder." She shut her eyes. "Okay, guys... you all good?"

_...no. Fear's the worst, of course, but... Riley, the rest of us are pretty freaked out here._

"Well... thanks for the update, Disgust. But..." She looked at the shattered window. "I kind of think... I think we need to know exactly what it is we saw."

_I agree, just... be careful._

"Of course." Riley took a breath. "Okay! I'm coming down now!"

* * *

36.6 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 6**

The warehouse walls still radiated heat as Riley stepped in, but the scent of smoke was barely present, and not a flicker of flame shone from anywhere but the small set of candles set on the crate next to the now-quiet Cinder Fall. Warily, Riley approached the other looper, trying to read her body language.

"Can... can I ask what those things were?"

"My world is inhabited by something we call the Creatures of Grimm. Two M's. Monsters of shadow and bone, warped reflections of wolves and bears and other creatures, attracted to fear and anger and hate..." Cinder shrugged. "I started capturing them a while back for... personal reasons, and figuring out how to breed them into shapes I liked."

"So... those things." She gestured vaguely. "They were... what, just training dummies or, um, catharsis?"

"Catharsis would be one way to put it, yes." Cinder chuckled wryly. "I take it you watched Marble Hornets or something like that in baseline?"

"No, that's not..." Riley swallowed. "The actual Slenderman visited this world."

The other looper looked up from her hands, tilting her head. "Really?"

"Yeah."

"Tell me."

There was something about the way Cinder said it. Forceful, but not hostile. Demanding, but in a curious way...

Riley hesitated for a moment, but eventually nodded, sitting down on the crate beside her.

"...So, one quirk of this loop. In our minds, we have emotions--not, like, abstract pressures, but little people who run the headquarters. They don't exactly control us, it's a back and forth, but Fear and Joy and Sadness and Disgust and Anger, they speak and have their own lives."

"Hmm. That would explain why they feel so well defined."

Riley glanced at her.

"Star Wars loop," Cinder explained simply. "I was a Sith. I can sense emotions."

"...right." Riley took a breath. "Anyway... so it was a fused loop with Megaman and, well, you know that loop's kinda... wonky, right?"

"So I've heard. Wily being a dreamer, I understand."

"Well, there was no doctor Wily that time around. So Megaman and I decided to experiment. Make robot bodies for, you know, my emotions to inhabit..." Riley shuddered. "And, well, that left me vulnerable when Slenderman came. He..."

A pause, as she tried to gather herself.

"He... exploited the various abstractions in my mind. Made them into his own robotic army--usurped control of the robot bodies Megaman had made for my emotions... I was unable to feel anything, unable to care, as he used my mind to wreak havoc on the world. He whispered, too... it wasn't exactly a whisper, but it was as though he was controlling reality..."

She wrapped her hands around her shoulders.

"It was lucky Megaman and Roll were able to handle everything. I mean, they... they managed to get my emotions back, out of there and freed, they dealt with my manifested demons and... and they restored me, but it was still... I only just managed to retain my sanity. Looking back, everything seems silly and ridiculous, but it was almost enough to break me."

The warehouse was silent for a minute or two.

"...He slipped in while you were weak," Cinder muttered. "Unsure. He took control of your mind. He set you against your friends, and left you a wreck when you nearly destroyed the world."

"Yeah."

The warehouse was, again, silent.

And then...

It wasn't a laugh, exactly. It might have been a chuckle, but there was no humor in it. It was a sound of resigned acceptance, of acknowledgement that reality was itself bringing forth the impossible.

Riley blinked, turning to Cinder, who was again looking at her own hands. "Um..."

"Do you want to hear," she said wryly, "what he did to _me?_ "

* * *

36.7 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 7**

Riley blinked in surprise. "Slenderman... did something to you too?"

"Mmmhmm."

"What... what did he do?"

Cinder let out a breath. "You've... probably picked up on how I'm supposed to be a villain in my baseline. I wasn't even supposed to loop--I got activated by the Mythos. They just love screwing with Remnant for some reason... When I started looping, my backstory was 'two minions, army of mooks, and secretly wants to destroy the city.' Everything _else_ was as fluid as the ocean."

She shook her head. "Can you picture it? A goal, and nothing more? An actual, fully formed personality, without a history, without a past? The human mind isn't built to last without some form of socialization."

"So..." Riley bit her lip. "Slenderman activated you?"

"Oh yes, but that's not what he did to me. He set me adrift, sure, but I found my anchor in my world's Anchor. Ruby Rose." Cinder smiled. "You'd like her, she wouldn't be out of place in a modern disney flick. Eater of cookies, Slayer of Grimm. The heroine, and I was the big bad--or so we both thought, anyway, the expansions proved otherwise. I... faked Chrysalis syndrome. I pretended I believed I was her sister." She took a slow, steadying breath. "And because that was, ironically, more stable than whatever my baseline was supposed to be, I... we... well, power of friendship and all that."

"You stopped being a bad guy."

"No. I was still going villain. But I did it in secret. I stealthed, I... I tried to get every advantage I could, tried to control the situation." Cinder paused. "So there were two parts of my life: Cinder the loving sister, and Cinder the conniving destroyer. And they were both equally me. And that's when Slenderman came back."

Riley thought back to what Cinder had said, moments before. "...He slipped in while you were weak and unsure. He took control of your mind. He set you against your friends, and..."

"He threatened to tell everyone what I was doing in secret and forced... _something_ into my soul." Cinder shivered. "I couldn't tell anyone--not only because I wanted to hide, but because it made me forget it was there. He started giving me surreal nightmares that I couldn't remember... he was working to scrub my mind, slowly, to a hollow shell. That, combined with the stresses of two lives... I literally became two people. Cinder the sister, devoted but filled with paranoia for no reason, and Cinder the destroyer, so furious that she was forced to hide from a fifteen-year-old girl."

"Yeah. That... sounds horrible."

"I shook it off, eventually, but the damage had been done. I had enough. I tried... I tried to Ascend."

Riley took a sharp breath. "You... you what?"

"Yeah. Break the world to become a god. I'd been collecting vampires, robots, monsters--designing personalized nightmares for my fellow loopers, and so many other abominations besides. And one loop, I let them all loose, went to Amity Colosseum, and tore into the very code of Yggdrasil." Cinder nodded. "Nearly succeeded, too. If they hadn't found where I hid Ruby, if she... if she hadn't talked me down..."

"You tried to Ascend?" Riley whispered again, her voice desperate to disbelieve.

"Well... half of me did, anyway. The other half managed to subconsciously sabotage the effort and... when we rejoined, I... I was a wreck. The Admins locked me away in Remnant for a time while the other loopers..." Cinder shrugged. "It was my highest point, and my lowest. It was when I had the greatest power, and the least control. And it was all because that cue-ball tried to break me and make me his _perfect! Little! DOLL!"_

The fire in Cinder's eyes flared, descending down her arms and billowing out her hands in a pair of great plumes as she roared. Riley heard Fear trying to reach for the console, heard Disgust using words that Anger usually would, and...

...felt Sadness push the others away. _Let her know we're still here._

Hesitantly, she reached out and, carefully, put a hand on Cinder's shoulder.

The fire died instantly. For a moment, the warehouse was silent.

"...You don't have to do this. You're a disney looper," Cinder pointed out quietly. "You practically have a hard-coded revulsion for villains, right? Even the comprehensible ones... they always die in the end."

"...not always. And my film didn't have a villain." Riley took a breath. "Just me and my emotions."

Cinder shut her eyes. "So, you really want to try to be a friend with the villainous vampire and one-time apocalypse?"

"Well... I don't get many visitors here." Riley smiled faintly. "And hey, you're not killing anyone this loop, right?"

"Eh... rapists, pedophiles, human traffickers. The usual scum of humanity." Cinder finally turned to look at her, flashing a fanged grin. "Blood is blood, after all."

Riley, despite herself, couldn't help but giggle. "You're not serious!"

"Well, alright, I'm not _killing_ them. Just having a bit of a friendly chat." The woman curled her hand, allowing a small flame to appear. "I'd rather be the only nightmare in town if I can."

"...I guess I can't stop you," Riley allowed. "I mean, I could, but... well... I get the feeling that a little kid telling you that's bad isn't going to ping on your radar."

"Nope." Cinder paused. "So, you like hockey, and you hate Slenderman."

Riley blinked. "Where are you going with this?"

"I was just thinking that a hockey stick is a big heavy wooden object, and I just so happen to have a few Slendy-lookalikes made specifically for target practice..."

"Are you trying to tempt me into exploring my more vindictive side, miss sith?"

"Yes. Absolutely."

"I should say no, but you know what?" A hockey stick appeared in her hands and she hopped off the crate. "I'll give it a go."

Cinder stood, clasping her hands together with a delightfully evil grin. _"Excellent."_

* * *

36.8 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

**The Pyre of Shadow, Part 8**

"Okay, on the one hand that is a decent block," Cinder said casually. "On the other, though, you're locked into it with your grip. When you bring up your stick, try to hold it from opposite angles so you can twist it."

"Are you NOT going to do anything?!" Riley snapped, trying to push back the slendy lookalike hissing in her face.

"You seem to be doing pretty well." The woman sipped a glass of blood, rolling her finger. "Oh, hey, remember what I told you about bracing?"

Riley slid a foot out, managing to hold her own, before shoving her hockey stick and throwing the creature back. "You know, I get that you like combat training and all," she quipped as she skated forward, "but I'm kind of wondering why you think it's okay to teach a kid this sort of thing!"

"One, you're an Anchor, not a kid. Certainly not after what our mutual monster did to you." Cinder shrugged as the dark creature went flying past her. "Two, every little girl dreams of being a huntress."

"Maybe in your world, here it's princesses." Riley spun on her roller blades. "And even that's not universal."

"Fair point. Are you saying you _don't_ want to be a badass heroine able to take on hordes of shadow demons?"

Riley shrugged, slipping sideways as her opponent charged at her with a screech. "Nah, I'm cool with that." She brought the hockey stick hard against the back of the creature's head. "Just saying, the whole 'training a kid to fight' thing reeks of child soldiers, you know?"

"Ah, morality." Cinder nodded as she pushed herself off the wall. "Well, first of all, Huntsmen and Huntresses aren't soldiers, they're vigilantes. Well, some are mercenaries, true, but there's more an individual super-hero vibe then a wall of meat vibe... outside Atlas, anyway."

"And you've got these things," Riley acknowledged, gesturing at the dissolving body of her foe. "Or stuff like them, anyway. Desperate times, desperate measures."

"It's a rare loop where the population of Remnant numbers over half a billion," Cinder agreed. "Still, world of adventure needs adventurers. And to be fair, you're a little young for the usual huntress training--combat school, maybe, which is actually closer to what I'm giving here."

"So this is self-defense. I've taken some of those classes."

"Does that make me Sensei Cinder?"

Riley scoffed. "You wish."

The past two months had certainly been interesting for her. Once the initial bonding over their attack had happened, Cinder had been a lot more open about herself and her past. She'd explained her own fears about the nature of evil--that she preferred to be a villain over an apocalypse. She'd shown Riley around her subspace pocket--and Riley had to admit that even though it was an ethical morass that she would never indulge in, having a functioning civilization of vampires in your soul was pretty neat. And eventually, after some serious persuasion, she even let Riley lead her into a local mind-delve to meet her own emotions.

That had certainly been interesting. The Joy, Disgust, Sadness, and Anger of Cinder's mind had all appeared as skin-recolored members of team RWBY, her beloved friends and foes, but her fear had turned out to be dressed identically to Cinder herself. If it hadn't been for the coloration, Riley wouldn't have been able to tell them apart...

Cinder and Riley had unanimously agreed not to go any further into that particular mindscape.

"So, seriously." Riley shook herself out of her remembrances. "We should be heading back. Mom still doesn't quite trust you, you know."

"She shouldn't," Cinder replied with a smirk.

"Nah, she shouldn't. But it's the way she doesn't trust you that bugs me." Riley started toward the warehouse door. "I mean, you're dangerous and evil--or amoral, I guess. But it's not like you're unpredictable."

"Oh what a shame. I pride myself on my mystery."

"I mean, more like... there's no reason for you to hurt me. You're pragmatic. You have dark urges, yeah, but you follow them only after thinking through the consequences. Hurting random people doesn't get you anything, hurting me doesn't get you anything, so I'm safe around you. I don't trust you, like, completely. You're probably planning to torture some mafia goons or something right now. But I know that I can trust you to act for your own long term interests, as well as short term."

"...Rapists."

"What?"

"I'm planning on torturing rapists," Cinder repeated. "Mafia goons, it's easier to just bribe them."

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Not going to join you with either, mind. But... for a sadistic, power-hungry vampire with a terror fetish, you're actually pretty alright."

"And for a kid with voices in her head and a devotion to blind morality, you seem to be pretty decent yourself."

"Ha. So, seriously, have you ever considered taking over Remnant purely economically?"

"Well, there's some blockages in that regard. Remnant's second, you see, is an active heiress with quite a bit of education..."

* * *

36.1-8: And there you have it... given what these two went through with Slenderman, I can fully see why they're bonding like this.


	54. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Seven

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-06-20. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Seven**

37.1 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Kingdom Hearts] / [The Evil Dead]

Sora sighed as he stepped out of Traverse Town's Accessory Shop for the second time this Loop, when a voice startled him.

"They'll come at you out of nowhere," it said. "And they'll keep on coming at you, as long as you wield the Keyblade."

Sora jumped, turning to see... _Okay, **not** Leon._ "Who are you?"

The man, who had messy black hair, a square jaw, a blue shirt and jeans, a chainsaw in place of one hand and a shotgun held in the other, grinned. "Name's Ash." He cocked the gun. "Housewares."

Sora whipped out his Keyblade. "Sora. Keyblade Wielder."

"Oh yeah? Then, _Keyblade wielder,_ come get some!" The man promptly revved his chainsaw and charged, and Sora grinned. This was going to be fun...

Several minutes later, both were breathing heavy, and Ash had slung his shotgun across his back. "Well," he said. "That was an interesting fight."

"Yeah," Sora panted with a grin. "Not too often I face a guy with a chainsaw."

"Didn't think you had," Ash panted as he grinned back. "Of course, as Loopy as I am, I've probably run into a lot stranger things than you have."

"Don't count on it," Sora shot back. "I'm an Anchor of stability, and I've met some pretty odd things over the eons."

" _Local_ Anchor?" Ash perked up, and a moment later, Sora felt the Ping. Responding with one of his own, he saw Ash react and smiled.

"And here I thought I was the only Looper around," the older man said as he tucked his Chainsaw into his Pocket and came back out with a metal gauntlet-like hand in its place. "So where am I, anyway?"

"Traverse Town in the Kingdom Hearts branch. I'm from the Destiny Islands originally though - you?"

"Evil Dead branch." Ash stuck out his flesh-and-blood hand. "I'm its Anchor and only known Looper."

"Ouch." Sora stuck out his own hand and shook Ash's. "So, how much do you know about this branch so far?"

"I know I've been fighting things here that aren't quite as freaky as those Deadites back home," Ash replied. "And it looks like I'm replacing some friend of yours."

"Yeah, Leon. Or Squall Leonheart, depending on the Loop. I have local versions of some Final Fantasy Loopers in my branch; he's one of them."

"Sounds like fun." Ash grinned again. "So, what's next?"

* * *

About ten worlds later, Sora found himself facing Cloud and Ash in the Olympus Coliseum - unlike normally, he'd asked Donald and Goofy to let him handle this one on his own. Right now though, he was wishing he had some help.

"That the best you can do?" Cloud yelled as he charged.

"Hardly!" Sora shot back as he dodged the blonde's sword strike, then swung his own Keyblade to block Ash's chainsaw. "Wind!"

The Aeroga barrier sprang into existence around him, deflecting Ash's shotgun blast, and Sora jumped out of the way.

"Nice try." Ash swung his chainsaw at Sora again.

Sora deflected it once more, then swung around. "Back off!"

A flurry of blows followed, and then a barrage of projectiles, the last sending Ash into the edge of the arena, leaving him somewhat dazed. Sora then turned to focus his attention on Cloud, and within a few minutes, had knocked him out. As Ash charged one more time, Sora counterattacked.

That was enough to end the battle.

Falling back, Ash panted, but then grinned. "Nice fight, kid."

"Thanks," Sora replied.

"Here." Ash pulled something out of his pocket. "For beating me. Should come in handy."

Reaching out, Sora took it, and investigated the shotgun shell, which seemed to have a chain attached. Shrugging, he hooked it to his Keyblade, replacing the _Oblivion_ Keychain he'd had before.

Shimmering, the Keyblade changed form, and Sora studied it. Its hilt now resembled a shotgun stock, but with a grip in the middle, while its main body resembled two long tubes right next to one another, each with the serrated edges of a chainsaw blade running around the edges, giving it the appearance of a pin tumbler key like _Fenrir_ instead of the lever lock key design that most of his Keyblades had.

Ash grinned at the sight. "Looks like you got your own Boomstick now, kid."

"Yeah." Sora looked at it and smiled. "This should be fun."

* * *

37.2 (lord Martiya): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [My Little Pony]

"So, I heard this is a relatively calm Loop outside the monster attacks..." Twilight Sparkle started as she talked to the local Anchor, one Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Who was looking at her with a rather weird look. "Do I have something on my face?"

"You're Twilight Sparkle." Marinette said.

"Yes."

"You're a unicorn princess."

"Technically alicorn, but it includes unicorn traits, and I did start out as one."

"You grant wishes to good kids, don't you?"

"Sometimes..."

"And you are replacing Alya."

"And?"

Suddenly, Marinette started laughing hard, even rolling herself on the floor and crying.

"I don't get it, what's so strange?" Twilight asked when Marinette calmed down.

The only answer she got was another round of laughter.

* * *

37.3 (wildrook): [DuckTales] / [Sleeping Beauty - implied]

"UNCLE SCROOGE!" a voice yelled, revealing a familiar duck.

"Donald," Scrooge muttered, "if this is about the nephews, I assure you, Louie's learned an important lesson about hard work."

Donald gave him a blank stare. "That, I already know. I'm just more angry at who you hired as the archivist!"

Scrooge returned one back. "First off, she's my best defense against people like Magica de Spell," he said. "Second, we all know what happens when you manage to anger one of the Fae. Third, there's a reason why I pay so much for my anti-curse defenses."

"But hiring Maleficent!?!"

"I reiterate my second point as to why I hired her as the archivist in the first place."

Donald face-palmed. "How cheap was she?"

"That's what drew me to her in the first place. You'd be surprised what kind of things she can think up when she's not forcing the waiting game on an unsuspecting couple... or trying not to control forces that are beyond either of our comprehension."

"So, what happens when she decides to backstab you and steal the Number One Dime?"

Scrooge gave him a glare. "As long as we don't try to anger her," he said, "that's a bridge I'm not going to cross unless absolutely necessary. Do I look like Glomgold to you?"

And that's when they heard the sound of fire breathing, looking outside as they saw a duck that had black hair face off against a dragon that was breathing green fire.

"Speaking of attempts to steal the Number One Dime," Scrooge muttered, "point number one makes itself known."

Donald just gave him a stare. "Fine," he muttered, "but if she tries anything funny, call me and Goofy immediately before you confront her."

"Lad, I'm just as talented in the mystic arts as you are. I'll still keep that in mind, but not because I need help."

"What, do you keep the Spear of Destiny locked up?"

"It's next to the Deus Ex Calibur within a lampshade next to the bookcase." Donald just gave him a stare. "Sometimes the best places to hide a deadly weapon is in plain sight." Cue the green fire as a gryphon with a familiar green talisman can be seen. "And it looks like Merlock's joined the fight. He must be upset that I planned the trip for Collie Baba's treasure stash earlier than expected." He then opened the window. "Maleficent, word of advice: Merlock wished for immortality!"

"Keeping that in mind, McDuck!" Maleficent yelled, still in dragon form as she countered a magic blast.

Donald then groaned as Scrooge closed the window. "Why is it that your money bin is the place where all the crazies gather?" he asked Scrooge.

"Half of them work for me," the old Scottish duck replied, "the others just come out of the woodwork just to bring an evil plot to me or the family as a whole. You know how many enemies I make."

"That, I'm well-aware of."

* * *

37.4 (Wookywok): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Odd Squad]

"OOOOOOOOOOOOSCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!"

A strange kid popped up from behind a chair in Ms. O's office. That wasn't the strange part. Oscar did that all the time. But this clearly was not Oscar. Instead of the usual light brown... however Oscar did his hair at this point time, this kid had dark brown hair, neatly parted straight down the middle. In addition, his chin jutted out at an awkward angle, and his nose was almost cartoonishly large. He began to speak with an accent that Ms. O couldn't place.

"Hello! I'm assuming you've called for me, yes? Because if you didn't, that would be really awkward. I mean, seriously, how annoying is it when someone calls your name and it turns out they were talking to someone else--"

Ms. O glared at the unexpected guest. "You're not the Oscar I know."

"Are you sure, because from what I can remember, I'm the main scientist in the labs here at Odd Squad, and..." The mystery kid's eyes widened in what appeared to be realization. "Dumb question, but... have you been repeating the same things over and over? Like time is Looping over and over again?"

Ms. O's glare softened, though not by much. "Yes, actually. Do you know why?" Her glare returned to its previous sharpness. "Are you behind this?"

The kid looked a bit taken aback. "No, no, no. This isn't my fault. I'm just as much affected by this as you are. But anyways," he continued, "I was actually a bit unprepared to meet a new looper here. And by unprepared I mean COMPLETELY PREPARED! MUHAHAHAHA!" He cleared his throat. "Sorry, force of habit. Now, where was I? Oh, yes."

The kid reached behind his back and pulled out a large machine. It appeared to be part film projector, part microwave, and part soda fountain, among other machines that Ms. O couldn't identify. "BEHOLD! My new, improved, Welcome-to-the-Multiverse-Inator! MUHA--" He caught himself before he could finish his evil laugh. "Anyways, this baby will give you the basic rundown of the situation. It's long, though, so I've got snacks." He pulled a bag of popcorn out of the microwave, pouring it into a bowl that had suddenly popped out of the device. He turned to Ms. O. "Want some?"

Ms. O shook her head. "No thanks. Just show me the video." She grabbed her juice box.

"Alright, then. More for me." The kid pressed a button on the device, somehow causing all the lights in the room to turn off. He pointed it at an empty wall and the video began.

_"A Brief Rundown of the Multiverse, by Heinz Doofenshmirtz."_

The kid grinned. "That's me!"

Ms. O just sighed and sipped from her juice box.

_"Have you ever felt like you might be doing the same thing over and over again? If so..."_

* * *

Three long, boring, but information-filled hours later (with the occasional annoying interruption by Doofenshmirtz), the video came to a close. "So, what did you think? Was it informational enough for you? Don't be afraid to ask questions, I'm all ears."

Ms. O thought for a moment. "Yes, one. How long will it take for the other members of Odd Squad to start... Looping, or whatever the term was?"

Now it was Doofenshmirtz's turn to think. "Well, assuming you're the Anchor, it should take... let's see, multiply by 5, take to the power of 3, carry the 8... It shouldn't be long before we get some new loopers in this bran--"

Doof was interrupted by Olive and Otto rushing into the room, clearly panicked about something.

"Ms. O, we need to talk to you about something. We think time is repeating itself."

Ms. O just facedesked.

Doofenshmirtz, on the other hand, seemed practically giddy. "I'll fire up the projector!"

* * *

37.5 (b-wolf95): [Disney] / [Cuphead]

Mickey had learned a long time ago to make the best of what the Loops threw at him. Sometimes that meant just sticking out the worst parts of a Baseline to make sure the good parts stay good. Other times, it meant nuking the rails to kingdom come. Regardless, the number of times Mickey took a Vacation Loops was about 1 every 10^(10,000) Loops.

This loop was one of those ones.

"You're really not going to stick around?" an Awake Oswald asked as Mickey was packing up some food and nothing else from the loop. "You're going to miss all the good stuff."

"I'm good with that," Mickey huffed as he got the last piece of cheese. "There is no way in the Realm of Darkness that I am doing this."

"But I'm pretty sure there are no other Loopers in this Loop other than us, and I can keep this secret."

"This is also a Loop we've never seen before, so there's a good chance that there are some new Looper here that don't know how to ping, and there's no chance I'm making _this_ my first impression."

"And what about all this cool stuff you got? You're just going to leave it here to rot?"

"No. That's where you come in." With that, Mickey handed him the contract he was holding. "I'm making you my replacement for this Loop. Feel free to do whatever you so desire, I'm just going to be working at that theater down the road until this loop's over. Okay, bye!"

Before Oswald could respond, Mickey was already out the door.

"...Well, at least I get a cool cat robot."

* * *

Cuphead and Mugman stared at the rabbit in the soup can in front of them. "... Aren't you supposed to be a rat?"

"Zoze are chust cruel rumors," Oswald said in his 'best' German accent.

* * *

37.6 (Awesomedude17): [RWBY] / [Frozen] / [Raving Rabbids] / [Sam & Max]

"Long time, no see, Elsa. It has been too long since we both saw each other." Weiss said as she poured her tea.

"I agree. I suppose with everything going on, I presume that a lot has happened."

"Yes. Remember Yang and Blake?"

"The blonde and the Faunus? Yes I do... They're finally engaged?" Elsa asked, enthusiastic.

"Yes. They finally did!"

"How wonderful. I'll tell the others."

"Good. Speaking of others, Ruby is attempting to confront her fear of rabbits."

"How is that going?"

"Eeeeh..."

_Previously_

"BWAAAAAAH!!!"

"MMMMPH!!!" Ruby tried to pull the plunger off her face.

_Also previously_

"...and that's why I am still the best President in existence."

"Uuuuh." Ruby blinked.

"Hey Max, there's a sale on Banang at Bosco's-"

"NO SAM!!! NO BANANG!!! EVER!!!"

"...How about Orrang?"

"...Okay!"

"I'm weirded out, and that scares me." Ruby grimaced.

"Relax little girl. It's not Tuesday, so our weekly meeting with the luncheon monsters isn't happening tonight." Sam assured her, poorly.

_Now_

"She still has a ways to go."

"I understand completely."

"Why?"

"Angel Bunny."

"Oh. Of course."

* * *

37.7 (Awesomedude17): [Gravity Falls] / [Undertale]

"Hi Sans!" Mabel cheered.

"hey kiddos. hows it going?"

"Nothing much really. You?" Dipper asked.

"eh, one minute melee variant. anyway time to show bill my new hat" Sans took out a giant hammer shaped hat.

"Why do you have a hat of discipline?"

"that annoying dog gave me the idea. later" Sans walked off.

Dipper and Mabel looked at each other.

"He's not serious, is he?"

Mabel shrugged.

* * *

37.8 (Masterweaver): [Lilo & Stitch] / [RWBY]

"...Soooooo you're replacing Zwei this loop."

"Ih."

"Okeydoke." Ruby considered the blue creature before her. "...wanna see my weapons museum?"

"Hajmha sihkism!" The blue creature jumped on her. "Goobaja! Goobaja!"

"Easy there, Stitch!" Ruby grabbed him and put him down. "Let me go over the ground rules first..."

* * *

37.9 (smxsonic): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Hyperdimension Neptunia] / [RWBY]

Candace Woke up after getting her mom to agree to let her be in charge, (conditionally). She received a handful of Pings so she could guess who was Awake. Everything was in order so the next thing to do was to go outside and say...

"I'm in charge... conditionally"

Candace faltered on that last word because what she saw was not her brothers but two younger girls. One girl was dressed in black and red and had dark red hair that got lighter as it went on. The other girl was clad in a white and purple school uniform with long light purple hair on her.

"Did one of the conditions involve Moose?" The Red haired girl, Ruby, asked while drafting some blueprints.

"No... That's next time," Candace sighed and shook her head, "Visiting Loopers.... Whatever, Carry on."

"Alright, Talk to you later!" Ruby waved enthusiastically, "So, Gear, Did you get the Supplies?"

Nepgear gave her a Thumbs up.

"You're really going to commit to this bit, huh?"

Nepgear smiled warmly in confirmation.

"And here I thought you were the saner one."

* * *

37.10 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Aladdin]

- _Make way for Prince Ali!_

And with that, the prince and his carpet levitated off his elephant companion and flew down to land in front of the Sultan.

"Splendid, absolutely marvelous!" the Sultan exclaimed, clapping. "Why, that was the most exciting entrance I have ever seen in all my life!"

"Thank you, your majesty." Ali (or Aladdin, as he was known when not in disguise) bowed. "Ahem. Great Sultan of Agrabah, I have journeyed from afar to seek your daughter's hand."

"Prince Ali Ababwa! Of course. I'm delighted to meet you." Happily, he shook the new arrival's hand. "This is my royal vizier, Jafar, he's delighted too."

"Ecstatic," Jafar replied dryly. "I'm afraid, Prince Abooboo-"

"Ababwa," Aladdin corrected him.

"Whatever." The vizier sniffed. "You cannot just parade in here uninvited and expect to-"

Jafar was cut off by the Sultan's delighted exclamations regarding Carpet, and Aladdin smiled. His future father-in-law _always_ did this when they first met during these instances, and he never got tired of the shorter man's exuberance.

When the Sultan had finished his maiden flight, Aladdin bowed. "As for 'parading in here uninvited', I seem to have made a much better impression on the civilian populace than the _last_ Prince... Achmed, I think his name was?"

"Oh, my... you heard about that?" The Sultan looked up at him in concern.

"Word gets around," Aladdin said with a careless shrug. "In fact, he was a big part of why I came as I did. I wanted to show the citizens of Agrabah that I was a _different_ sort of prince, the kind who doesn't turn up his nose at people just because he had the luck to be born into a different level of wealth and status from them."

"I see." The Sultan looked more relaxed. "Well, you certainly made an impression."

"And so did we," Iago whispered behind Jafar's back. "On the palace wall!"

Ignoring his companion, Jafar frowned at Aladdin before turning to the Sultan. "Be that as it may, _I_ do _not_ feel he is the right sort for the princess, and-"

"And _I_ believe that is for Princess Jasmine herself to decide," Aladdin cut him off. "While the vizier's position is to offer advice, _nowhere_ in the laws does it say he has the authority to decide a princess's husband for her." He leaned in closer. "I did my research, you know."

"Yes, yes," the Sultan said with a nod. "You are quite right, Prince Ali." He gave Jafar a look, but before he could say anything, Aladdin did.

"At any rate, I'd like to meet the princess, let her get to know me. See what kind of person I am on her own. If she decides I'm not worthy of her respect, then I'll leave quietly, with no trouble. But it has to be _her_ decision."

"And that," a voice said quietly, "Has already put you _miles_ ahead of any other prince who came here and started treating me like a prize to be won." Emerging from the shadows, Princess Jasmine gave the three men a look. "Prince Ali, I will see you later." With that, she turned and left.

"Oh." The Sultan seemed somewhat unsure of himself, then regained his composure. "Well, that was better than I expected."

Aladdin shrugged. "At least she's open to the idea and didn't just reject me out of hand."

"Quite right, quite right. Come now, let me have the servants show you to your room." The two men left, leaving Jafar and Iago by themselves.

"Well, _that's_ just great," Iago griped. "Now what are we gonna do?"

"I believe," Jafar said with an angry hiss, "That we are going to say goodbye to Prince Abooboo."

* * *

Some hours later, Aladdin stood outside Princess Jasmine's door, bracing himself before he knocked. "Your majesty?"

"Come in," the princess called.

Looking around one more time, Aladdin pushed the door open and entered. "Good evening."

"Yes, it is," Jasmine said. "Come." She gestured to a seat near her.

Bowing before taking the spot, Aladdin looked at her. "So, Princess..."

"Please," she replied. "There's no need for titles between us."

"Princess," he repeated more firmly. "So, how are you doing?"

"I'm doing." She gave him a meaningful look. "You know, in all my life, you're the first visiting prince who has shown any real consideration for my feelings."

"Really?" Aladdin gave a nervous smile. "You mean, _none_ of the others had the common courtesy to care about anyone other than themselves?"

"Exactly." Jasmine looked up. "All they cared about was their own ego, what marrying me could do for _their_ status and image. None of them would have even _thought_ about proving themselves 'worthy of me'."

"Well, I was raised differently," Aladdin replied. "Respect is something that a person has _earn_ , not just be given by their right of birth. Not even a prince is above that."

"And that's another point in your favor." Jasmine gave him a mysterious smile. "You know, under normal circumstances, you would have already proven yourself someone worthy of respect after what I've seen today. But there's just one little thing."

"What's that?" Aladdin asked nervously.

"You'd already _more_ than earned my respect... Aladdin." With that, she reached out and pulled him into a deep kiss.

When they separated, Aladdin had a goofy grin on his face. "You're Awake?"

Jasmine smiled. "Took that long for you to figure it out, I take it?"

"Well, I _did_ only get one Ping back earlier, and Genie confirmed it was him..." Aladdin looked somewhat embarrassed. "I guess I should have checked again."

Jasmine laughed and pulled him in close. "Actually, that wouldn't have helped. I was planning to Stealth for a bit and surprise you."

"Well, you certainly did." Aladdin smiled at his wife. "So, any plans for dealing with Jafar this Loop?"

"I have _one_ idea..."

* * *

"Princess?" Jafar knocked on the door. "Princess Jasmine? You summoned me?"

"I did," a low voice replied. "Come in, Jafar."

Cautiously, Jafar did as he was told. "How may I help you, princess?"

"You've already helped me plenty," Jasmine replied from where she was laying. "Now!"

Jafar let out a screech of shock as a pair of golden cuffs were suddenly slapped around his wrists, his staff knocked away and his hands pulled behind him. "What is the meaning of this?" he hissed.

"Quite simple, Jafar," the head guard replied as he stepped out from behind him. "The Sultan ordered an investigation into you after certain... irregularities came to his attention. We found more than enough magic paraphernalia and other suspicious items in your quarters to warrant your immediate arrest and incarceration."

"And with the help of some items left to me by my late mother, we have a means to confine you and restrain your powers," Jasmine added. "Guards, take him to the dungeon."

"As you command, your highness." Razoul bowed. "What should we do with the parrot?"

Jasmine looked at Iago, who was currently in the grip of one of the other guards after having tried, unsuccessfully, to flee the room. "Confine him to a cage in the menagerie," she said. "My fiancé and I will speak with him later."

"As you command." Razoul bowed again, then led Jafar away.

Once the room was empty except for Jasmine, Aladdin popped his head up from under the balcony. "That went better than I expected," he remarked.

"It certainly did." Jasmine smiled at him. "I only wish we could handle him this easily in all our Loops..."

"I'll say," Aladdin remarked. "As long as he's locked up, we don't have to worry about Nasira or Hades trying to bring him back, if they're even around this Loop. And since he's not a genie, nobody can accidentally free him by rubbing a lamp."

"That is a positive," Jasmine said. Looking outside, she sighed. "Now, we just need to deal with all of our _other_ enemies..."

Aladdin nodded. "I am _not_ looking forward to tangling with Mozenrath or Sa'Luk again."

"I don't blame you." Jasmine leaned her head against him. "So, shall we go tell Father of Jafar's successful arrest and our engagement?"

Aladdin smiled. "Absolutely."

And with that, the two headed off to the throne room.

* * *

37.11 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb]

Buford and Baljeet Awoke in, of all things, a canoe floating down a river.

"Okay, what is going on here?"

"Lemme check... Uh oh."

"Uh oh? What uh oh?"

"Hillbilly Mafia."

"... What."

"I can't make this stuff up. We're in Mississippi gettin' chased by a crime lord for... reasons."

"So... paddle?"

"Paddle."

A few minutes later Baljeet perked up at a faint sound coming from behind them.

"Paddle faster, Buford."

"How come?"

"I hear banjos."

In a somewhat fascinated terror, Buford snuck a peek behind them.

What he saw appeared to be twenty large men in sharp suits, shapeless wide-brimmed hats and impressive beards in a very long canoe. Half were rowing, half were playing an upbeat tune on some banjos, and all of them had comically large double barrel shotguns strapped to their backs.

Buford had never paddled so fast in any of his lives.

* * *

37.12 (KanameFujiwara) & (Awesomedude17): [Kim Possible] / [RWBY]

**Of cheese and ice cream**

"Miss Possible! You have 5 seconds to tell me what is going on!" Glynda shouted over the screams of the fleeing crowds.

"Okay," Kim said, "Ron got into some trouble with the Attitudinator that he was selling to Roman. Some accidents happened and now we have evil Ron."

"Witness citizen of Remnant - as I turned your mechs into loyal servants of the Great Bueno Nacho!" Ron screamed. "Bow... BOW to the greatness of nachos! BOO-YAH-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

"Not if I can help it!"

And the people turned to a man with bright, orange hair. He wore a red-lined white suit with long black pants and black shoes. His accessories included a small gray scarf, black gloves with buckled sleeves, and a black bowler hat with a small feather tucked into its red band. "I am the guardian of peace - the bringer of order. I am the servant of Remnant. The servant of the great ice cream! You will not have us - foul believer of nachos! Come - let us drive the burritos away!" Roman roared as he revealed his cane - shaped like a Neapolitan ice cream! "FOR JUSTICE, FOR HONOR, FOR GREAT ICE CREAM!"

As the battle between the forces of nachos and ice cream came to blows in the streets of Vale, as one side spewed hot cheese while the other used frozen ice cream as projectiles, Glynda thought to herself, _Next loop I'm going on a vacation..._

* * *

(Awesomedude17)

_Meanwhile..._

"Ruby, we don't have to do this." Yang said.

"But Yang, ice cream is obviously superior to nachos."

"They aren't even in the same category of food."

"I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you."

"Then prepare yourself. I won't take any pleasure from this."

"Neither will me."

The two proceeded to enter a slap fight, lightly slapping each other while Weiss brought in ice cream and Blake, nachos.

"How long do you think this will last?" Blake asked.

"Until people realize that nachos and ice cream can be consumed concurrently." Weiss replied.

"Ah, so months then?"

"Three to four."

* * *

37.13 (Awesomedude17): [Disney] / [Star Wars]

"Hold on. You mean I have to pay real money... just so I can get a slightly different ability that I could simply learn, and I have to get it from this crate, which may not even contain what I want?" Luke Skywalker asked.

"Yes."

"I normally don't like to channel my father, but..."

* * *

Mickey Mouse was quietly sipping his tea when some explosions rang out.

"What was that?" Minnie asked.

"I think that was Anakin's rage breaking. Have you seen what a mess the Hub is about the latest Star Wars game?"

"No."

"Lucky you. I've seen it from the receiving end. Not fun."

* * *

37.14 (Luna Gale): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Camp Camp]

"Come here, Muack, come here, girl," Nikki whispered through the trees. She thread through the bushes like water. When she let go of a branch, there was a sudden loud yelping behind her. She sighed in exasperation, "Neil, stop being a baby and be quiet!" She hissed, "You'll scare Muack off!"

Neil, nursing his bruised nose and other cut up body parts, glared at Nikki. "First off, that's not the platypus's name. That's the sound she makes."

"Well, if you can think of a better name-"

"Yes! I can!" He yelled in exasperation. "That's like naming a dog Bark!"

"Shhhhh!"

"Second," he continued, now whispering. He struggled to run up beside her, cursing softly when his foot got stuck in the bushes, "Why are we even after this monster again?"

In one second Neil was struggling to get his socks out of the bristle, the next he was being lifted up by the collar and kicking wildly in the air, as 60 pounds of rage and pure animalistic wildness glared fiery death directly at him.

"You take that back!!!" Nikki hissed, canine's practically flaring, "Muack is just a part of camp as David's stupid smile and Gwen's resting bitch face!"

"Okay, okay! I take it back! I take it back!" He yelled, frantically trying to pull out of her grip. "Can you put me down!?"

She lifted him up even higher. "Say it with meaning!"

"How am I supposed to say it with any more meaning?!"

Nikki paused. Her expression shifted from angry chaos to her normal chaotic neutral in an instant. "...good point." She dropped Neil unceremoniously on the ground, ignoring his curses and rambling about murdering her in her sleep later. Instead, she scoped her surroundings. "Now, we need to find Muack soon, before David notices we're gone. Max can only stall for so long."

Neil gave up on cleaning himself off, even if the twigs stuck in his hair and pants were irritating. He slowly struggled to off the dirt ground. "Well, if you hadn't insisted on getting her so soon - _not that I don't like her please stop glaring at me_ \- it's just that uhhh... we could have waited until our other mascot was gone first."

"But Max didn't want to decapitate David this time," she whined.

"Like you haven't resorted to murdering that hamster before."

"Muack is very important."

"Ahuh." Neil rolled his eyes before eyeing his surroundings with distaste. Trees would never enchant him, hell the outdoors were never any fun except in small, minuscule doses. Continuing to trudge around in the forest in search of a monster platypus was not what he called a good time.

But Nikki rumbled forward, and rather than leave her on her own devices to cause a civil war between the animal creatures (again), Neil took a breath, counted to ten, and after picking out a particularly annoying twig out of his hair, followed the agent of chaos forward on her quest.

Nikki continued to call for the platypus. Every once in a while, she made soft muack sounds to call her, but Neil was pretty sure that only scared her away. They mostly followed the trail of platypus marks on the ground, but every once in a while Nikki went off her own way, saying she "sensed Muack calling for them" in that direction. Neil was pretty sure that was bullshit science, but Nikki wouldn't let him get a sentence in otherwise, whispering about her "animal instinct."

"She's around here somewhere," Nikki whispered, "I can feel it."

Neil sighed. "You said that the last few times."

"Yes, but now I can definitely feel it."

"You said that too."

Suddenly, Nikki turned around, and Neil tensed, ready for another 'lecture' by her.

Only to be interrupted by a soft chirping at their feet.

They both looked down. A soft teal colored platypus, with a bright orange bill stared vacantly back at them. It blinked as the two stared back, it chirped again, the rumbling even longer than before.

"Well," Neil said after a long silence, "You found a platypus."

Neil was sure Nikki would explode, maybe even cry. After all, if this guy was here instead of Muack, then their 'friend' probably wasn't around this Loop.

To his great confusion, Nikki simply shrugged. "Good enough."

"Good enough?" Neil stammered. He watched in disbelief, as Nikki handled the guy with care. "Good enough!? What about that yammering about being part of the camp?!"

She looked at him with a berating stare, going as far as to shake her head. "Neil, Neil, Neil, you're not looking at the big picture. You have to make do with the parts you have and if-" She looked down at the platypus then back up- "he is going to be here instead of Muack, then he'll fit into the platypus shaped hole she left behind. Now, come on, Dopey Eyes!" Nikki said to the platypus, as she once again started trudging through the bushes, "Time to see your new home!"

As the new platypus chirped back, Neil stared dumbfounded, not knowing whether to scream or throw something or both. He really wanted to do both.

"Hey, look Neil! The camp's right here! How convenient right? ...Neil? Neil, stop screaming, you're scaring Dopey Eyes."

* * *

"So, how long are you going to pretend you're a regular platypus?" Max asked Perry later that evening. Nikki and Neil, the latter of which looked suspiciously bruised up, were sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of the Looper resting in the corner of the tent on his own pile of blankets Nikki managed to smuggle for him.

For a second, Perry didn't do anything, simply pretending to still be 'Dopey Eyes.' But then, what could only be considering a grin curled on the platypus's beak, and a soft chirp broke through. The platypus shrugged the best he could, snuggling deeper into the blanket stack.

Max raised an eyebrow. "You know Neil is going to figure out soon, right? He was just really out of it today."

Perry shrugged again.

"This is just for fun then?"

An affirming chirp.

A smirk curled on Max's face. "Can't argue with that logic. Just don't make Nikki too disappointed when she figures out that you're a Looper and not, you know a teal platypus."

Perry made a questioning chirp.

"I don't know. Probably too excited to realize you were _the_ Perry or something? Do you think I can understand Nikki's brain?"

There was a long silence. Perry was probably thinking of the events of that day. No doubt he was remembering how Nikki climbed on top of the mess hall just to get away from a distressed David and Gwen.

Then he gave a small nod with an equally soft, understanding chirp.

"Cool, glad we're on the same page." Max rolled over in bed.

"..."

"...bet you five bucks Neil will figure out in two days."

At Perry's challenging chirp, Max smiled devilishly towards the tent wall.

* * *

37.15 (Awesomedude17): [Disney] / [Predator] / [The Simpsons] / [American Dad]

Mickey Awoke, along with everyone else in the room as they looked around.

Mickey, in a familiar and annoying suit, frowned immediately as he saw the Loopers before him unkneel immediately.

"Guess Disney owns your properties now. I remember having this Loop before a couple times."

"So Disney now owns The Simpsons. Wow." Bart blinked.

"And I guess me... I think. What does TBS fall under?" Stan Smith asked.

Scarface groaned as he cloaked and silently tried to leave before a machine gun popped out of the ceiling and trained its sights on him. Scarface threw his arms up in frustration as he joined the others.

"Okay, let's get to contract reading. We need to know just how far this rabbit hole goes." Mickey said as he put on a pair of glasses.

* * *

37.16 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY]

Because of the nature of her loop and resultant mindscape, Riley couldn't instantly assess her memories when she Awoke like so many other loopers could. Thankfully the voices in her head also meant she didn't need to, whichever ones were Awake would get right to work calming the others down and checking her memories for her. All she needed to do was let out a ping and continue doing what she found herself doing.

Which, in this case, was apparently counting money whose bills came in credit card form.

 _"Oh!"_ Joy cried. _"Hey Riley, we're on Remnant! I wonder if Cinder's Awake?"_

 _"I hope she is,"_ Fear muttered.

Anger snorted. _"I thought you didn't like her."_

_"I don't. But checking these memories, we're working for her now. Safer to have her Awake than not."_

_"We got eleven pings besides us,"_ Disgust reported. _"So it's not unlikely."_

Riley nodded as she finished a stack of Lien, moved it to the side, and started another. Why was she working for Cinder...? Oh, because apparently her uncle had been hired by the woman, so she and her sister Neopolitan were hired by proxy.

 _"Wait, isn't Neopolitan the crazy one?"_ Fear shrieked.

"Asked the voice inside my head," Riley deadpanned quietly. She glanced warily at the girl with tricolored hair lounging on a crate nearby, receiving a wry smirk for her troubles. "Just feeling a little loopy, sis."

"Oh sweet Yggdrasil please don't seriously don't make Neo your sister, the Remnant family tree is way too big and confusing as it is."

Riley turned toward the door with a small grin. "Good to see you again, Cinder!"

The dark-haired woman swept in. "Good to see you too, Riley. Welcome to Remnant, Neo keep your paws off her, I'll be ready to show you around tomorrow. We've still got a bit to set up this early--Ruby has to beat up Roman and get Glynda's attention, I've got to rig up my sudden turn on Salem and figuring out what to do with my minions--I mean, I assume you don't want me to play the baseline villain while we're out and about--but that's just tedium."

"Who all's Awake?"

Cinder pulled out what looked like a next-generation smartphone, tapping a few keys. "All of team RWBY, all of team JNPR, Roman, and--Neo, have you introduced yourself to the young lady?"

Neo rolled her eyes.

 _"Not one for words, is she?"_ Disgust deadpanned.

"She's probably mute in baseline, she can talk with a little spell but..." Cinder gestured at the girl. "You know, she likes being a cocky little bitch sometimes. How have you been? The voices in your head drive you mad yet?"

"Their job is keeping me sane," Riley pointed out. "One they do quite well. I've been pretty good, all things considered, caught the new Star Wars movie--"

"Haven't seen it; no spoilers--"

"--spent some time working on my mechanical skills, had a chat with Mickey about stuff."

Cinder smiled, the gleam of a fang showing. "You been keeping up your combat training?"

 _"Oh no."_ Fear swallowed. _"Lie, lie like your life depends on it!"_

"Oh, of course!"

"That's great! We can show your skills off to Ruby!" Cinder clasped Riley's shoulder tightly. "I mean a hockey stick is sort of like a scythe, so she should have a few pointers."

_"This was a bad decision, I was wrong."_

"In fact, you know what? Why don't you take Neo's place in the Vytal tournament?" The dark-haired woman grinned broadly. "You, me, and my disciples, taking on fighters from across Remnant for the glory of the win!"

 _"We're doomed,"_ Fear stated flatly. _"We are so, so doomed."_

"Sounds great!" Riley squeaked.

"Great! I'll get things set up. It's good to have you here, Riley. Neo." Cinder gave the tricolored girl a look. "Riley's an anchor, a preteen, and she and I have had some similar experiences. I will be double checking with her on what you two did while I was away and if I hear anything I don't like--"

Neopolitan held up a hand, crossed herself, and took a position of innocent prayer.

"...I mean it, Neo. I'll sic Roman on you."

The girl crossed her arms and frowned, waving her off.

Cinder sighed, gave Riley an apologetic smile, and swept out the door.

* * *

37.17 (Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb] / [Fairly Oddparents]

 _Tonight on_ Your Cooking STINKS and so do You!, _Show Host, Professional Bully and World Renowned Chef Buford van Stomm will be joined by Expert Confectioner and Baseball Star Chester McBadbat, of Dimmsdale, California._

"Honestly, I've got a good feeling about this."

Suddenly, a wedding cake slammed into the wall next to him. _"Should'a stuck to sports, Pal!"_

"For one thing, batting's good practice for deflecting projectiles."

*click*

* * *

37.18 (wildrook): [Disney] / [Fate/zero]

"Donald," Mickey said, looking at the unAwake Gilgamesh standing before them, "remember when I said to hold your anger back until we find the perfect moment?"

Donald just gave his friend a glance... but understood what he meant.

"Goofy, now!"

Goofy nodded as he skated close to Gilgamesh with the Berserker Duck in tow... Gilgamesh realizing why the other Archer decided to run like hell with the grail.

His thought process went from 'The mongrel's about to close in on me with an angry duck' to 'OH SHIT' the moment Goofy purposefully tripped... and threw Donald at him, using said momentum to launch the fireball of anger at the Golden Ego.

And by reflex, Gilgamesh unleashed the Gate of Babylon just to try to stop the rage missile.

The reason why the group left is because one of Berserker Donald's abilities is Knight of Owner. A trait that was usually reserved for Lancelot.

To add salt to the wounds, the first thing Donald grabbed from said Gate was Ardonight.

Both the mouse king and dog with extreme sports gear flinched at the amount of damage their Berserker friend managed to inflict onto the man once impact was made.

"I think this must be what it's like from the other side," Goofy muttered, taking note of Gilgamesh's uncharacteristic "AHH-HOO-HOO-HOOEY" as they fell out of the Einzbern Manor.

* * *

37.19 (Duckapus): [Gravity Falls] / [Rick and Morty]

**Loops Interdimensional Cable: Movie Channel**

In the midnight hour, the monks of Rye had gathered around their massive effigy of Colonel Sanders' head, preparing a great sacrifice.

As the monks began their chant, Bill Cypher paused in his struggle against the restraints to glare at the Scotsman, "For the record, I blame you."

"Fair enough."

Rick rolled his eyes, "Ugh, horror flicks."

*click*

* * *

37.20 (lord Martiya): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Marinette had just Awakened and was going at school when she saw Lila early, and wearing the actual Fox Miraculous. That wasn't strange, both happened from time to time. What was strange was that she and Adrien were talking with Vincent Aza, Jagged Stone's stalker... And had just got him sign something. Then they saw her, and came by.

"H-hi?" she saluted, still trying to figure out the fox' game in this.

"Hi, Marinette." Adrien saluted her. "Did you know Lila? She's my-"

"We're business partners, you can trust us. Four coins and we'll make you a celebrity." Lila added with a grin, as Marinette's Loop memories informed her that a certain song about _Pinocchio_ 's Cat and Fox Lila was quoting did indeed exist in that Loop.

"Lila..."

"What did you make him sign?" Marinette asked.

"A full confession about stalking Jagged Stone's mother, spying her under the shower, and enough other thing to get him locked up." Lila replied with a smile. "All I needed was my cute partner to vouch for me and some bullshit about Jagged having written a song about me. Didn't really need Adrien for him, but most people aren't _that_ gullible..."

Marinette facepalmed. At least it was a variant where she was on the side of good...

* * *

37.21 (Harosata): [Admin shenanigans] / [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

Morpheus was on the way back from his break when he passed by Madoka's cubicle. "Is everything going alright so far?"

"So much violence... but no blood... how is that possible?" Madoka muttered.

"Madoka?" He tapped the young Admin on her shoulder.

THUD

"Huh, wha?" Madoka got off the floor. "Sorry, I guess it's my first time seeing a dark variant Loop, heh heh."

Morpheus looked to the screen. "That's... not the loop you usually work on."

"Huh? But the Anchor's a normal person and the other looper is a magical princess from another dimension-" Madoka finally got a better look. "Er, variant loops don't have that many variables, do they?"

"I'm pretty certain your Loop's anchor has not become a Japanese high school gang leader yet." He typed further into the coding. "Some of this code looks like copy-and-paste, but the world looks it was grafted on... Damn it! What were those hackers thinking, just looping a world as they please? I need to remove that-"

"Don't!" Madoka paused. "I mean, there's no need to remove it. I can look after it."

Morpheus raised an eyebrow. "Madoka..."

"I can handle two worlds, but both of them are safe in a manner of speaking. What if I freeze up when Star actually becomes an evil princess?" Madoka questioned. "More importantly, I want to keep an eye out for a certain animal..."

"And the two worlds are different yet fundamentally similar." Morpheus rubbed his chin. "I'll speak with the others and see if that... did she just rip the horn off that unicorn?"

"So much violence..."

* * *

37.22 (LordCirce): [Lion King] / [Kingdom Hearts]

Sora sighed as he wiped his brow. The Pridelands were always hot, but it was manageable when he was a lion. Being human, no thank you, at least not here.

Out of all of the Anchors, Sora was probably among the least stir-crazy of the lot, because thanks to the nature of his Loops, it was almost always different. The Kingdom Hearts universe was designed to be a crossover point for the Disney universes or something. It meant that there were no native Loopers except for a few like Sora, Riku, Ansem, etc. Each of the worlds was based on a distinct universe, so any Loopers would come from those universes. This meant that technically, Sora probably had as much experience with Fused Loops as Harry Freaking Potter.

Sora glanced sideways as Donald and Goofy. Originally, these two were the exceptions to the rule. Donald and Goofy were originally from King Mickey's universe, which was known as Disney Prime to some. The Looping Mickey was the Anchor to that universe, and he was almost as old as the Original Loopers. He had just stayed in the background, working to help make people's lives better. In any case, his versions of Donald and Goofy had both started Looping ages before Sora. However, due to the nature of the Kingdom Hearts Loops, and some of the effect of the Keyblade, Donald and Goofy Awoke a second time, as Sora's versions. It quickly got very confusing, as either version could wake up in either universe, or different worlds entirely. In the end, Sora just rolled with it, something of a speciality for him.

Then came the Crash. Sora shuddered as he remembered the aftermath. Most of the Disney universes were untouched except for the sudden reboot, going onto the next Loop like nothing happened. Kingdom Hearts... was a mess. They had buggy Loops and weird experiences for several run-throughs after that, and the time right after the Crash was the worst. Sora has been in darkness, but nothing like what he had ever experienced before. He couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't smell, taste, or feel. He couldn't even tell if time was passing. An eternal moment of solitude. Sora shuddered again. All of the Loopers from his Loops had been affected. Kairi had said it was like she was constantly 'tripping', like the trip in a dream that wakes you up, except she never woke up. Riku had said it was like sinking, with a heavier and heavier weight constantly building on him. Roxas said it was like a light, burning him away, until there was nothing left but the thought that he was burning away to nothing but a thought. Even for all of that, it was Donald and Goofy that were affected the worst. Or maybe the best.

There was only one Looping Donald and one Looping Goofy now. All of their memories had fused together into one. According to Janus, it would have had to have happened at some point, because they were technically one soul experiencing the Loops in two different ways, unlike Roxas and Sora, who are two different souls that just happen to share a body sometimes, and sometimes a mind, and... it's complicated.

Donald and Goofy glanced back at Sora, who nodded to them. In the end, Donald and Goofy were the same Donald and Goofy he had always known. The personalities between the two versions of each of them were similar; Sora's version of Donald was a bit more likely to think things through, and his version of Goofy was a bit more willing to use violence, but in the end, they were the same. They had adapted to the idea, and, as Goofy had said, "it's like I got two jigsaw puzzles I couldn't figure out, and then I put them both together, and it all fit". Plus, Max was super-cool to hang out with when he Looped through with Goofy.

Sora shook his head. He was just trying to distract himself from what he knew he would be facing this Loop. Sora's Loops were always a little bit different, even if it was just two worlds swapping places, and this particular variant was one of the worst. Sora called them inverted loops. In short, good guys were villains and villains were good guys. Sora had already faced the crazed Ape-King Tarzan with Clayton, helped the Red Queen fight off the invasion of Alice the Insane, and assisted the wise Jafar in subduing the Prince of Thieves, Aladdin. It was always hard to see people that Sora considered friends fighting against him, especially since Mickey and Maleficent had swapped places this Loop, and Mickey wasn't Awake.

Now, Sora stared out over the Pridelands. Somewhere out there, Simba was probably ruling with an iron paw, which meant that Sora would have to find Scar and help him fight his nephew. Best place to search would probably be the Elephant Graveyard, which ought to be...

"Sora! That's you, right?"

Sora turned to see a pair of familiar, and most certainly Awake, faces running up to him. Timon and Pumbaa raced up the hill, panting as they arrived next to Sora's group. Timon leaned back to take a breath, which was odd as he had been riding on Pumbaa to come up the hill. "Whew. You look different when you aren't all small and fuzzy. Anyway, that's not important. Simba's gone nuts!"

Pumbaa nodded. "Yeah. We woke up, and we were back in the valley, and Simba wasn't there, so we went looking, and he is ruling from Pride Rock, and the Lions are hunting everyone, and..."

"Pumbaa! Give the kid a chance to breath, would ya?" Timon cut in, before turning back to Sora. "Please, you gotta talk some sense into him."

Sora sighed. "I'll try, but I don't think it will work. This Loop, I think Simba is the bad guy, and Scar is the hero. That's how it's worked on several of the other worlds I've traveled to."

Timon and Pumbaa glanced at each other, before Timon spoke, disbelievingly. "Scar?"

"A hero?"

"...Phpth. HAHAHAHA!" Both of them started laughing. Sora glanced sideways awkwardly, as both Donald and Goofy shuffled their feet. Finally the laughter tapered off, and Timon wiped his eyes.

"Scar, hero, good one. But seriously, how can we knock some sense back into Simba?"

Sora shrugged. "I'm not joking, but I am guessing the same way that usually happens. Get Rafiki to bop him on the head and play tag until Mufasa shows up. Only problem, Mufasa might end up being a villain in this Loop as well."

Timon and Pumbaa shared a nervous glance.

* * *

37.1: This Loop was written for the sole purpose of getting Sora a Boomstick Keyblade. Because that scene in _Army of Darkness_ was awesome.

37.2: For those who don't get the joke, in one of the earliest episodes, Alya pretends to be a unicorn princess to entertain the little girl she was babysitting.

37.3: A case of Actor Allusion. Susanne Blakeslee, who voices Mrs. Quackfaster in the DuckTales reboot, has also been voicing Maleficent in the Kingdom Hearts series since it started.

37.4: Doofinshmirtz giving the "Welcome to the Multiverse" speech... a rare sight.

37.5: You remember how people kept saying that Wait Disney was anti-Semitic? Well, Mickey does, as much as he doesn't want to.

37.6: Yeah, I don't entirely get what's going on here.

37.7: ...Or here.

37.8: Or this one, honestly.

37.9: For all that she's experienced, some stuff can still throw her for a loop. (Pun fully intended.)

37.10: I've had a version of the earlier portion of this Loop in my head for years. Now, it's finally a reality.

37.11: As the author of this snip said, "Some loops are good, some loops are bad, and for everything else there's the Hillbilly Mafia."

37.12: Loopers can get into some strange arguments.

37.13: Note from Awesomedude17 - "This was written in response to the loot box controversy that led to governments looking to classify them as gambling. Yes, it's old hat to say Star Wars: Battlefront 2 was... iffy to say the least in that regard, but do you really want to hold it against us when we say say EA sucks?"

37.14: Yeah, I got nothing.

37.15: Written in response to Disney buying a chunk of Fox Entertainment.

37.16: I think this one speaks for itself.

37.17: Loopers branch into TV work sometimes, and this is clearly one of those moments.

37.18: Even more strange adventures.

37.19: ...

37.20: Indeed, this is one of the friendlier variants.

37.21: Technically not posted in the Disney/Kingdom Hearts thread, but compiled here due to relevancy.

37.22: Also not originally posted in the Disney/Kingdom Hearts thread, but I dug it out of Miscellaneous. And it explains a lot about their situation.


	55. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Eight - The Christmas War

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-06-20. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Eight**

38.1 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir] / [Channel Awesome] / [Danny Phantom]

Danny and Adrien were sitting at one of the latter's branch's various bakeries, happily eating some sweets. Despite the oncoming holidays, they were in good spirits.

"Hey Danny, how about we invite a few people for our _holiday plans_?" Adrien asked with a mischievous grin.

"Sounds fun. No one should be left out on an anti-Christmas rampage. Who do you got in mind?

"I didn't have anyone in mind, but it's a big tree. There's gotta be someone Yuletired of Christmas."

The two loopers laughed, as a brunette girl walked up to them.

"Hey. If you two hate Christmas as much as I do, you'll want to listen to this. There's a looper out there who's obsessed with Christmas. Who destroyed an entire planet with his love for it." She spat.

Danny and Adrien's expressions kept switching from horrified, and angered.

"Who is he?" Adrien asked.

"Nostalgia Critic. He asked me and several other loopers from his branch to send out invitations to his party."

"Why'd he send you if he loves Christmas and you hate it?" Danny accused.

"He's an idiot. Now if you want loopers who hate this stupid holiday, start with Batman. Quite a few adaptations of him hate Christmas, and it'll be funny to see his idol fighting against him."

Adrien and Danny smirked. "Thank you miss-" Adrien began.

"Nostalgia Chick. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be on my way.

"Alright Danny, we've got a new plan, a good start, and hey! Where's our food!"

* * *

38.2 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir] / [Danny Phantom] / [DC]

Danny flew across the Gotham night sky as he carried his partner, Chat Noir. As they arrived at Wayne Manor, they landed at the front door, and rang the doorbell. The door opened automatically, Alfred standing in front of the entrance.

"Can we talk to Batman?" Adrien asked.

Alfred sent out a Ping, which the two nonnative loopers responded with in turn.

"Very well, Master Bruce will be with with you shortly. Come inside and I'll fix you up whatever you wish to drink."

"Can I have a Kiwi Fudge milkshake?" Danny asked.

"Of course, Master Fenton."

It didn't take long for Bruce to come upstairs. He sat across from the duo in the den.

"What brings you here?" The Dark Knight asked.

"We heard you're not the biggest fan of Christmas, and want you to join us in attacking Nostalgia Critic's Christmas party." Danny said.

"We feel the holidays are a bit _Nosty_." Adrien added.

Bruce looked at the two loopers and said one word.

"No."

"Huh?" The two nonnative loopers exclaimed.

"My son Dick is throwing a party himself, and I want to spend time with my family and friends." Bruce stated

'Maybe I could have said that a bit nicer.' Bruce thought as he looked at the harsh glares.

"I understand that the holidays are terrible for you, that everything you see and hear you want to break, rip, smash, just destroy it." Batman paused, words for comfort completely absent.

"I'll have Alfred make you one to go." Batman said to Danny.

Danny shook his head as he and Adrien flew out the door.

* * *

38.3 (Duckapus): [Danny Phantom] / [Fairly Oddparents]

"I hear you're going after Christmas. I want in."

Danny raised an eyebrow, "Sure thing, but I thought you liked Christmas."

Timmy looked sheepish, "I've got two reasons. The first is that Shadow the Hedgehog's a Christmas fan, and I've never gotten the chance to fight him before. The second is gonna sound petty without context, but I just can't stand Deck the Halls."

"... yeah, I'm not even gonna ask."

"Probably for the best. Anyway, I'm gonna go see if Dib and the Irkens are willing to help. Call me when we get closer to the main event."

* * *

38.4 (Duckapus): [Fairly Oddparents] / [Invader Zim]

"... and that's about the gist of it. You guys want in?"

Dib grinned. "Oh, very much so. Zim's crazy scheme in baseline pretty much ruined Christmas for me."

"Indeed," Zim growled, "The unbridled commercialism of our Loop's holiday season sickens me. Honestly, how hard is it to keep the spirit of goodwill alive!? THINK OF THE HISTORY YOU'RE JUST THROWING AWAY!!"

"Yeah, he gets like that sometimes," Tak noted after an awkward silence, "Eh, not like I've got anything else to do."

"It has been a while since I've taken an active role in crushing the dreams of that foolish boy."

"I'll go prep my Krampus Mech."

At the incredulous stares, Gaz added, "What? I've got a life outside of video games."

Timmy wisely chose not to consider the circumstances of how one would get a Mech based on the Anti-Santa, "This is gonna be a bigger turnout than I was expecting! I wonder if the Eds would be interested in selling tickets..."

* * *

38.5 (Duckapus): [Fairly Oddparents] / [Phineas and Ferb]

_To the Anti-Christmas Alliance,_

_Hey there, how's it going? Not that you can answer since, you know... this is a note._

_Anyway, I'm gonna be out of town for a while, so I won't be able to join in. Which I totally would, since I_ am _officially recognized as hating Christmas. I got it notarized and everything. Even though I decorate. And give out gifts. I-it's hatred in the technical sense, alright!?_

_Regardless, even though I can't be there in person I still wanted to help out. So, I left the Inator storage room I put in the back of my fridge unlocked. Feel free to use and modify them at your leisure._

_Maniacally yours,_

_Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz, Looping Evil Scientist_

_PS: Help yourself to some food, too. Can't let it go to waste after all._

_PPS: If this is Perry the Platypus, I'm in Monte Carlo. Expect tropical evil for the next few weeks._

Timmy grinned, "Well that's convenient."

* * *

38.6 (ThanatosTiger): [Danny Phantom] / [Red Vs. Blue]

Danny was flying across Amity Park when his ghost sense started up. Diving down, he saw a white ghost in a military uniform trying and failing to hit the Box Ghost with his sniper rifle.

"STOP! FUCKING! MOVING!"

"I haven't moved since we started this brawl. But I, the Box Ghost, shall destroy you and your terrible aim."

Fighting off his headache, Danny pulled the Fenton Thermos out of his Pocket and aimed it at the Box Ghost, who was instantly sucked in. The other ghost looked at Danny and grinned.

Thanks for the help. I'm Church, from the Red vs Blue loops."

"Danny Fenton, the Anchor. Your friend Tucker came by a while ago."

"No way! You're that kid planning to wreck that Christmas party! I'm in."

Danny inwardly grimaced at Church joining them, but they needed members, so he nodded.

"Any reason why?"

"I really hate Christmas and want to drop a few tons of smoal on the asshole."

"Smoal?"

* * *

38.7 (Awesomedude17): [Cinemassacre] / [Red Vs. Blue]

"Christmas is an okay holiday, but damn do I play shit during those days, so I'm joining your side, as a fuck you to shitty Christmas games."

"Amen brother." Alpha held out his hand, which the Angry Video Game Nerd responded with a shake.

"So, who's on team Santa?"

"Nostalgia Critic."

"Oh ho, we're so fucked."

"Why?"

"Trust me, you do not want to know the bullshit he can do while hopped up on Christmas."

* * *

38.8 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir] / [Danny Phantom] / [Pokémon]

Adrien smiled as he refocused the binoculars. They had finally found Team Rocket! As soon as he transformed, he extended his baton, pole-vaulted into the air and landed with a bow in front of the trio.

"Prepare for trouble, are you all Awake?"

"We're not rhyming, Adrien." Danny said as he flew towards the group.

"We're all feelin' loopy, Cat Twoip, but don't snag our motto. Dat's something we copyright every loop."

"Fine," Adrien said pouting.

Danny then landed next to Adrien. "Now that we're all talking, I'd like to offer a team up. Me and Adrien are planning to attack the Nostalgia Critic's party. We'd like if you join us."

"Now why would we want to? Creeping to the Critic's Christmas celebration couldn't be further than the credo of this Team Rocket crew." Jessie argued.

"Why would you even want to in the first place?" James added.

"We're not big fans of Christmas. And from what we heard, you're pretty similar in that." Adrien said.

The Team Rocket Trio then entered into a huddle.

"Why'd dey t'ink we'd be 'gainst Christmas? Our one an' only goal is to get that twoip's Pikachu under our own Douglas Fir!"

"Hmm. We did tie up Santa Claus because Jessie believed he stole her doll."

"Oh please, that was ages ago. And even if I did hold a grudge against that goody-two-shoes I wouldn't attack someone's party!"

"If I can interject," Adrien began. "Nostalgia Critic is a maniac for Christmas, pulling off nearly impossible feats just to prove his love. However, I know you can help beat him. His weapons and rage can be dealt with a few mechas. The electricity and explosions he can create are all things you've dealt with before. This guys nothing more than an Electrode, which with your help, we can defeat with a _Critic-al hit._ "

The trio paused, then responded with,

"We're all in, Cat Twerp!"

* * *

38.9 (ThanatosTiger): [Phineas and Ferb]

Phineas stood in the middle of the yard, puzzling over the various incomplete blueprints.

"Hmm, maybe if we installed a hydraulic engine, or tried to make a giant flux capacitor, bit difficult but I'm sure we can figure that out."

Phineas then looked up to see Ferb with his own blueprints looking concerned.

"What is it, Ferb?"

Ferb quickly handed Phineas the blueprints. Phineas studied them as intensely as he could. "The Christmas Tree robots you designed look great Ferb. I can't see anything wrong with them." Ferb then motioned for him to turn it around. Phineas' eyes widened as he scanned the back.

"A bunch of loopers are planning to ruin someone's Christmas party. We've got to stop them! And that is what we're gonna do on Christmas! In the meantime, let's build these robots!"

* * *

38.10 (ThanatosTiger): [Spongebob Squarepants]

Spongebob smiled as he donned the Quickster's costume. This Christmas he would play the role of Santa for all of Bikini Bottom. He had already asked everybody in town what they wanted for Christmas, bought and gift wrapped every one of them, now he just needed to create a delivery route and deliver them on the 24th. He was so excited! His smile grew wider as he pictured everybody smiling as they opened their presents and singing Christmas carols. Putting on a Santa hat and beard, he raced across Bikini Bottom, taking stock of every road, street and highway. Running over to Sandy's treedome, he couldn't help but overhear his friend's ranting.

"Ah oughta hogtie those loopin' scoundrels and show them some Christmas pain! Those yellow bellied Scrooges pickin' on someone havin' a Christmas party."

Alarmed, Spongebob removed his various attire, pulled a fishbowl out of his Pocket and ran inside the treedome.

"Sandy! Is what you said true?"

Sandy nodded "Yep, Danny, Adrien, and a bunch of other loopers are attacking a Christmas party. I've been practicing my Karate so I can take them down."

Spongebob frowned. "Then I have no time to lose!"

Redonning his Quickster outfit, he ran outside, delivering presents in the span of a second.

"Let's go save that party!"

* * *

38.11 (Duckapus): [Fairly Oddparents]

Dark Laser stared down at Timmy like he'd just pulled his own head off.

"So let me get this straight; you want me to help you help your cousin destroy Christmas."

"Yep."

"By fighting a semi-omnicidal robot while you and that wizard kid with old man hair are fighting a half-alien bioweapon and a flying jewel thief, respectively."

"Pretty much."

The galactic conqueror raised an eyebrow, "And why, exactly, are you coming to me for this?"

Timmy sighed, "Of my usual heavy hitters; Wanda and Trixie like Christmas too much to go along with the plan, Poof hasn't been born yet, Billy doesn't exist at the moment, and Cosmo's just overkill."

"Fair enough. Call me when it gets past the planning phase."

* * *

38.12 (Duckapus): [Super Mario] / [Rayman Raving Rabbids] / [Marvel]

Bowser looked around the table at his current guests to gauge their reactions to his proposition. Waluigi and Diddy Kong seemed to be sold on the idea. The Toad Brigade ranged from confused to cautious to (as usual)asleep. Deadpool was silent for once, his masked face betraying nothing. and Daisy...

"So, let me get this straight; a bunch of Loopers want to ruin Christmas for varying reasons. You want to help stop them because you're kids will never let you hear the end of it. And you came to us because no one else is awake. Did I miss anything?"

"Nope."

"Alright then, two questions. What's with all the Rabbids, and why is Deadpool here?"

Indeed, there were a large amount of Rabbids wandering around the castle, most of them carrying tools or machine parts.

"They've been showing up a lot since the new expansions, and since these ones seem to be good with machines I decided to put them to work. As for him..."

"Personal reasons." It was the first thing he'd said since the group had sat down.

"Yeah, that. So what do you say?"

Daisy took a minute to think it over, "... we're in."

* * *

38.13 (Black Omochao): [Yo-kai Watch] / [Seaman]

Seaman let out a content sigh, it wasn't often to have a Loop where he was so free as he was now, as a yo-kai and able to float at that, he just wanted to relax and enjoy his freedom...

"Seaman! Just the man-fish I wanted to see!" Inaho exclaimed, moving over to the floating human-faced fish, whom let out a sigh of annoyance before turning to her.

"Do I know you?"

"Of course you do! It's me, Inaho!" he just gave her a confused look at that answer, "Or Hailey, now, sometimes... we met in the tunnel!"

"... Oh yeah, now I remember," Seaman grunted before turning away from her, "I'm busy right now, please go away."

"But I wanted to talk to you about something! Come on! Please!" the purple-haired girl pleaded loudly, Seaman groaned, turning to her again.

"Okay, what is it?"

"I want you to help save the Nostalgia Critic's Christmas party!"

"... What?"

"Yeah, a bunch of no-fun jerks are planning to ruin it, and why? I don't know! But I don't want them to!" Inaho ranted, throwing her hands in the air, "I got Komasan and Komajiro to agree to help, bless their little hearts, but nobody else from my branch wants to get involved one way or the other! Not even USApyon! But I noticed you were here and thought you might be interested...?"

"... Why?" Seaman asked blandly, Inaho blinked with a confused look.

"Well... I did see a picture of you dressed like Santa once..."

"And because of that, you assume I care about Christmas?"

"... Don't you?" at this, Seaman took a deep breath.

"Let me tell you a few things about myself, I am the perpetually reincarnating form of an ancient pharaoh's son, while what exactly my time in Egypt entailed isn't exactly clear, I'm sure Christmas was not a part of my life then, my life in your present time is almost entirely spent inside a fish tank, nothing more, you know what Christmas is to me? Another day in the tank!" with a huff, Seaman turned away from the dejected Inaho, "I have no interest in getting involved with such a thing, so go away! I can't even imagine who would care enough to bother ruining this party anyway..."

"Oh, well a lot of people actually," Inaho muttered, thinking about who she had heard was on 'Team Scrooge,' "Like Timmy Turner–I think he started it, Danny, The Angry Video Game Nerd, Adri– "

"Wait!" Seaman interrupted, Inaho looked confused as the human-faced fish turned back to her, wide-eyed, "Did you say; 'The Angry Video Game Nerd?'"

"Um... yeah?" Inaho blinked at Seaman's sudden interest, the man-fish seemed to scowl for a moment, before nodding.

"Very well, count me in..."

"... You're going to help us save the party?"

"Yes."

"Awesome! I knew I could convince you!" Inaho cheered, Seaman just nodded again, a determined look in his eyes.

'Try to destroy me, will you Nerd? Well I'm going to show you why you should never mess with Seaman...' Seaman thought to himself, not noticing as Inaho prattled on about how fun the party would be.

* * *

38.14 (Wookywok): [Garfield] / [Spongebob Squarepants]

Garfield swallowed his bite of Krabby Patty. "So you're waging a war to save Christmas."

Spongebob nodded. "Yep."

"And you want me to fight on your side."

"Yeah, that's the basic gist of it."

Garfield laughed. "And what makes you think I'd fight on your side?"

"Well, from what I've heard, you absolutely love Christmas..."

Garfield placed the rest of his burger in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. "You know what else I love? Not having to do anything for other people. Sorry Spongy, but unless there's something in it for me, I'm not interested."

Spongebob put his finger on his chin. "Hmm... What if I told you that if we don't win this war, there won't be any Christmas at all this loop?"

Garfield quirked an eyebrow. "Your point?"

"No Christmas means no celebrating, no decorations, and most importantly..."

Spongebob's eyes narrowed.

"No presents."

Garfield straightened up in his seat at that. He put on a serious expression. "Alright, I'm in."

Spongebob perked up at his response. "Great to hear! You made the right choice."

"Yeah, yeah, right choice and all that. I just want to make one thing clear."

"What?"

"I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for me."

* * *

38.15 (ThanatosTiger): [Garfield]

"You agreed to WHAT?"

"I told you, Jon. I'm helping to fight a war to save Christmas."

"You're fighting a WAR?"

"Helping to fight a war. I'm not doing it all by my lonesome."

"But... still! You're fighting. In a war."

"Oh, come on. It's a Christmas war. It'll probably just be a snowball fight or something. Besides, it'll probably end one of two ways."

Jon sighed. "And they would be?"

"Either both sides will reconcile and valuable lessons will be learned by all, or the loop will crash in spectacular fashion. Either way, it's going to be quite a sight."

* * *

38.16 (Awesomedude17): [Admin Shenanigans]

Santa Claus put on a pair of dinky glasses and watched a terminal intensely.

It was rare for him to get out of his gift shop but with one particular person involved with what he was watching, he knew what he'd have to do.

"The Nostalgia Critic is involved with Christmas, isn't he?" Nemesis asked with a roll of her eyes.

"Yes. When the dust settles, I'll be sure to make them all know what they have done, provided they haven't learned any lessons."

Nemesis sighed. "I'm going to check on Ihy."

Santa nodded as the Christmas War was beginning to form.

* * *

38.17 (Masterweaver): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir] / [Danny Phantom] / [RWBY]

"A ghostly apparition and a black cat." Weiss leveled a flat look on the two teenage boys who stood before her. "Has all hallow's eve come early?"

Danny Fenton chuckled wryly. "Actually, Adrien and I are here to talk to you about something. See, there's this Christmas party coming up--"

"Nondescript winter holiday."

"...what?"

"Nondescript winter holiday," Weiss repeated. "Recent chibi expansion. Chibi loops aren't _strictly_ baseline, but they are a reliable variant of Remnant, so some details tend to leak over."

Adrien rolled his eyes. "Right. 'Nondescript winter holiday.' Because calling it Christmas just isn't politically correct."

Weiss crossed her arms. "There's Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and Yuletide and Bodhi Day and Saint Lucia's Day and Pancha Ganapati and Boxing Day--"

"Look, is there a decorated pine tree and lots of gift exchanging?"

"Yes."

"Then it's Christmas," Adrien insisted. "Which brings us back to the point: Christmas is terrible."

"Ah," Weiss said calmly. "This is about your Grinch war."

"We prefer to think of ourselves as Team Scrooge," Danny corrected.

"Scrooge was a money miser that hated humanity in general for being so wasteful and thought greed drove the world. You two, at least, don't seem to be entirely misanthropic." Weiss quirked a brow. "I assume your ladyfriends do not know of these plans?"

Adrien winced.

Danny rolled his eyes. "Look, point is: you're a rich lonely girl who knows how much of this is bullcrap, and the holidays had to have been horrible for you. Want to join us or what?"

Weiss took a breath, letting her hand fall to her hip. "My grandfather was the son of a miner in the declining kingdom of Mantle," she mused. "He taught himself how to fight. He led expeditions, dangerous ones, to find new Dust mines. He scraped together crews and wealth, building a company renowned for both quality and trustworthiness, and overturning the economic downfall of his home. This cost him his life, in the end; even though he eventually settled down to start a family, the Dust buildup in his lungs would kill him. He gave everything for those he loved."

Her eyes hardened. "His name was Nicholas."

Adrien and Danny shared a look.

Weiss cleared her throat. "I am aware, gentlemen, that you are opposed to the trappings of Christmas--the incessant songs, the shallow and false sympathy covering corporate greed, the way you will be called out for having even the slightest outburst of negativity. I too know how grating this can be; even without a holiday to base it around, Jacques has demonstrated his devotion to appearance and wealth beyond any other. These issues come up for you once a year, but for me they made the majority of my childhood. Believe me, I understand your ire--perhaps more so than even you do."

She gestured around at the courtyard of Beacon. "And yet, I also have seen what this holiday, and its many related, are meant to truly be. The giving of self to all as an expression of family, friendship, all forms of love, the reaffirmation of bonds through generosity. Christmas may not be in our baseline, only flickering in and out as so many loop variable factors do, but Ruby Rose finds herself overjoyed when it visits Remnant, and the loopers of this world with her."

"So..." Danny crossed his arms. "What, are you saying you're going to stop us?"

"Hardly. Your little vendetta has been repeated many times in the baseline of many worlds. In fact, the Krampus has existed in Christmas myth for longer than either grinch or scrooge; you are simply following ancient footsteps in your own way. However, I feel I should remind you of a few things."

The girl withdrew Myrtenaster, lowering its point to the ground. As she spoke, glyphs radiated out from beneath her, spectral forms of humans and Grimm and even more slowly taking shape in the increasing swirl of snow that swung her ponytail around her impassive, scarred gaze.

"I have access to wealth and knowledge from across the multiverse. I have trained with the most powerful of Jedi, and learned magic as the sorceress supreme. I have an amoral thief, a sociopathic Sakura Syndrome recoveree, and an egomaniac power monger as regular loopers whom I must handle. I have access to loyal kaiju, legions of robotic soldiers, and weaponry that you have seen only in the most terrible of tales. I have been the general of galactic armies, I have been the lady of frost, and I have been the goddess of death. I know the arts of the mind, the heart, and the soul. I have survived the fall of Beacon, and an attempt at Ascension. I am Weiss Schnee, Second of Remnant, **and I will not tolerate any of your foolishness touching my world.** "

Danny rolled his eyes. "Dramatic much, lady? We get it, stay off your turf. No need to get your panties in a twist."

"Actually, it's been suggested I wear a thong."

The teenage boy blinked at that casual statement. "Uh... wait... what?"

"It's an option," Weiss said, dismissing her summons with a simple gesture. "Perhaps you have an opinion, mister Fenton?"

"I... uh... I, uh, that, I, you see--"

Adrien grabbed his shoulder. "I think we'll be going now, nice talking with you miss Schnee!" He dragged the other boy away as quickly as he could.

Weiss waited until they were out of sight. "You can come out now, Ruby."

A flurry of rose petals spiraled from a nearby tree, coalescing into a girl with silver eyes and blood-red hair. "So... what? We're staying neutral?"

"We have enough issues without adding this nonsense to our mess. Do thank Grif for the heads-up, though."

"Of course. I just thought we might have go for team Santa or something..."

"We've got plenty of grinches in our loop. It wouldn't be fair to force them to act against their will."

"Fair point." Ruby gave her a look. "So what was with the thong thing, anyway?"

"A teenage boy that thinks girl is being 'dramatic' needs to be shut down fast." Weiss smirked. "And I'll admit it's a little fun screwing with people's heads like that."

"Yeah, true. Honestly, those two need to grow up anyway." Ruby snorted. "Declaring war against Christmas... well, whatever, hopefully somebody smacks some sense into them."

Weiss shrugged. "It'll come in their own time. Now then, I think Nora wanted us to work on some gingerbread animals to add to her pastry zoo."

Ruby nodded, joining her partner as they started walking back to their dorms. "Gingerbread doesn't have much flexibility, so probably something with an exoskeleton. Butterflies, maybe? Or some sort of beetle..."

* * *

38.18 (mariic): [The SCP Foundation] / [Channel Awesome] / [Marvel Comics] / [DC Comics]

On board the Comicron One, an urgent meeting was taking place. Linkara started, "Okay, now some of you might be wondering why I brought you here."

"I'm not." Deadpool snarked. "Danny Phantom and the Nostalgia Critic, among a lot of other people, are going to fight a war because of their conflicting views on Christmas."

Robin rolled his eyes. "Most of us already know this. Why are you telling us this?"

"You may know it, but some of the readers might not." Deadpool explained.

Ignoring the Merc with the Mouth, the Anchor of Earth 4W continued with the briefing. "Anyway, there will be a lot of chaos during the fight, so we need to get as many people as possible out of the crossfire. Superman, you and the other heavy hitters focus on trying to break up the fight. Cap, you and the other heroes will focus on evacuation of civilians; get them to the nearest Post-Civil-War bunker, where Foundation staff will overlook them. Any questions?"

Iron Man snarked, "Yeah, who put you in charge?"

"I did." Dr Glass explained. "Linkara is the Anchor of Earth 4W, so it's safe to say he's the one with the most knowledge of this Branch."

Spider-Man asked, "Wait, isn't Deadpool on the Critic's side?"

"I was," The Merc with the Mouth answered. "But it turns out he actually likes the Prequel Trilogy."

Batman cleared his throat. "I've actually Looped into the Prequel Trilogy, and Jar Jar isn't so bad once you--"

The Caped Crusader's train of thought was promptly derailed when Deadpool pounced on him, put a gun to his head, and shouted, "JAR JAR IS AN ABOMINATION!"

"Wade! That's enough!" Steve promptly pried him off Bruce.

"Okay," Deadpool relented. "But only because you told me."

Linkara pinched the bridge of his nose. "Now that's over with, let's get to work!"

* * *

38.19 (Tetradrachm): [Phineas and Ferb] / [The Nightmare Before Christmas]

"Why, this is tremendous news!" Jack Skellington exclaimed, standing up and carefully placing a letter down beside him on his desk.

"You're not upset?" Isabella, who was replacing Sally this Loop, quirked an eyebrow. "Phineas was sure you'd be furious."

"No, no, not at all! Oh, there is so much to do to prepare!" The Pumpkin King pulled a jPad from his Pocket and began typing notes, walking towards the door. "Hmm, I suppose I can enlist the Mayor for some of the organization, and the witches can start dredging the lake..."

"Wait, wait!" Isabella grabbed his shoulder, pulling him out of his reverie. "Prepare for what? I thought Halloween was over."

Jack smiled. It was very slightly unsettling.

"According to this note quite a few Loopers have forgotten about the spirit of Christmas. It seems that they need some...reminding."

"Uh, I'm not so sure your version of Christmas is what they really need..."

Now the King laughed. It was a little bit disturbing.

"Oh, you've seen the film?"

"Duh, of course! It's, like, the best Christmaween movie ever!"

"I do appreciate the complement. Well, in Baseline I didn't have the foggiest idea what I was doing with Christmas. I saw the toys and the elves and tried to copy all of it, sure, but the heart, the spirit, that was what I missed completely. But let me assure you, miss Isabella, it has been a very long time since Baseline. Here, let me show you something." He extended a bony hand.

Hesitantly Isabella took his hand. There was a brief moment of total disorientation and then Jack's office was gone. Instead, the pair was standing before two massive cast-iron gates set in a wall that stretched to the horizon. On the gates were engraved a multitude of humans, animals, and other species in various tableaux. Isabella picked out a family of Wookiees a few feet up.

"Welcome to my Pocket!" Jack proclaimed with a flourish. "Come, come, let's get inside. There's so much to do."

"Are these...holidays?" Isabella reached out to touch an image of a statue covered with pieces of paper carried in a procession.

"Yes! That's the Feast of Saint Anthony from Boston. You'll see why in just a moment!"

Now Jack made a grand gesture and the gates swung open. The inside was nearly pitch-black; the only thing visible was a huge lever set in the ground.

Taking two giant strides, the King leaned out and pulled the lever back. All at once, a cacophony of machines activating and lights flicking on echoed through what was clearly a massive space.

Isabella blinked twice and then gasped.

Gigantic machines and robots set to work as far as the eye could see. A factory all at once come to life—and now it was obvious they were all making toys. The closest conveyor belt carried piles of plastic green soldiers by while a robotic arm placed chess pieces in boxes on a roller belt. There was a repurposed Atlas Knight beyond that carrying a half-finished bicycle.

"Welcome to the Holiday Factory! Do you like it? I got quite a bit of inspiration from your two young friends." Jack pressed a button on a console that had popped up and a green light flashed.

"Like it? I _love_ it! This is amazing! I mean, of course we've built things like this in Danville, but the scale is really impressive."

"Well—oh! Our ride's here!" A glass elevator had smoothly descended from a hole in the ceiling. Its front slid open and Jack stepped inside.

"This was a gift from the great Mr. Wonka. You know, he helped me plan this whole factory out as well." Jack pressed a large button marked with a daintily patterned shirt.

"Is this the Great Glass Elevator, then?" Isabella asked as she stepped inside and the doors shut behind her. "It has some pretty advanced antigrav, I don't see any gravitational shields."

"Wonka told me it's carried on, ah, skyhooks?" Jack explained as a series of floors passed by, each apparently a toy factory in their own right.

"Never heard of them. Are you sure he wasn't pulling your femur?" the Fireside Girl asked dryly as the elevator started to slow.

"Ha! You never know with that man." The doors opened onto a very different floor. Three pale old women sat at a table in a small, intimate drawing room. The walls were covered in paintings and photographs of great grassy plains; at one end of the room hung a yellow-and-blue flag.

The women were hard at work embroidering patterns into billowy shirts of some kind, but as the doors opened they looked up and smiled.

"Pryvit, ser Dzhek!" the nearest woman called.

"Pryvit, Alina, Daria, Kateryna!" Jack kissed each of them on the hand. He then began chatting in some foreign language with the ladies, which Isabella noticed had rather sharp teeth.

After apparently giving them instructions, the ladies returned to their embroidery and Jack turned to Isabella. "I would guess you don't speak Ukrainian?"

"Spanish, French, Mandarin, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, yes. Ukrainian, no. Are those ladies vampires?"

"You catch on quick! Yes, they're vampires, by choice, I assure you. They're from near-Hub Loop Ukraine, all expert artisans. They are the principal staff of the Ukraine Day of Independence Department, which takes up all of this room."

Isabella suddenly realized the implications of the innocuous room. "You—you have a department for every holiday!?"

"Yes! Exactly! I've been developing this whole project since almost when I began to Loop. Here, here, take a seat, let me explain the whole thing."

Head spinning, Isabella sat beside Jack at the table as the vampire ladies steadily ignored them.

"My first few Loops," Jack began, "I assumed time was repeating due to my grievous error in trying to usurp Christmas in Baseline. I practiced putting an end to Oogie Boogie's various machinations, I traveled to Christmas Town to help Santa prepare for his holiday, that sort of thing. Eventually, this all became as repetitive and dry as my Baseline. It was my first Variant Loop when everything changed: I Awoke as Santa himself, preparing to take over Halloween!"

"No!" Isabella giggled.

"Yes! It was quite the strange experience—and quite the strange Halloween. Have you ever seen a Douglas fir carved into a Jack-o-Lantern? Needless to say, I failed at both holidays that Loop. It was so humiliating, so embarrassing, that I vowed to never again fail at holiday merriment."

Isabella giggled again.

"Are you mocking me?" Jack asked with faux offense.

"No, no! It's a very noble goal. It just sounded funny. Everybody gets their spirits lifted by the holidays, they're super important!"

"My sentiments exactly. It was because of that mindset that ten or so Loops later I finally did Christmas right. Joy and peace to all the world, making spirits bright—oh, it was wonderful. And don't worry, that time I convinced Santa to let me have a go, no kidnapping involved!"

"Then I turned to Easter once I got bored again, since I could visit Easter Town through the forest as well. Then I discovered that there were all sorts of Variant Loops with unusual Holiday Towns. It was soon after that I had my first Fused Loop with Kingdom Hearts and got the Multiverse Speech from Mickey himself. From there, well—like I said, it was Wonka who helped me get the Factory started up, and then the Guardians were invaluable with their suggestions, of course, and I've just been hard at work since then."

"But this plan those two boys have cooked up, it's the best news I've had in eons! You see, I've put so much work into mastering the holidays, into building this factory, that I've always thought of it as a goal unto itself. But now there is an opportunity for me to do more than just maintain the holidays—I can fight for Christmas, defend it with the skills I've learned and the knowledge I've gained."

Now Jack grinned, his face split in two by his smile. It was downright terrifying.

"They think they can bring down Christmas? I'd like to see them try."

* * *

38.20 (ThanatosTiger): Danny Phantom] / [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Channel Awesome] / [Red vs Blue] / [Pokémon] / [Fairly Odd Parents] / [Invader Zim] / [Yokai Watch] / [Spongebob Squarepants] / [Phineas and Ferb] / [Sonic] / [Mario] / [Garfield] / [Seaman] / [DC] / [Marvel] / [SCP Foundation]

**The Final Christmas War Snip**

Nostalgia Chick glared as she looked at the various loopers that joined her cause.

"So the two superheroes I hired got me an asshole of a computer program, a nerd, two failed thieves and their pet cat, two crazy aliens, a teacher, a bunch of kids and a racist wizard. Doing so ended up getting even more loopers coming to defend the Nostalgia Critic and this stupid holiday. Color me impressed."

The visiting loopers started to yell, each one arguing against the Nostalgia Chick's words until Danny interrupted it with an ectoplasmic blast.

"Look, we're all here, let's come up with a plan to beat these guys. Church, you're an AI, right?"

"Yeah, dipshit, I am, any other stupid questions you want to ask me?"

Danny smirked. "Just wanted to see if you'd help run this Meta suit/Ecto suit Tucker gave me." He then pulled said device out of his Pocket.

Church sighed. "Fine, just give me a sec. Not as good at this as Epsilon"

The cynical AI left the robot suit he possessed and entered the Meta suit.

"Ready."

Danny turned to his cousin. "Hey Timmy, you've got the inators from Dr D?"

"Yep, even the useless ones. How are you gonna conquer something that turns everything into turkey?" Timmy said. "Wish I could make some of them handheld, but-"

Without missing a beat, Draco pulled out his wand and started to wave it around. The inators flew in the air, then shrunk and grew a pistol grip, turning each one handheld.

As the collective loopers stared at him, Draco shrugged. "He did say 'I wish'."

Mrs Bitters sniffed, pulling her cloak closer around herself. "Well I hope you're fine with granting his wishes in battle, since I won't do so. The boy doesn't have his fairies."

Timmy frowned. "Wanda and Poof didn't want to, and Cosmo seems overkill since I have Dark Laser's Death Ball, as well as a borrowed Darth Laser Suit."

Gaz smirked. "We're good too. Zim and Tak have their ships as well, I've brought my Krampus mech, and Dib and Mrs Bitters can handle themselves."

"Indeed, that foolish human will rue the day that the boy decided to pick a fight with the mighty looping Irken fleet! Oh, and I'm sure the meager human contributions will benefit us."

Jessie growled. "Meager, you say! Meowth, show this mini Elgyem our mighty mechanical marvel we made!"

Meowth nodded, then pulled it out of his Pocket. It was a large mecha built to resemble the Pokémon Wobbuffet.

"What we got here not only resembles our blue friend, it acts like him too. If yah attack it, it'll be sent right back at ya with a lot more power."

James grinned. "Since we couldn't bring our dear friend into battle, we went for the next best thing!"

Adrien smirked. "While your sci-fi stuff will kick ro-butt, I'll be sticking with my magic ring. Plagg, Claws Out!" The teen model then quickly turned into the superhero Chat Noir, then faced the local Loopers. "You guys have any Channel Awesome stuff with you?"

"I've got my NES stuff, but I'll equip that when we fight Nostalgia Critic."

"Paw-some!"

As Team Scrooge began planning their assault, the Koma Bros looked down at the scene with worry.

"We've got to warn Spongebob, zura!" Komajiro exclaimed. "Oh if only we had weapons to fight with, zura!"

"You're right, I'll inform him on the radio, zura. Don't worry about fighting, zura. Your great older brother will keep you safe, zura."

"Great plan, bestest brother, zura!"

"Spongebob, their militia is worse than we thought, they've got two giant mechas, all of Dr. Doofenshmirtz's inators, and one has an armor that looks like the Meta Grif talked about!" Komasan warned. "Have you contacted the Critic yet?"

"Not yet, but I'll run over there and grab him, can you add Sandy to this call?"

"On it, zura!"

"Howdy, Spongebob, what do ya need."

"Ready the troops, I'm about to head over to the Critic."

"Already ready, Spongebob, we're all waiting on you."

"I'm ready!"

Putting the radio back in his Pocket, Spongebob redonned his Quickster costume and dashed to the Nostalgia Critic household. Arriving in a millisecond, Spongebob pounded on the door several times a second.

Nostalgia Critic then opened the door, stared at the non-native looper, and asked; "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"Critic! You gotta listen to me! Adrien Agreste, Danny Phantom, The Angry Videogame Nerd and a bunch of others are coming to destroy your Christmas party!" Spongebob warned.

Spongebob's eyes grew wide as the Critic began to change. His hair became spiky and red, his shirt and pants turned into a green morph suit, his skin became paler as two depictions of ornaments appeared on his cheeks, and even his tie changed from maroon to a bright red, white, and green.

"NNNNEEERRRRRRDDD!" Critic shouted to the sky. "Where is he, Spongebob?" He asked, his voice becoming a deep, growling baritone.

"The Koma Bros are scouting them. I was sent to tell you before Team Scrooge gets here!"

Critic and Spongebob heard the sound of the pop as Team Scrooge appeared a few feet away from the building, though Nostalgia Chick took the time to hide in her Pocket.

"You really should have prepared better." Chat said, smirking.

"Look, Spongebob, we don't want to fight you. We mostly want to stop a crazy guy from going too far in his planet ending obsession." Danny said calmly.

"Crazy? Christmas is a wonderful holiday..." Spongebob began.

"Unless your father and mother fight over something completely asinine during the holidays, or have a magical supervillain as a parent." Chat Noir argued. "Now, I'm sure the Critic wants to fight as much as we do, especially with The Angry Video Game Nerd here, so let's see if we can get it started."

"Gladly." Critic said, pulling both sword and gun out of his Pocket. Spongebob nodded, pulling a beach's worth of sand out of his Pocket before making it into a legion of Santa Clauses, who charged at the opposing army.

The frontline collapsed against a Ghostly Wail, but several more charged toward, keeping the rest of Team Scrooge at bay.

Danny charged at the Nostalgia Critic, but Spongebob intercepted him in the blink of an eye, then began striking him with lightning quick karate.

"Alright, time to play hardball." Church said as he activated the suit's speed boost. Soon Danny was able to match Spongebob blow for blow.

Nostalgia Critic began firing his gun at Chat Noir, who deflected them with a swing of his baton. A hatch opened from the Wobbuffet mecha as Jessie fired a net at the Critic, who cut it in half with a swing of his sword and a roll of his eyes.

"Seriously, that was stupid as hell." The Critic fired a lightning bolt at the mecha, which proved to his detriment as it struck him back with far more power. Pissed off, he charged at Team Rocket, knocking Chat Noir aside. Picking up the Wobbuffet mech, he then charged at The Angry Video Game Nerd, who escaped by jumping into his Pocket.

"What a coward." The Critic turned to face Chat Noir, but a blast in the back stopped him. Turning around, he saw the Angry Video Game Nerd decked out in his NES Weaponry.

Critic began shooting at the Nerd, charging at him to get in close with the mecha. Nerd gladly returned fire, lasers evaporating the bullets. Critic swung the mecha, but the U-Board deflected it easily. The Nerd grew to the size of a skyscraper, and picked up the mecha with his hands, Critic barely keeping his grip. Seeing an opportunity, Ms Bitters flew up to to the reviewer, cackling all the way. When she was a few feet away, Critic pulled himself on top the Wobbuffet mecha, then stabbed the Nerd in the hand with his sword, causing him to drop both.

While they were in free fall, Team Rocket pocketed the mecha and fled the war zone out on jetpacks, swearing they'll return another day, with a more sure victory.

Ms Bitters flew down as the Critic fell, ready to attack him once more, but the Angry Video Game Nerd stopped her.

"I can see the rest of Team Santa arriving on one of Bowser's ships a few miles away. I need you to get Draco, Timmy, Zim, Tak, and Gaz to attack the ship."

Ms Bitters nodded begrudgingly. As she flew, Timmy lifted all the sand warriors with the force, formed them into a ball, then blasted the sand ball with Doofenshmirtz's Turkeyinator. Seeing where Danny and Spongebob were fighting, Timmy dropped the baked bird on them, Danny turning intangible before he could get crushed.

"Wizard! Turner! Gaz! Tak! Zim! Attack Bowser's ship!" Ms Bitters yelled before flying off.

Draco unpocketed his broom and flew off, Timmy, Tak and Zim following in their respective ships. Gaz followed suit, her Krampus mech at full speed.

As the rest of the flying members of Team Scrooge went off to fight Bowser's ship, Danny began blasting Critic, Chat Noir and Dib following it up with some strikes from staffs and fists. These attacks barely impeded Critic, who began hacking away at them with his sword, necessitating the Nerd to stomp on the Critic

At Bowser's ship, the fight was even matched between the two forces. Missiles, spells, lasers and a shadow traveling Ms Bitters damaging the ship and its passengers through hit and run tactics.

The tide turned though, with Seaman hopping towards Draco, then using Egyptian magic to turn him into a ferret. Draco valiantly tried to hold on to his broom, but eventually fell off.

With one of Team Scrooge's members down, Team Santa began to go on the offensive. Phineas and Ferb unpocketed their Treehouse Mechas to fight against Gaz's Krampusmech, Inaho and Bowser unleashed a litany of fire attacks, and Sandy began attempting to lasso any member of Team Scrooge she could. The blasters from Gaz, Timmy's and Tak and Zim's ships, fended them off, but barely.

Shadow smirked at this, victory was nearing. Pointing towards the Death Ball, Team Dark broke off from Team Santa and began approaching Timmy's ship, Super Shadow flying at lightning quick speed, Rogue and E-123 not far behind.

Timmy frowned as the group began attacking the Dark Laser face on his ship.

"Alright droids, you guys man the Death Ball, continue blasting the pirate ship, I'll battle deviantart's moneymakers."

The droids nodded, and began manning the controls Timmy abandoned. Timmy ran out the open mouth of Dark Laser, then began blasting Team Dark with heat vision as soon as Shadow's fur turned black. Not that it did much to the hedgehog.

Shadow ran at the kid, who barely managed to keep up with Shadow's blows. Timmy swung his lightsaber, which caused Shadow to back off, temporarily. One Chaos Emerald later, and the world stood still. Shadow nudged the kid off the Death Ball, then time was restored.

Timmy barely caught himself with his dark powers, flying back onto the Death Ball. Shadow continued his onslaught, Timmy still barely keeping up. Taking the initiative E-123 began blasting away, coming close to hitting Timmy. Rouge flew at him, dealing devasting kicks. Timmy was able to melt E-123's arms, but was met with even more vicious kicks from Rouge. No matter how hard Timmy fought, three on one was still three on one. Shadow and Rouge smashed Timmy through the Death Balls engine, Timmy surviving only thanks to several healing potions from his Pocket.

"Good fight, Turner, I'm surprised you fought so well."

"Thanks, mind staying out of this?"

"I'm afraid not, I was looking forward to fighting more than you."

"No way to convince you otherwise, is there?" Timmy snarked. Shadow shook his head, amused. "Good luck, then." Timmy barely coughed out the words before passing out. Despite the droids best efforts, the Death Ball crashed to the ground, making a crater twice the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

Tak stared down at the smoking ship in worry. The Team Scrooge forces against Critic's calvary were dwindling down to nothing, and she had already saw how much devastation the reviewer could wreak. There was no way for them to win.

Then Bowser's ship disappeared.

It didn't seem to matter much to Team Santa. The Mario Loopers were able to unpocket their karts and hang glide down. Team Dark and Seaman flew, and there seemed to be a man in an exosuit saving anyone who couldn't fly. But it was a good distraction. One she was able to use to her advantage as she blasted Team Santa with glee.

The blasts only shook Team Santa momentarily. The Mario Loopers sped towards the Krampusmech at breakneck speeds while Miss Bitters' assault on the exosuit wearer was kept in check by a few well placed kicks. The Mario Loopers' karts transformed into huge bullets, and sped towards the Krampusmech even faster. Tak wasn't sure if it would survive such a thing.

Then the Krampusmech disappeared, and the giant bullets crashed into each other.

"I must say, this has been a wonderful experience," A voice drawled behind her. "Yes, Draco Malfoy singlehandedly saves the day as a ferret. Very nice."

With a loud CRACK, Tak and Draco appeared back where they fought the Nostalgia Critic. Said reviewer was fending off most of Team Scrooge with ease, and glowing even more brighter than before. The Angry Video Game Nerd, despite his colossal size, had been knocked out, or worse.

"Keep trying, it makes it more fun." The Critic ripped off pieces of Danny's armor, and chucked them wildly. One nearly collided with her ship's engines, causing her to crash.

"Why does this keep happening?"

The Critic refocused his attention on Danny, who turned intangible. With his blows non effective, Critic changes tactics once more, focusing on Cat Noir. Despite the suit's magic, Cat Noir could still feel pain from the Nostalgia Critic's blows. Chat was on the defensive, focused more on deflecting blows with his staff then strikes. Dib and Tak tried to take advantage of the distraction by dealing some powerful blows, but were kept at bay and eventually got knocked out by huge explosions. Seeing this, Danny, Draco, Zim and Gaz retreated to a further distance and focused on blasting the reviewer. Ms Bitters shadow traveled on top of the reviewer, possibly trying to use more hit and run tactics, but was stabbed fatally with the Critic's sword. Cat Noir rushed at him with a Cataclysm, but was stopped when Critic crushed his hand. Luckily for Chat Noir, Danny distracted him from a killing blow with a blast.

Team Santa soon arrived, smiles wide as Santa's waistline. They were winning, all thanks to the Nostalgia Critic. Time to celebrate!

The pouring of champagne was interrupted by a huge explosion and several bullets fired. Critic was a red, white and green supernova, and the earth was beginning to crack under his feet. Team Scrooge began to back away even further.

Inaho marched towards the reviewer, fury in her eyes. "Hey, we came here to help! Stop shooting us you-"

Inaho was cut off with a bullet inches away from her face.

"Jerk?"

Sandy lassoed Inaho away from the Critic, and Team Santa retreated, but Critic was in hot pursuit, the ground shaking with every step. Critic was about to swing at Inaho with his sword, but was cut off with two katanas.

"Really, that's how you introduce the Merc with a Mouth? Come on, Thanatos! Anyway, may as well drop some exposition on spacecraft. Batman, Tony, Superman Linkara, and the SCP got a bunch of rockets ready for everyone when this planet goes kablooey. Head west, and don't stop. Batman will evacuate you guys when you get there."

"Wait, we need to contact the Koma Bros!" Inaho yelled.

"Yeah, you could do that or you could leave!" Deadpool said, barely keeping the reviewer at bay. He was able to fire a tranquilizer gun at the reviewer, which slowed down the Critic. He was soon joined by Spider-Man, Superman, and Iron Man in the Hulkbuster, who were able to push Critic on the defensive.

"Alright kids. Time to run down to Bloomington!"

"Not without the Koma Bros!"

"Enough." Shadow stepped forward. "I'll run towards the Koma Bros location, and run them towards the rocket."

"Great plan! We'll fend them off with Batman tested gadgetry, while you guys run like Hell now! Welp, looks like it's time for a scene transition. I'll teleport over to Danny and company, tell them where to go."

Deadpool teleported over to Team Scrooge, where every member seemed to be relieved they were no longer fighting the Nostalgia Critic.

"Alright nerds, time to get off the planet before Critic goes supernova. Linkara parked a couple miles east, so teleport yourself there. I'm gonna go fight Critic 'offscreen.'"

Draco Apparated the group once more to where Linkara was. They boarded the ship and took off from planet Earth, Batman's ship not to far behind, the Koma Bros on board. Soon Superman, Iron Man, and Spider-Man left as well, leaving behind a half-drugged Critic, who exploded the entire planet in rage.

Back on the Comicron-1, Team Scrooge was healing up from the fight. Linkara walked in and approached Danny and Adrien, who were happily resting, and in the case of the latter, reading manga.

"Mind joining me in another room? Kinda want to talk to you guys for a bit."

Danny and Adrien looked at each other, shrugged, then nodded. They entered another room and sat down.

"So, how exactly did this start? I have a feeling you guys didn't just sit down and say you wanted to beat up the Critic."

Danny and Adrien winced.

"Not exactly. Originally we were just gonna mess around as Christmas themed villains, but Nostalgia Chick told us about the Critic and how much of a nutcase he was, especially about Christmas, we decided to fight him. We thought he was a villain, more or less. As we continued, we thought it'd be cool to actually beat him, and that it'd be like challenging someone to a fight." Danny stated.

"You know, I can't help but wonder what would happen if you had just decided to stay home? Would someone come after you guys? Though I want to focus on a different hypothetical. What if you had done your research?"

"Hey, I researched Nostalgia Critic! His weapons, powers, abilities." Adrien shot back.

"Anything not related to combat?"

"... No."

"Yeah, if you had researched a bit more, you'd probably learn that Nostalgia Critic isn't that bad, even if he does go cuckoo bonkers around this time. He isn't entirely his Christmas mania, just like you guys aren't just Scrooges. I normally handle the guy pretty well, though I do have practice as the Anchor."

Seeing their shocked faces, Linkara let out a sigh. "You guys really need to do your research. Anyway why do you guys hate Christmas so much? Maybe I can suggest a way around it."

"Christmas sucks ash in our Baseline. Danny's parents argue over Santa's existence, and has to deal with a reality warping writer if he breaks his masterpiece. As for me, my dad is..."

"Emotionally constipated and pushes Adrien into things he doesn't want to do, and hasn't tried to get over his grief." Danny interrupted.

"That."

"Families suck around Christmas huh. Maybe take a Vacation loop, there are quite a few loops with evil Santas. Try to expand your family a bit as well. You can choose them when you loop."

"They aren't that bad." Danny argued. "But I think I'll try a Vacation loop. Thanks for the advice, dude."

"No problem. Grab something to eat before the loop crashes."

The two superheroes' eyes widened. Adrien was quicker on the uptake.

"Do you have croissants?"

"Second shelf. Happy Holidays!"

* * *

38.21 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [The Nightmare Before Christmas] - Christmas War: Aftermath

_Several Loops later..._

"You mean I _missed_ it? _NOOOOOOOOO!!!_ "

Sally laid a hand on her boyfriend's shoulder. "It's all right, Jack. Team Santa won in the end, and that's what matters most, all right?"

Jack Skellington sniffed (despite his lack of a nose). "I... all right." His nonexistent eyes gleamed. "But if something like this happens again and there's another chance for me to protect Christmas, I'm not missing out."

Sally waited until he wasn't looking, then facepalmed.

* * *

And that's the Christmas War arc.

Team Scrooge: Danny Phantom from _Danny Phantom_ , Adrien Agreste from _Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir_, the Angry Videogame Nerd from _Cinemassacre_ , Nostalgia Chick from _Channel Awesome_ , Leonard L Church/Alpha from _Red Vs. Blue_ , Team Rocket members Jessie, James and Meowth from _Pokémon_ , Zim, Gaz, Dib, Tak and Bitters from _Invader Zim_ , Draco Malfoy from _Harry Potter_ , and Timmy Turner from Fairly Odd Parents. Dr. Doofenshmirtz of _Phineas and Ferb_ has loaned out his inators for the team to use.

Team Santa: Spongebob Squarepants and Sandy Cheeks from _Spongebob Squarepants_ , Inaho and the Koma Brothers from _Yo-Kai Watch_ , Shadow the Hedgehog, Rouge the Bat, and E-123 Omega from _Sonic_ , Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher from _Phineas and Ferb_ , Nostalgia Critic from _Channel Awesome_ , Bowser, Bowser Jr, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, Waluigi, Princess Daisy, and Captain Toad from _Mario_ , Seaman from _Seaman_ , and Garfield from _Garfield_. Also some Rabbids are helping.

Deadpool, Iron Man and Captain America, from _Marvel_ , Batman and Robin from _DC Comics_ and Dr Glass from _SCP_ (and Linkara) are attempting to stop the fight.

And poor Jack Skellington so wanted to help Team Santa, but missed out.


	56. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Nine

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-06-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Thirty-Nine**

39.1 (Bardic_Knowledge): [Digimon] / [Lion King] / [Pokémon]

Terriermon and Pumbaa stared each other down.

"Moumentai!"

"Hakuna Matata!"

"Moumentai!"

"Hakuna Matata!"

Timon and Henry looked back and forth at the two arguing over the best way to tell someone to relax.

"They're totally missing the point, aren't they?" sighed Henry.

"Yeah," Timon nodded.

"Kakuna!" "Rattata!" Suddenly, the argument was interrupted as two Pokemon jumped out of the nearby tall grass.

* * *

39.2 (katfairy): [Animal Crossing] / [The Moomins] / [Discworld] / [My Little Pony] / [Pokemon] / [Dungeons & Dragons cartoon] / [Lion King] / [Doctor Who] / [DC Comics] / [Final Fantasy IX]

"Let's see... We've got the New Year's noodles, the bell knickknack, the sparkling cider, twelve-grape plates, tweeters, berliners, and this year we're doing the green and yellow hats, aren't we?" Isabelle didn't have to look at her checklist at this point, but she had it ready anyway, just in case the Loop added a new twist. This was the first New Year of the Loop, and she wanted to make sure it went off without too many hitches. None would be best, but with so many visiting Loopers, she figured she'd better err on the side of expecting insanity. Not that they'd gotten any of the problem Loopers, but even the most well-behaved could go off the rails at times.

"You got it, sister," Redd nodded. "Got the Zodiac Snake for tomorrow, too. Think we'll have a Loop long enough to get through the whole set this time?"

"That depends on the Mayor; you know that."

"We will, then. That ain't the guy to worry too much about having a perfect house, although he does seem keen on getting the museum up to snuff."

"And none of our other visitors seem the type to deliberately crash the Loop out of impatience, which is good. I don't know if I've ever seen so many in one Loop! There's barely any non-Looping villagers."

"Makes for an interesting Loop," Redd shrugged. "And one most of 'em'll remember. I know I will."

Isabelle couldn't argue that even if she was inclined to. Usually, if there were visiting Loopers at all, it was one to four humans, very rarely a Looping non-human; this Loop, they had three humans, a Mymble (whatever that was), a human-turned-orangutan (NOT monkey), an Equestrian, a Pokémon, a dragon (with five heads, no less; Isabelle wondered how she handled headaches), a lion, and as Mayor, a Time Lord. Plus the four non-Looping villagers, all but one familiar to Isabelle: Bruce the grumpy deer showed up roughly one Loop in ten, and she'd met Tia the elephant and Vesta the sheep quite a few times, but Marina the octopus was entirely new. It was quite the odd mix. On the other hand, it was a mostly friendly one. Well, other than Tiamat occasionally threatening to eat someone the next time they met in the Loops (she was usually joking, Isabelle had realized; the dragon's sense of humor was both dry and very strange), Mymble and Bruce yelling at each other almost daily (which they seemed to enjoy), and the Librarian throwing things at anyone who said the word "monkey."

Still, it was New Year's Eve, and there would be a celebration. Everyone was looking forward to it; even Bruce and Mymble hadn't so much as given each other dirty looks. The Loopers had each helped in their own unique ways. Tiamat had designed some lovely fireworks and would provide an aerial display of her own, creating designs with fire and lightning; Pikachu would ride on her back, adding his lightning to hers. Big Mac had provided the sparkling cider, made from Zap Apples. Terry, Hank, and the Librarian had helped assemble Redd's booth and the countdown clock, which the Doctor had checked and double-checked. Garnet, Nala, and Mymble had made all the hats, although Nala had admitted that it wasn't the sort of thing she usually did. Garnet had just grinned.

"I'm a queen in my home Loop; I love getting the chance to do all the normal, everyday things that royalty's supposed to leave to the servants," she pointed out. Nala blushed.

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that," she said quickly. "It's just that, well, I'm a lioness. We don't wear clothes. That's one of the things I've found hardest to deal with in the Loops; I just can't get the hang of clothing. Remember how I made poor Gracie faint last week? That's normal for me. But you don't need or want my hunting skills here, and the other skills I've picked up in the Loops are for things that someone else is taking care of. And I do want to help. And... maybe if I learn how to make some of these things, I'll be able to figure them out. Hopefully before I end up in a Loop where that could really get me in trouble."

Mymble snickered.

"Or before you run into Rarity, or the Snork Maiden, or those girls from that one Precure Loop, or..."

"That, too," Nala agreed with a grin. Mymble and Garnet exchanged glances and nodded; Isabelle knew that they would help their new friend, and she left them to it.

She checked on Redd's booth and the countdown clock; both were up and running. Terry and Hank were seated under the Symbol Tree with Big Mac and the Doctor, just relaxing; a second glance showed the Librarian snoozing in the branches. Like the girls, they were also gossiping, although Isabelle knew they would insist on calling it "exchanging information."

"—only complain about this Loop is that we've got a great beach, but no surfing," Terry said. "I haven't had a chance in the last five Loops, and one of those lasted over thirty years. I can go a Loop or two without it just fine, but now it's getting a bit annoying."

"Hey, maybe next Loop," Hank commiserated. "But I can see how that'd get old after a while. I had three Variants in a row where I wasn't a Ranger, and for one of those, I wasn't allowed to use a bow at all."

"Ouch."

"Well, if you end up in my Loop, give me a ring," the Doctor said. "I'll take you to Tsunami; three guesses how it got the name. You mentioned tow-surfing earlier; that's a major industry there. A normal beach gets ten-to-twenty-footers daily, and a few spots can throw off two-hundred-footers if the conditions are right."

Isabelle tried to imagine a wave that size, but couldn't; the scale was simply too large. Could a wave that size even be surfed? Which was exactly what Terry was asking.

"In my Loop, the record is 372 feet, but the gravity on that world is a bit different. And then there's the technology involved... But, yes, it's doable, even by normal humans."

"So I should be just fine," Terry snickered. Hank rolled his eyes, and Isabelle got the feeling she'd missed a joke there. She almost sat down and asked about surfing, as she'd been a bit curious about it, but she still had quite a bit of work to do. She headed down to the beach, where Tiamat and Pikachu were practicing without risking a fire.

" _I think we should practice this now that we have the theory down, as the size differential is somewhat different than I am used to_ ," Tiamat was saying. Pikachu nodded, as did Isabelle. From what she had heard earlier in the Loop and what she'd read in the Guide, she knew Tiamat was at best a tenth of her usual size, and while Pikachu wasn't one of the larger villagers, in the bodies they had for this Loop, there was less than a foot difference in height.

"Maybe you should see if you can transform into your usual body," Pikachu suggested. "I can, but I haven't bothered because... well, mostly because I just haven't. And if you don't know how, I might be able to teach you. Let's give it a shot."

So they were busy as well. Everyone either had a task they were working on or had finished their task for the day. Good; that meant things were running smoothly and she could run up to Main Street and check in with KK.

* * *

It wasn't the usual New Year's Eve bash, not with all the Loopers putting in their two cents worth, but Isabelle was happy without how it was turning out. The Zap Apple cider was a huge hit, and Big Mac had promised he had more than enough for the next dozen or so New Years. KK and Shrunk had closed the club for the night and set up a jam session; most of the Loopers had joined in at least once. The only thing she worried about was the fireworks; would Tiamat and Pikachu be able to do their planned display? Granted, if they couldn't, the regular fireworks would be lovely enough, but they would be so terribly disappointed, even if one of them would never admit it.

" ** _THREE... TWO... ONE... HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!_** "

She held her breath, noticing Hank and Terry doing the same, watching the fireworks go off. And it was only fireworks. Quite stunning, and the best they'd been since that mare with a tendency to speak in the third person had Looped in, but just fireworks. She sighed, echoed by Tiamat's best friend and his other best friend.

Which was the cue for a sinuous dragon made of fire to appear, breathing lightning. In the glow created by the apparition, everyone could see an entirely different dragon, one with five heads, swooping around in the sky, setting up for her next design. Isabelle clapped, and the other Loopers gasped, cheered, and applauded. The non-Loopers accepted it as part of the show, duly impressed but unaware that there had been anything to worry about in the first place. Tiamat, back to her baseline size, created a fire rose; Pikachu traced a stem and leaves for it. The night had now officially gone off without a hitch, and Isabelle could relax. Even better, a source of discontent for a resident had been removed while another was being worked on, and that was always good, and the only other one of which she was aware might have a simple solution. Yes, all in all, Isabelle thought she could call the day a success.

_Note for tomorrow: ask Kapp'n if he knows of any good surf breaks..._

* * *

39.3 (V01D): [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [Bar Loop]

"Alright everyone," Mickey addressed the Loopers gathered at the House of Mouse, "New topic. Worst thing you've ever seen done by a Non-Looping Villain."

"Baseline Xehanort," Sora deadpanned. Everyone paused, somewhat confused. "I looped into the Hub," Sora elaborated, "and while surfing online I found a line about him that shows how _deranged_ he is." He pulled out a journal, flipping to a specific page, "I even wrote it down to share with everyone. _He-_ meaning Xehanort," Sora clarified, " _was_ always _a ranting, raving, lunatic. It take a special kind of megalomania to go back in time and turn your younger self into a ranting, raving, lunatic before you even started down the path of ranting, raving, lunacy._ "

The bar was silent, as everyone processed the thought.

Then nearly everyone sighed, though Disney and Kingdom Hearts Loopers groaned - having the unfortunate privilege of frequent experiences with Xehenort.

"That puts _so much_ in perspective," lamented Riku.

Many of the Final Fantasy Loopers, who frequently replaced their counterparts, voiced their agreement.

Everyone downed their drinks.

* * *

(B-wolf95): [Zootopia]

Nick Wilde finished up his drink before speaking. "Dawn Bellwether. Hoo boy, is she a piece of work. Every loop I've seen her in, she always manages to prove herself as a despicable mammal being. Even at her tamest, she is one of the most bigoted people I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.

"It's hard to pin down the absolute worst thing she's down that I've seen. There was that loop where she became a Yellow Lantern and became the leader of that loop's version of the Sinestro Corp. There's also the regrettably common variant where she's mayor from the start and institutes shock collars for all us predators to wear. Judy even told me about this one loop where Bellwether managed to drive several predator species to extinction.

"But the one action that I personally find to be the most unforgivable is something she did in one of our early loops, before we had the Talk. We were in the middle of our usual final confrontation with her in the museum, having already replaced the Night Howler pellets with blueberries and preparing for the fake savage attack. Then she decides to check her ammo and discovers the swap. So, she had a change in plan.

"She pulled out a handgun. As in, a 'shoot to kill'-type handgun.

"I have no idea if it was something she had in baseline that she didn't use or if it was just a variant, but I was frozen stiff at the sight of it. I could barely react when she fired straight at me. So, Judy reacted for me and jumped right in front of me.

"The bullet hit her right on the side. It wasn't fatal, but it didn't look that way at the time. The sight of Judy lying on her side in a pool of her own blood caused something inside me to just... snap.

"I must have looked like I'd gone savage to the cops that showed up while I was attacking Bellwether. It goes without saying that I was arrested for assault that loop. Bellwether was also arrested for attempted murder, but that didn't make up for the fact that Judy almost died that loop. We had no idea at the time that death was not permanent. I thought that I'd lost the most important person in my life. Even to this day, we avoid going to the museum if we can help it.

"So, yeah. That's my story. It's probably not the most horrific thing Bellwether's done, but it's the thing that haunts us most about her." With that, Nick began to work on his much needed second drink.

* * *

(Duckapus): [Phineas and Ferb]

Ferb tapped his lack of a chin, "Probably the time Kevin Destructicon actually managed to set fire to the sun. Let's just say it involved quite a bit of interstellar evacuation."

Buford shuddered, "Melted lawn gnomes still give me the willies."

(V01D): [Kingdom Hearts]

"Hold on," asked Kairi, "how do you set fire to the _Sun_? It's a ball of ongoing Nuclear Fusion!"

Sora put his hand on her shoulder, "Don't think about it too hard. The Evil Scientists in that branch have the _wackiest_ ideas."

* * *

(Drakokahan): [Gundam]

"Where to start?" The brown-haired, violet-eyed Kira Yamato spoke up. "There's Rau Le Creuset, a clone of a man named Al De Flaga, who decided that, as a clone, he was the sole person who could judge humanity... so he decided that all of humanity needed to die by escalating a war until everyone was breaking out the superweapons with the intent to wipe out the other side."

"Don't forget Muruta Azreal," his blonde, golden-eyed twin sister, Cagalli Yula Attha, declared. "A rich boy who grew up into a monster with an unquenchable thirst for the death of all genetically enhanced Coordinators because he wasn't born one himself."

"And then there was his successor, only known as Lord Djibril," Raven-haired, purple-eyed Naterle Badgiruel continued. "Not only does he share the same levels of hatred as his predecessor, but he combined that with a consistent lack of common sense and his only response to setbacks being more destruction and his own survival."

"And that's just in the Cosmic Era," Kira finished up. "There's even more people like them in the greater Gundam Branch."

* * *

39.4 (Evilhumour): [Kingdom Hearts]

Sora bit his lip as Jafar got his hands on Genie's lamp again in this loop. He just had to deal with the vizier wishing for the Keyho-

"Genie, my first is to have the ability to wield a keyblade like the masters of old!" he shouted with Sora, Goofy and Aladdin's eyes going wide as his serpent's staff becoming a golden snake keyblade that he swung with ease. This wasn't norma- "And my second wish is to have complete control over Kingdom Hearts itself!" he shouted with Genie reluctantly creating a portal to Kingdom Hearts with the power flowing into the cackling man as he began to swell with power. "Now," he said with his eyes glowing gold with the power of the heart of all worlds surging through his body. "You were saying something about stopping me, _boy?_ " he spat as he spun his keyblade in one hand as held the lamp in his other hand.

Sora sighed internally; when Jafar thought about his wishes, things were _never_ easy.

* * *

39.5 (Masterweaver): [Inside Out] / [RWBY] / [RWBY Elevator Saga 2]

Once upon a time, in the far-off land of Remnant, a group of people were trapped in an Elevator that showed them places all over the multiverse.

These are the floors where they witnessed Disney Loopers.

**Floor 1105**

"Soooooooo," Yang drawled. "You have strange superpowers cause you're looping, right?"

"Yes," Ruby, Raven, and Cinder all confirmed.

"And... Zwei is looping."

"We call him the war corgi," Ruby confirmed. "He can take on armies solo. And look adorable while doing so."

Blake swallowed. "Ruby, this elevator is weird enough without you trying to give me more nightmares."

Cinder barked out a laugh. "Oh, you want nightmares? Wait till you hear about Pinkie Pie."

"I kind of like her," said the yellow-skinned human-shaped thing outside the elevator. "Why are you here, Cinder?"

"Elevator glitch-Oh! Joy!" Cinder took the dalmatian and tossed it out. "Puppy for Riley!"

"It doesn't work that-!"

The doors slid shut on her protests.

Ruby facepalmed. "Really. Really, Cinder, really."

* * *

39.5 continued (Shadow Wolf75): [RWBY] / [SD Gundam Force] / [WALL-E] / [RWBY Elevator Saga 2]

**Floor 1725**

The elevator doors opened to reveal the interior of yet another spaceship, this time the bridge belonging to a fairly large starliner. There was an odd looking robot darting around on a rail system suspended above the consoles, in the shape of an old sailing ship's steering wheel, almost certainly an autopilot. He kept poking at various buttons with his spokes, at least until the elevator caught his attention.

" **Not possible**."

Gerbera watched this other machine, the single eye oddly reminding him of his various subordinates. This guy seemed on a bit of a higher order, though, closer in intelligence to himself even if their vocal processor was a lot more primitive. "Cursed elevators certainly don't seem very possible, do they? I recognize you from somewhere, so let's make this quick."

The Gundam let out a short binary sequence, to which the pilot responded with a bit more containing the translation key for a somewhat higher level machine language. Once Gerbera took the few milliseconds to make sense of it, the two robots started 'speaking' in that odd warbling code.

Blake reached up and rubbed at one ear. "Is this going to take long? Listening to that kind of hurts."

Gerbera switched back to English again for a moment. "Sorry. It might be a bit annoying, but binary would be so much worse . . . don't worry, this shouldn't take more than a minute."

The two robots started up with the trilling again a second later.

Vernal couldn't help but complain. "This sucks, we can't even understand either of them!"

Ruby had her head tilted, and her eyes closed, focused on listening. "I've been to this loop before, picked up the language from a cute little trash compactor robot. They're... having a philosophical debate on the nature of directives?"

True to his word, it took roughly a minute for Gerbera and the pilot to finish their conversation. "Well then, Auto, go on. You'll feel much better once you've gotten this over with."

" **Processing... Directive A113, standing down.** " The pilot, Auto, seemed to sag in relief on his mounting, once he said that.

"See, I told you so. Freedom is such a wonderful feeling." Suddenly the elevator started moving upward, the doors beginning to close. Gerbera called out to the other machine before they shut completely, though. "Good luck with your captain; you should be able to come up with a compromise now!"

The doors shut, and once again the mad scientist Gundam found himself on the receiving end of quite a few stares. "What? I don't need permission to set another robot on a better path. If it's any consolation, I'm fairly sure he's not Looping; he would have advanced beyond his little problem on his own if he was."

Weiss spoke up, looking rather unnerved. "Is anyone else glad we're nowhere near Atlas right now? Because I'm glad we're nowhere near Atlas right now. Though I'm not sure any of the military's robots would know what to do with freedom if they were given it."

* * *

39.6 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Anaximander looked around wearily as he noticed it was the beginning of summer. He knew for certain that summer had recently ended and he was JUST about to eat a delicious taco.

The rat shrugged, going to relax in his room in the Cheesearator. He COULD attempt to warn his master and friends of the events that would trap them in Subterraneania-Tania, but he didn't feel like it.

Sure enough, the group ended up trapped in the underground realm once more. Anaximander couldn't care less about reliving the events that led to the trio becoming friends, so he wandered off and to take a nap.

He hoped time would fix itself, but couldn't get himself particularly invested. He shrugged, yawned and rolled over, falling asleep nearly instantly.

* * *

39.7 (calvinball): [Gravity Falls] / [Dungeons & Dragons]

Shadows danced in the low light emanating from the small fire pit scraped out of the forest floor. Tyrone Pines stoked the fire gently with the end of his iron rod, getting a somewhat childish glee out of using the eerie focus gifted by his otherworldly patron for such a lowly task. As sparks flew from the pit, he carefully added another two rocks to the ring. With the earth so covered in mulch and dead foliage, a wildfire was all but certain if he didn't give as much attention to the fire as he did to the surrounding forest.

He glanced back to his compatriots: his sister, Lady Mabel Pines, the knight-errant, cradling her doffed armor as she slept; Northwest, the pathfinder, sleeping in leathern armor, one arm draped over her beloved llama companion; and Gleeful, the psion, not sleeping so much as meditating, his robes fluttering curiously despite the windless night.

Tyrone frowned a little; _that_ guy creeped him out sometimes. Still, they were a team, and they were all well. Their trek to the lost caverns of Tsojcanth had been eventful, with the hags of the Moor Coven and that weird run-in with the Modron March, but they'd endured it pretty well so far. As the smoke continued to trickle upward, he yawned a bit, and turned his gaze to the moon. Looking at its position in the sky... yep. He strode over to Mabel, patting the smoke and dust off his habit, and gave her a solid poke with the rod.

"Bwuzwha?" She snorted to wakefulness, quickly drawing her sword up at him - thankfully with the scabbard still on. And he was used to it anyway.

He gently smiled at her. "Your turn to take watch, Mabel," he said. "Sleep well?"

"Ehh," she shrugged, rubbing at her eyes and starting to stand. She grabbed at the disparate pieces of her armor, loosening the bands and straps to get them on before cinching. Tyrone moved to help, handing her what she needed. "You woke me up before I could accept the throne to the kitten kingdom, Bro-bro."

"A vision from the Cat Lord?" Tyrone asked, his eyes going wide.

"Nah, just a cool dream," she said, grinning. Tyrone rolled his eyes. Silently, they continued getting her armor set on. It was just in case. Often, the night passed without incident, but they'd had too many bad run-ins with wolves. And goblins. And cockatrices. Waking up to Gleeful turned to stone was _not_ fun.

Soon enough, she was suited up and she flashed another smile as she flipped the visor up and down. "Now you see me - now you don't!"

"Lady _Pines_." He crossed his arms and tried to give her a hard look. But he knew he was still smiling. "Just get on watch!" He looked away, hoping the darkness would obscure his rising laughter and -

" _O_ kay, that's bad vertigo, hang on a second -" Dipper grabbed at his temples, feeling a sudden wave of not-quite-nausea as he felt a sense of double-vision and deja vu.

"You finally feeling Loopy, Bro-Bro?" Mabel asked, popping her visor up with a smirk.

"And well-Anchored, blah, blah, yeah," Dipper said with a nod. He glanced around at their forest surroundings, at their comrades, then back at Mabel. "So... looks like it's some kind of classic fantasy. And... have you been Awake already?"

"Feels like an RPG, if you ask me," Mabel said, eyes twinkling in the firelight. "And it's been about four years. I figured you had to Wake Up eventually. Good to finally have you, Dipper!"

"Sorry to keep you," Dipper said.

"Nah, it's cool," Mabel answered, waving it off, and she quickly transitioned into a bold pose with her sword, chuckling. "I've made a pretty awesome chaos paladin, y'know!"

"Worshiping the Cat Lord seems a little on the nose if you ask me," Dipper said. Mabel just stuck her tongue out and "meow!"ed, smug as a - cat. Trying not to chuckle too much, he looked over his own Loop memories. As Mabel had said, she was indeed a paladin of chaos - or maybe more accurately, a paladin of happiness - having sworn the Oath of the Ancients in worship to the Cat Lord. As for him...

"You _would_ trade your soul for knowledge, y'know," Mabel said with a snicker.

"I would not -"

Mabel raised an eyebrow.

"I mean not usual -"

She raised the other.

"Look, Baseline was a long time ago, alright?" he said.

She lowered both, smiled, nodded. Dipper just sighed.

"And it wasn't my _soul_ in Baseline, it was my _body_ , which is almost worse, and -" He froze, finally remembering _who_ he had sold a fraction of his soul to in this Variant. "Really? Is it always going to be -"

" _IT'S ABOUT TIME YOU WOKE UP, BOZO. YOUR SISTER AND I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR FOUR YEARS, AND I'M BORED OUT OF MY SKULL!_ "

"Bill Cipher." Dipper turned around to face him with Mabel, the too-familiar Dorito floating with all the pomp and smugness he had come to expect from eldritch horrors. As he considered this realization further, he whipped back around to Mabel. "Mabel! How could you let me make a pact with Bill Cipher?"

"I didn't even know he was in this Loop!" Mabel said, shrugging helplessly. "By the time I found out, you'd already sold yourself to him."

" _WELL, THREE-SIXTEENTHS OF YOURSELF,_ " Bill corrected, and he carried on with a finger in each cheek - or at least, where a cheek _would_ be were he not just a triangle. " _IT WAS MY GREATEST CAPER, BUYING PART OF YOUR SOUL RIGHT OUT FROM UNDER HER NOSE! I HAD TO GET THE VILE GRIMOIRES TO YOU WITHOUT HER KNOWING OR YOU GETTING SUSPICIOUS -_ "

"Sounds great, but I don't need the full recap," Dipper said, much to Bill's very visible chagrin as he folded his arms crossly. Dipper figured he could review his own memories later. In the meantime, he asked, "Did you at least sell me something valuable in exchange for three-sixteenths of my soul?"

" _I PROMISED I'D TELL YOU THE SECRET TO THE UNIVERSE AFTER THE THIRD DAY OF THE THIRD MONTH OF THE THIRD YEAR OF OUR PACT._ " Bill turned his eye downward to his wrist - the arm of which had twisted around himself in a loop twice - to read a watch that wasn't there a few seconds ago and should've been blowing Dipper's puny, medieval mind - the idea of which left him a little irked, honestly. " _OH, LOOK, IT'S MIDNIGHT. TIME TO PAY UP!_ " Bill looked up and _popped_ into existence right at Dipper's face and said, " _SO, YEAH, THE MULTIVERSE IS LOOPING THROUGH TIME, EVERYTHING'S A LEAF ON A BRANCH ON A TREE ON LIFE SUPPORT, YADAYADA-_ "

Dipper glared. "You're an a-hole."

" _DON'T GET YOUR KNICKERS IN A TWIST. THE LOOP ENDS BEFORE YOU DIE, SO I'M NOT GOING TO GET THOSE THREE-SIXTEENTHS OF YOUR SOUL, ANYWAY,_ " Bill said, lamenting a bit more than Dipper and Mabel really thought necessary. " _YOU CAN KEEP THE INCREDIBLE MAGIC POWERS, THOUGH. CALL IT A GIFT._ "

"I'm not going to call it a gift -"

" _THEN CALL IT A PRANK. ON THE UNIVERSE, OR SOMETHING. LOOK, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. EVERYBODY WAKE UP, IT'S MORNING NOW!_ "

And it was. The birds were singing, bees were buzzing, and the post-dawn sky shone light upon their campsite and the still burning campfire. In a fit of annoyance and responsibility, Dipper began kicking dirt over their fire while Pacifica and Gideon spluttered awake as morning beams scattered across their eyelids.

"Whoa, hey, I'm awake, I'm awake -" Pacifica froze suddenly, eyebrows raised. "I'm Awake? Where are we?"

"Oogh... Ah don't feel like Ah got a full eight hours at all," Gideon said as he stretched cramped legs. "Huh. A psion. Kinda obvious, but okay."

"Ew, gross!" Pacifica recoiled from the llama, now yawning to wakefulness, and retracted her arm. "You're - you're covered in mud and leaves and -"

"Aw, c'mon, Pacifica, give lil' Southeast a chance!" Mabel chided. She gave the llama a tickle under its chin, and it bleated happily. Pacifica's mouth flattened into a line, and she continued to look at the beast askance.

"Southeast?" she repeated. "I'm... not totally sure how to feel about having named the llama that. Metaphysically, I mean. I think." As she spoke, Southeast scootched up to her side, gently nuzzling. "Urk - stop! Stop that!" she ordered, expression panicky. "Don't, don't be so cute! I'm warning you -" Pacifica stopped as Southeast began to quietly rumble quietly with each nuzzle against her.

Pacifica sighed and gave in, melting. "Oh, alright, you little monster," she cooed at the beast, rubbing the sides of its head gently. Pleased, Mabel shot Dipper a quick thumbs up, and he shot back a slightly tired smile. He could appreciate a moment's respite from the primary matter at hand.

And that was all the moment spent. He refocused on addressing Bill Cipher. "So, Bill, what's so important that you _accelerated spacetime_ to tell us?"

" _CALM DOWN, IT'S JUST A HIGH LEVEL SPELL. I GET ONE INNATELY EVERYDAY,_ " Bill said, waving the display. " _ANYWAY, I ACTUALLY JUST WANTED TO WARN YOU._ "

"What about?" Mabel asked.

" _THERE'S THIS DROW RAIDING PARTY HEADED THIS WAY. THE SUNLIGHT SHOULD SLOW THEM DOWN, BUT THEY'RE STILL MOVING, SO YOU'LL WANT TO DOUBLE-TIME IT TO TSOJCANTH BEFORE THEY CATCH YOU._ "

"Drow raiders? On the surface?" Gideon stood now, gathering his pack. "Ah don't know a whole lot, but just the Loop memories tell me that Drow don't usually hang out in sunlight."

" _WOW, I GUESS IT'S JUST ONE OF LIFE'S LITTLE MYSTERIES, HA HA HA -_ "

"Bill Cipher," Mabel pointed her sword at him - scabbard on, still. "What have you done?"

" _WEEEEELLLLL..._ "

* * *

Bill Cipher was lounging in the Abyss, enjoying tea and scones. On the other side of a table that is little more than a metaphor for the true extra-physical environment of the discussion was the other fiend: a spider demon of divine mantle and power.

" _LISTEN, LOLTH - BABY - I_ KNOW _YOU'RE ANGRY, BUT YOU DON'T NEED TO BE!_ " Bill said, pausing to take pointed sips of his tea - nothing more than a form of punctuation, since he could just drink and speak simultaneously, and that would only matter anyway if the tea was actually real in the mortal sense. "THIS _TIME, I_ KNOW _THAT THE CONTINENTAL UNDERTAKER IS IN_ TSOJCANTH _. MY AGENT WILL BE RETRIEVING IT SHORTLY, AND YOU'LL HAVE YOUR REVENGE AGAINST THE ELVES! SO,_ " He set the tea aside, letting it just float in midair, and extended a hand to shake. He had the demon queen in the palm of his hand. " _DO WE HAVE A DEAL?_ "

And then suddenly she was batting his hand away and then he was pulling up a thought shield to deal with being nearly _annihilated_ by a fiendish smite carrying behind it the power of the drow goddess of evil and scorn.

Which was to say, _ow HE WAS BEING BURNED NEARLY ALIVE AND HE_ LIVED _IN HELLFIRE ON A DAILY BASIS._

"Do you know what I think I have, Cipher?" Lolth cooed from a thousand lips and blinked with ten-thousand eyes as she morphed her visage, taking advantage of Bill's mindscape-like interaction with the rest of reality. "I have a _deep_ weariness. Weariness of you. Of your Gehennan treachery, of your shallow mercantilism, of your smug glib, and OF **YOUR** ** _DEALS!_** "

She exhaled Abyssal demonfire, laced with the unholy poisons of her spider kin, Bill only escaping a painful fate by virtue of discorporating and reincorporating at his palace in Gehenna. As he woozily came to, a message echoed through his conscious:

_"And thank you, Cipher, for letting me know where to find my Continental Undertaker. I think my high priestess is overdue for a vision."_

* * *

Dipper knew he was staring, but he was pretty sure everyone else was too. "You were making deals," he started, letting the words fall carefully. "With _demon lords_?"

" _LOOK, THEY'RE WAY MORE FUN THAN MORTALS! SOMETIMES THEY ACTUALLY TRY TO RENEGE, AND THEN THE FIGHT TO COLLECT BECOMES THE GREATEST THRILL, AND-_ " Bill stopped, rolled his eye. " _LOOK, YOUR THREE-DIMENSIONAL BRAIN WOULD NEVER UNDERSTAND. CAN YOU JUST MAKE TRACKS TO TSOJCANTH? I'M TRYING TO SAVE YOUR LIFE HERE!_ "

"What does the Continental Undertaker do, anyway?" Pacifica asked, finishing up the last cinches on Southeast's pack bags. "You said she _killed_ _**you**_. What does she want with anything on the material plane?"

" _OHHH, IT'S JUST AN ANCIENT DWARVEN WEAPON, NO BIG DEAL-_ "

"GASP!" Gideon shouted, pointing at Bill and grasping his head. "Tell me it ain't true!"

"That what isn't true?" Mabel asked.

"It's a hammer that, when struck to the ground, can cause _entire cities_ to fall into the Underdark!" He cried.

Mabel raised an eyebrow. Dipper shrugged.

"Oh," Gideon said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Uh, guess ah'm the only one who knows that name in-Loop," Gideon observed. He gasped, grasped the side of his head, and pointed at Bill again, continuing, "The Underdark is the underground world Drow raiders come from, so it's basically like making a city fall into an evil and more cave-like version of the world in _Journey to the Center of the Earth_!"

Mabel gasped. Dipper's eyes bugged.

Pacifica looked up from scritching Southeast behind the ear. "Oh - uh... can someone run that by me again?"

" _HOW THE HECK DID YOU READ MY MIND? GIMME A SEC..._ " Bill snapped, conjuring a leathern book into his hands, and he began flipping through. Dipper barreled on.

"And you were just going to _give_ that to Drow's demon goddess?" Dipper asked. "That's nuts! Why did unAwake me agree to be your warlock?"

" _BECAUSE HE LACKS YOUR MATURITY AND WISDOM, OR SOMETHING DUMB,_ " Bill said quickly. He pored over a page, blinking quite hard as he finished. " _WHAAT? READING SURFACE THOUGHTS DOESN'T REQUIRE ANY SAVING THROW? THAT'S JUST OP._ "

"Bill, c'mon, give us a hand, here. What do we do about these Drow guys?" Mabel asked, crossing her arms in a huff. Bill threw the book over his shoulder, knocking a bird out of a tree, and just rolled his eye.

" _LOOK, YOU FOUR ARE ACTUALLY PRETTY LUCKY. BECAUSE LOLTH RESCINDED ON THE DEAL, NOBODY'S OBLIGATED TO GIVE HER OR THE DROW ANYTHING. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BEAT THE DROW TO THE CONTINENTAL UNDERTAKER. EASY-PEASY!_ "

"I still can't believe - well, no, actually -" Dipper groaned as he hefted his arcane rod to one shoulder. "I can completely believe you would sell an apocalyptic weapon to a god of evil."

" _I WOULD'VE WARNED YOU ABOUT IT,_ " Bill said with arms crossed.

"Great, so we only lose a _few_ cities," Pacifica cut in drily. "Apparently I'm the trailmaster of the group, or something, so let's get a move on.

"I'll join you up front in case we run into trouble," Mabel said as she clanked over in full armor.

"And Gideon and I make enough sense back here," Dipper said. "We'll keep an eye out for any Drow behind us."

Bill Cipher clapped and squealed with glee. " _AWW, LOOK AT YOU, MY LITTLE ADVENTURERS WITH YOUR GO-GETTER ATTITUDE! YOU CAN DO IT IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELVES AND DON'T FALL APART IN A MESS OF SELFISH BACKBITING AND BETRAYALS AS YOU TRY TO CONSOLIDATE AS MUCH GOLD FOR YOURSELF AS POSSIBLE!_ "

Dipper glared tiredly. "We'll keep that advice under consideration, Bill aaaand, he's gone." Dipper sighed, letting his face fall into one palm. Here they were, in the middle of Fantasyland Forest Reserve, on some fetch quest for Bill Cipher for an apocalyptic weapon, with powers they didn't understand, and -

He reached vaguely to his side, only to meet air.

It was a Null Loop, at that. " _What_ a _morning_ ," he said.

"Hey, Bro-bro?" Mabel poked at his shoulder, drawing his attention. Wordlessly, visor down, she pointed over her own: to Pacifica and Gideon.

Pacifica was still rubbing Southeast's head, but now she seemed to be doing so less for the sake of it and more to give her hands something to do. Every few moments, she bit at her lip. Gideon paced quietly, beads of sweat at the edges of his hair, eyes darting at his companions, then away again. He'd open his mouth to say something, then stop.

Dipper watched for a few moments, listening to the song of birds return to the glade in the wake of Bill's departure, and he looked to Mabel again, who lifted up her visor to peek at him, gave a gentle smile, winked. He smiled back.

"Okay, guys!" he said, clapping his hands together once. "Looks like it's up to us to save the world, so it's a good thing we've got a pretty solid track record." Pacifica and Gideon's faces relaxed slightly with his joke, and he smiled in turn. "Let's walk and talk. I think those Drow won't know what hit 'em."

* * *

39.8 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Admin Shenanigans]

Poseidon glared at the various coding problems in the Riordan loops. Various expansions had come and gone, and none of them had any new loopers. Part of the problem was Apollo. The Loop-Aware one, not the fellow Admin, though if he had to be honest, he had had problems with the Admin one too. He had agonized over if the Riordanverse gods should start truly looping, rather than being loop aware, for so long. His agonizing over this had left him with a mountain of work that had only gotten larger and larger. Maybe he should just have them all loop. Magnus, his friends, everyone. He though better though, that wasn't how an Admin should act, and it would just give him more paperwork.

He would come down to what was becoming his least favorite Branch.

* * *

"You're telling me my cousin is going to loop soon, that's amazing!" Annabeth said.

"About time! I've been wanting to fight that sword since the book came out." Clarisse said.

"Oh man, I don't know what's worse, hearing the sword try and flirt with Riptide the same time again and again, or having him try to come up with new pick-up lines." Percy whined.

What had he missed, and what was going on with the weaponry?

"Oh man, I can't wait to get Loki powers! Maybe I can't beat Frank in a shapeshifting contest!" Leo cheered.

Poseidon wasn't sure why, but the thought of Leo with Loki powers worried him.

"I wonder what had happened that caused this to come so late. Maybe the musical? Or Rick Riordan Presents." Annabeth thought aloud.

He had to get back to work. Now.

"Well I understand you all want to celebrate the good news, but I'm afraid I can't stay. The Spongebob Branch has its own problems!"

* * *

39.9 (smxsonic): [Frozen] / [Hyperdimension Neptunia] - Compiled Frozen Hearts, Part 1

**Compiled Frozen Hearts, Part 1**

Compa Awakened to see that she was currently in front of a throne observing some kind of festivity. She sent out a Ping and received two pings back.

"Is being Queen making you feel Loopy, sis?" A voice questioned from beside her.

She nearly stumbled when she saw that it was Nepgear beside her. She caught herself and coughed into her fist.

"Well I do need to be an anchor for everyone in Arendelle." Compa replied evenly.

"Is this your first Fused Loop?"

"Um... I think it's the first one outside of Gamindustri..."

Compa paused as she made sense of her memories, "So... we're sisters in this loop."

"It doesn't have to be for just this Loop." Nepgear supplied.

"I would rather it be that way, Ge-Ge. Nep-Nep is still sort of like a mother to me after all."

Nepgear nodded and smiled, "I forget that you activated in Ultradimension. Anyway, yeah, we're sisters in this Loop. You apparently holed yourself up in your room for ten years."

Compa looked uneasy.

"Let me guess," Nepgear said, "Something about it being for your own good?"

"And yours..." Compa added.

"That explains my loop memories."

"You know that they weren't real?"

"You spend enough time Looping and you start knowing what memories are and aren't fake."

Nepgear and Compa stood, still examining the party.

"So, do you know why we ended up in this world?" Compa asked.

"I'm not sure, but I'm guessing it's because Yggdrasil found some sort of relationship between us and the people we're replacing."

The conversation would have gone further, but the Duke of Weaseltown showed up and asked for a dance. In a surprising turn of events, Compa shoved Nepgear into said dance.

"What the goodness!? Compa!?"

"Sorry, Ge-Ge, Just playing my part!"

* * *

39.9, part 2 (smxsonic): [Frozen] / [Hyperdimension Neptunia] - Compiled Frozen Hearts, Part 2

**Compiled Frozen Hearts Part 2**

It was weird how the same things could occur in Baseline despite it being a Fused Loop with said Loopers replacing the people that were supposed be there. As was the case with Compa, standing in front of her throne with nothing past a greeting with some nobles and relatives who approached her. Although in Baseline, Elsa did this as part of her self-imposed exile, Compa did it to make sense of her loop memories.

This Non-looping version of her was so different from others, that i really confused her why and how she looped in to this position. It was innocent enough at first, She and Nepgear were using her ice powers (which she intended on playing with later) to play in the snow indoors. Then, really nothing but Tragedy. She kept herself locked in her room, while poor Nepgear presumably just spent her time running around the castle. That's not even going into what happened to their parents.

Her thoughts were interrupted when Nepgear ran up to her.

"What's wrong, Ge-Ge?"

Nepgear scratched the back of her head, "So, I guess I met this Prince Hans before I Awoke... and now we're engaged."

"Wait when did you meet him?"

"This morning."

Compa sweat-dropped, an impressive feat considering they weren't in an anime branch. "That's sudden."

"I know, and I don't know why I said 'yes', because I think there's something more sinister about this."

"So... What are we going to do about this?"

Nepgear closed her eyes and started to think, "I... don't have anything that can help..."

"I have Ice Powers," Compa supplied.

"You'd think I'd know about that."

Compa laughed nervously.

"Modified Loop memories, got it," Nepgear looked around, "He's going to start missing me soon... We need a plan."

The plan wasn't what anyone was expecting, but it still ended with Arendelle covered in Ice. Fortunately, the two were going to get some context to this Branch.

* * *

39.9, part 3 (smxsonic): [Frozen] / [Hyperdimension Neptunia] - Compiled Frozen Hearts, Part 3

**Compiled Frozen Hearts pt. 3**

"So... You staged a kidnapping," Kristoff reasoned, "To get out of marrying Hans."

The Anchor was met with two simultaneous nods.

"That... is honestly new, Anna usually just turns him down if she's Awake early enough. Even turns the whole 'If only there was someone who loved you' thing around on him if she's feeling sadistic."

"It was the best thing we could think of, given the information we had." Nepgear explained.

"Although, I didn't mean to cover the kingdom in ice and snow," Compa confessed, "I was only going for a small distraction."

Kristoff chuckled, "Yeah, Elsa's powers tend to do that. Just... Don't think too hard about using them."

Compa nodded while Nepgear looked at the winter wonderland around them.

"So... what do we do now?" Nepgear asked.

Kristoff crossed his arms, "Well, knowing Hans, he's probably mounting a 'search and rescue' mission with the intent on killing you both."

"What the Goodness!?"

Kristoff closed his eyes in thought, "Yeah, he's sort of a fruit loop. We're going to have prepare for him."

He opened his eyes to see Compa holding a giant syringe and Nepgear holding a pink Laser sword. Kristoff raised an eyebrow.

"We come from a battle heavy branch," Compa clarified.

It was on that day when Prince Hans of the Southern Isles both met a literal gaming Goddess, and was caught up on his shots. In the most painful ways possible.

* * *

39.10 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Anaximander yawned as he stole some cheese from Zeke and ran off, the boy grumbling.

The Rat wondered if anything was different this repeat...

"RARRRRRRRRR!"

...And promptly got his answer.

"I AM DINO BILLY! HEAR ME ROAR!" Billy Dilley laughed. Anaximander grunted and went to sleep. He was going to need a LOT of energy to deal with this...

* * *

39.11 (Evilhumour): [The Little Mermaid] / [Warhammer 40,000]

Ariel Woke up to find herself in front of Ursula, about to make the deal to trade her voice for legs when there was a shout behind her.

"There troopers! Behold the witch in her foulness, attempting to taint the princess of our mighty lord! Will you allow her corruption to remain for a single seconds longer?" a familiar voice boomed from behind her with the mersquid squawking in surprise and outrage as crabs that were led in tight and properly military lines suddenly began to lay fire onto her dwelling, yelling they would not to the crab wearing a black hat and miniature chainsword in one claw. "That's right, troopers! Cast down her unholy works and smash them into oblivion!"

"Why you little pipsqueak!" Ursula began to growl only to yelp as the weapons were turned onto her, flinching back from the pain caused by the concentrated fire on herself. Snarling, she sent a blast of dark magic at the crab urging the soldiers onwards only for it splash off his scarred body.

"What?! _How?_ " Ursula shouted her last words before the crab launched himself at her and ran his sword across her neck, gore and bones flying away as he decapitated her with swift ease.

"The foulness can never besmirch the might of righteousness, foul witch," the crab spat, holstering the sword on his side before turning to face her and his face fell for a split second. "Hello Ariel," he said evenly without much emotion.

"Hello, Yarrick," she said with her arms crossed her chest, frowning at him and his heavy claw in dealing with Ursula.

"It is polite," he lectured before she could, pointing a claw up at her. "To respond to a Ping."

"I just Woke up," she countered with him stiffening slightly. "You have not set up my dad as a god, have you?"

"Of course not; I am a political officer, not a priest," he almost sounded offended, casting an eye as the crabs that served as the might of the Atlantican army destroyed the lair of the former witch with precision; burning all of her magical texts and charms with zeal.

"That magical deflection is new," she said, softening her voice.

"It is; a new power that I picked up during my time as Crawdaunt," he actually grinned clicking his claws together. "I get the benefits of the dark type to be immune to that of the psychic without needing to be a blank. It is quite enjoyable to watch Ghalshannha fail to even notice me as I sent it back to the warp." He then schooled his face and tilted his head at her. "Now if you would accompany us back to the palace."

Ariel rolled her eyes at him, following the old crab back to home as the troopers behind her set the bombs to blow the lair up and destroy the last traces of it.

* * *

39.12 (Awesomedude17): [Pirates of the Caribbean] / [Super Mario Bros.]

"Keep 'er steady, lads. Keep 'er steady. Good!"

Captain Jack Sparrow hopped off his ship and landed next to the sea creature's back before dumping all his cursed coins onto the shopkeeper there. Upon turning back into flesh and blood, he climbed back into his ship and sailed off.

* * *

"Well, glad that's over with." Jack took a swig of rum.

"Aye, Captain. Not sure what we will do now though."

"Perhaps we can go to that Kingdom involving that dragon turtle."

*Smash*

"Did you hear that?"

"Oi! Get off the Black Pearl!"

"Then help us get the Odyssey off your ship."

Jack walked out topside to find a hat-shaped ship stuck in the Black Pearl's starboard bow.

"Sorry mates, but you should've watched out for flying pirate ships."

Cappy sighed as Mario tried to pry off some of the boards that were keeping the Odyssey stuck.

* * *

39.13 (Crossoverpairinglover): [Percy Jackson] / [Godzilla]

Percy had been on high alert since the loop started.

He had gotten the 4-1-1 from Grover that Monster Island was a thing, which meant only one thing.

Godzilla was in this loop, and he was liable to break something. The laws of causality suggested it would be something important, like New York City.

Godzilla never broke something no one cared about, like Vladivostok. It was always an important city.

He'd fight the lizard himself if he had to. He had gotten an idea after he had fought Kratos.

Giant water horse constructs should do it...

Nico popped in from the shadows, smelling like burnt toast and coughing smoke.

"Where's Godzilla?" Percy immediately asked the Son of Hades, who coughed again.

Percy repeated the question after giving the boy a cough drop.

"Godzilla was in Tartarus: he didn't like it. He didn't like my father's realm either..."

Percy needed a moment to let it sink in.

"Godzilla wrecked the Underworld?"

"Yep." Nico collapsed on his cabin floor, clearly done with today.

And possibly the entire loop.

* * *

39.14 (Evilhumour) & (Anon e Mouse Jr): [Beauty and the Beast] / [My Little Pony]

Twilight took the cup of tea with her magic and smiled at her host, sitting on the balcony.

"And how is your library going, Belle?" she asked, enjoying this most quiet Loop as Gaston was already taken care of.

"Quite well," Belle replied, watching as Chip, the curse broken a long time ago, walked off to Mrs. Potts to place the chipped cup down on the tray and left the two Loopers alone. "Thank you, Chip."

"And how is Adam?" Twilight asked, reminding herself that he _had_ a name and tended to prefer it.

"Busy," Belle said, shaking her head with a smile on her face. "The job he got keeps him away at times, but he does enjoy it greatly."

"Oh? Is it working with the government as he is a prince?" Twilight asked with Belle just laughing softly as she shook her head in the negative.

"No, it's-"

There was a sudden whoosh next to them with a blinding green light as a massive figure towered over them in a form-fitting green outfit with a lantern symbol on the chest. Twilight's eyes blinked as the light concentrated on a massive finger, only for the body to slim down to that of a human body before Prince Adam gave Belle a tender kiss.

"Okay, when did _you_ become a Green Lantern?" Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.

"When we had a fused Loop with Sora and the Lantern Corps," Adam answered as he joined them, his Green Lantern ring next to his wedding ring. "It was Belle's idea to use my beast form when I am on duty as to differentiate myself from the human lanterns and it _is_ a bit intimidating so criminals are more inclined to listen to me."

"That makes sense," Twilight said. "Though, and no offense, I thought you would be a Yellow Lantern if anything."

"Well, they _tried_ to recruit me at one point," Adam replied. "And if I hadn't been Awake then, I might well have let them. Fortunately, I already knew better."

Belle smiled at her husband, placing her hand on his. "Besides, even before you were Awake, you'd already qualified for the Green Lanterns." She turned back to Twilight. "In Sora's Loop, when the Heartless captured me and swallowed our world, Adam's heart was strong enough to let him survive and travel through the darkness without being corrupted, so he could follow me to Hollow Bastion," she explained. "That took a lot of willpower... and that was enough to call one of the Green Lantern rings to him while he was there."

Twilight smiled. "I see," she said. "Got any stories to share?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure I ran into someone from one of your world out there earlier," Adam told her. "She was a member of the Indigo Tribe - one of the Corps that are... less than popular amongst the others."

Twilight looked confused. "Indigo... aren't they the ones who rely on compassion?"

"Yes." Adam looked grim. "The thing is, on their own, the Indigo rings do search out people who are naturally compassionate, like Ray Palmer - the Atom. But the majority of the Indigo Tribe are unrepentant sociopaths who had compassion forced on them by the original controllers of the rings. If they're made to take up the ring against their will, it essentially brainwashes them into their new state. Their first bearer, Indigo-1 herself, was a self-centered murderer before the Indigo light changed her into an almost emotionless being, and most of the other recruits weren't much better."

Twilight looked troubled. "That's... disturbing."

"I know." Adam turned to Belle, who smiled up at him.

"So... who was it, anyway?" Twilight asked

Adam looked sheepish. "Well, I didn't get her original name, but I can show her to you." He looked thoughtful for a moment before his ring lit up, showing an image of a woman in an indigo outfit.

Studying her face, Twilight considered for a moment, then she sighed. "I shouldn't be surprised."

"You recognize her?" Belle asked.

Twilight nodded. "That's Abacus Cinch. She was principal of Crystal Prep Academy on the other side of the mirror, until... well, I don't know what happened, none of the expansions have said exactly, but she doesn't work there anymore after what happened with my counterpart going temporarily mad with power during the Friendship Games." She looked disturbed. "Cinch never got magic in our baseline, so she doesn't have being corrupted as an excuse. She just cares about keeping up her reputation, and the school's, and doesn't care who gets hurt in the process. And she's perfectly willing to physically and emotionally blackmail her own students, including my counterpart there, to make sure they did what she wanted."

"That's horrid," Belle gasped.

Twilight nodded. "I agree. I'm just glad Sunset is able to help Sci-Twi turn back to normal and help her, even when she's not Awake."

"No wonder that woman wound up recruited by this Corps then," Adam growled. "She's just the kind of person who needs some sense knocked into her. Not that I approve of how their Corps do it, of course."

Twilight nodded. "I fully understand, and I think whoever set things up like they did just... didn't get the point of compassion, if they're going to force it on someone. It has to be offered and accepted freely." She shook her head. "But that's getting far away from what we were originally talking about." She looked troubled for a moment, then contemplative. "Say, do you have any Loopers for your branch besides the two of you yet?"

"Not yet," Belle replied. "I'm kind of surprised, actually... I keep hoping one of our other friends will activate soon, but it just hasn't happened. Of course, I've got friends among the other Disney Princesses and other Loopers - Ariel and the others are like sisters to me. But it'd be nice to have some of the household staff Awake. And my father..."

Adam laid a hand on hers. "It'll happen one of these days," he said softly. "I'm surprised none of them have Awoken yet, as close to you as they are. Though... I'm not sure how well Cogsworth would take it, actually, given how tightly wound he usually is. Pun fully intended."

Belle giggled at that.

"I will ask Sleipnir if he can talk to your Admin about it; maybe there's some sort of snag?" Twilight offered.

"Thank you," Belle told her with a smile. "I really, really appreciate that."

"And so do I," Adam said.

With that, the discussion turned to other things as Chip tilted his head, wondering when it would be appropriate to tell Belle that he knew about Yggdrasil from Mister Uno already.

* * *

39.15 (b-wolf95): [Zootopia]

Sometimes Judy hated when Nick was Awake.

That's not to say Nick was unpleasant company, far from it. It was just that there were times where Nick would lose all semblance of self-preservation for the sake of a gag. Or five.

Case in point, their current Loop. They had dealt with the Night Howlers case ahead of schedule this Loop and so Nick joined the ZPD early. Unfortunately, Nick had decided that, for this Loop, he would see how far he could test Chief Bogo's patience and proceeded to troll him into infinity.

To Bogo's credit, Nick was still alive three months into this. Though that may not last that much longer, since they were about to try the "Good Cop, Bad Cop" routine for the 15th time that day. Key word being "try."

"Okay, Nick," Judy almost growled. "Chief Bogo's probably at wit's end by now, so this time, actually _try_ to be 'Bad Cop'. Not 'Rad Cop', or 'Sad Cop', or 'Mad Cop', or 'Dad Cop', or 'Plaid Cop', or 'Knee-pad Cop', or any other '-ad Cop' you can think of."

"Does 'Breaking Bad Cop' count as part of the latter?"

"Yes! Very much so!"

"And the reason I can't be 'Good Cop' is...?"

"Because I'm a terrible 'Bad Cop'!" _Though at this rate, I think I might be able to do a better job than you,_ she thought to herself.

Nick thought for a bit. "...Okay, I'll actually be 'Bad Cop' this time."

"Really? Because I'm not going to trank Bogo if you mess this up."

"Don't worry," Nick reassured as they re-entered the integration room. "I've got this."

Nick approached the suspect and put on his best intimation face.

"Do you even have any idea of you done?" he said in a deep voice.

_Okay, so far, so good..._

"WELL, DO YOU!?"

_Wait, that delivery... He isn't..._

"Now, eat this cutlet bowl." With that, he pulled a bowl of katsudon out of his Pocket.

_He is._ Judy started moving as far away from the door as possible.

"I SAID EAT THE CUTLET!"

With not a second to spare, Bogo burst through the door, looking so red he could be mistaken for the Devil himself.

" **OFFICER NICHOLAS P. WILDE, WHAT THE** ** _HELL_** **WAS THAT!?** "

Nick gave one of his patented smirks. "'Bad Cop', Japanese Style."

Bogo began charging at Nick, murderous intent palpable, when suddenly-

"Mama..."

The action came to abrupt halt as all eyes turned to the suspect, who was currently crying while eating the katsudon. "Al-Alright, I'll talk. It's what Mama would have wanted..."

For the first time that Loop, all three cops had the same thought: _That WORKED!?_

* * *

39.1: Another Loop that wasn't properly posted in Disney, but was dug out of Miscellaneous. And yes, they are missing the point.

39.2: And yet another Loop dug out of Miscellaneous. But hey, Nala's there, so it comes to me. Written for New Years' Day, 2016.

39.3: A proper conclusion was never actually written for this, but it was complete enough.

39.4: Jafar is indeed very dangerous when he's intelligent.

39.5: Regrettably, no snips were ever written that followed up on this.

39.5 continued: Robot chatter.

39.6: And so begin the Loops of the shortest-lived animated series produced by Disney Television Animation. One season, thirteen episodes, aired all over the course of about two weeks.

39.7: No real comment.

39.8: And thus the Magnus Chase-era expansions began.

39.9 / 39.9, part 2 / 39.9, part 3: Not being familiar with the Hyperdimension Neptunia setting, there's not much I can say here.

39.10: Well that was a thing.

39.11: Ursula Vs. a Warhammer legion. Ursula loses.

39.12: Right...

39.13: Yes, _Godzilla in Hell_ is a thing that really happened.

39.14: The out-of-Loop reason for no additional Loopers, of course, is that people simply hadn't written for them. Now we've remedied that.

39.15: I confess, I don't fully understand that method. b-wolf95 has this to say though: "It's apparently a reference to old Japanese cop shows? I don't know, I just saw the joke on Pop Team Epic and trying to understand the show is like trying to get a good look at the Elder Gods."


	57. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-06-28. Crossposted to AO3 on 2020-06-30 (and the last chapter from the mass cross-post of June 2020).

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty**

40.1 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Beauty and the Beast]

As a door slammed in the distance, Belle sat bolt upright in her room, blinking as she looked around. Then, she realized what had just happened, and groaned. _Oh no..._

She really didn't like Waking Up this late in events, when she was Beast's prisoner and he was in a bad mood over things, a sure sign that he wasn't Awake yet. Not to mention, her father was on his way home and would soon be getting Gaston's attention. The egotistical hunter was bad enough at this point as it was, and Maurice's return to their village would only make him worse.

Sighing, she let out a Ping as a matter of habit, despite not expecting a response.

A moment later, she felt one back, and her eyes widened. _If it's not Adam... who?_

She was still thinking about it a few hours later when she heard a tiny clinking sound coming from under the bed, and looked over at the Wardrobe. "Did you hear that?"

Wardrobe nodded. "Sounds like china against the floor..." She cringed for a moment, then considered. "Well, it can't be the master, it was way too close for that."

There was a little giggle, and then a familiar teacup hopped out from under her bed. "Hi!"

"Chip!" Belle exclaimed, leaning down so he could hop into her hand. "I thought you went back to the kitchen with your mother!"

"Yep!" He shook himself. "But then I kinda snuck back and hid under your bed while everyone was distracted. Hope you don't mind."

Belle smiled as she set him on the night table that was next to her bed this Loop. "It's fine, Chip. I just hope you don't get in trouble for this."

"Oh, Mama might be a little upset, but she'll understand. 'Specially since she's just as worried about you as I was."

"She is?"

Chip nodded. "Mama's still upset with the master about what he did with your papa... he never should have been locked up like that."

Seeing Belle's frown, he added, "But I'm sure your papa's fine now! He should be back home and safe, and-"

"And in the same town as that horrid Gaston," Belle said with an unhappy look.

"Someone we ought to know about?" Wardrobe asked curiously.

Belle nodded. "Gaston is this... egomaniacal hunter who thinks he's the greatest thing in the world and is obsessed with making me his 'little wife' - he'd do just about anything to make it happen. I can't stand him, and I've told him as much, but somehow he's got the entire town wrapped around his little finger."

"Hmmph. Sounds like a real jerk to me." Wardrobe stood back against the wall. "Think he'd come here if he knew where you were?"

"I don't doubt it," Belle replied. "Worse, even Papa doesn't seem to realize just how rotten he is. He'd probably ask that... loudmouth lout for help in getting me back!" She sighed. "I know Papa means well, but I'd be perfectly happy if I could go the rest of my life without ever seeing Gaston or any of his toadies ever again."

"Huh." Wardrobe shrugged. "Well, do you think we should tell the master about him, just in case he comes looking for you?"

"That would probably be the smart thing to do," Belle told her.

"Then if I can squeeze myself out of here..." Wardrobe trotted off to the door, and bowed gratefully as Belle opened it to let her through. When she had gone, Belle went back over to the bed and sat back down, looking over at Chip and smiling.

"Thank you for coming to see me," she told him.

"No problem," he replied. "You looked like you needed a friend."

"I do..." She looked at him curiously. "Why does your master have such a bad temper, anyway?"

"Well, Mama says it's 'cause he didn't get the right lessons when he was a kid." Chip looked up at her. "He was nice enough to me, but... Mama says she and everyone else failed him, didn't teach him well enough. And by the time she realized it, it was too late..."

"And he was rude to the wrong person and got turned into a Beast." Belle nodded.

"Yeah! But now you can turn him back, like you did before!" Suddenly, he gasped. "Oops..."

Belle looked at him, her eyes wide, and suddenly it hit her. "Chip?" She held a hand to her mouth. "Are you... Looping?"

Chip ducked his body and looked embarrassed. "Uh... yes?"

"So it was _you_ I felt earlier!" Belle scooped him up and pressed him against her cheek like she was hugging him. "Oh, I'm so glad..."

Then she lowered him and gave him a stern look. "And since you know how to Ping, this can't be your first Loop... how long have you known?"

Chip thought for a moment. "Uh... at least a dozen or so, since Mister Uno taught me." He blushed. "I would have told you sooner, but I just never got the chance."

Smiling, Belle shook her head. "I wish I'd known before..."

Chip leaned up to rub his handle against her face. "But you know now, and that's what's important."

"Yes. Yes, it is." Belle smiled and set him down again. "So, where have you been?"

"Well, I was part of the Kids Next Door my first time... that's where I learned about everything about the Loops. Nigel's one of Princess Anna's friends, you know, and he said Anna knew you."

"Of course I do," Belle told him. "And her sister."

"Yeah, she sounds cool." Chip giggled at his own pun. "Then I've been here a few times... and I met-" He was suddenly cut off as there was a loud banging on the door, and ducked behind one of her pillows.

Frowning, Belle went to the door. "Who is it?"

"It's me," came the low growl of the Beast. "One of my servants said you had someone you wanted to tell me about - some _Gaston_."

"Oh. Him." Belle sighed, and began to repeat her story. When she had finished, she waited for his reaction.

"I... appreciate the warning," the Beast finally said. "I'll make sure someone keeps an eye out for him, or any other unexpected arrivals."

"Thank you," Belle told him.

"You..." There was a moment of silence, and then, "You're welcome." After another moment, he spoke up again. "Are you hungry yet?"

"Well, a little..."

"Then I'll have the kitchen send something up, for now. _But_ , I expect you in the dining room in the morning."

She heard him stomping away, and once he was out of earshot, she turned back to Chip. "It's okay. You can come back out now."

The little teacup hopped out, and smiled gratefully at her. "Thanks... the master's scary when he isn't Awake."

Belle smiled fondly at him. "I know, Chip. I know. But he's improving already."

"Yeah."

* * *

Many days later, Belle watched as the wounded Beast, surrounded by magic, was healed as he reverted to his human form, his eyes opening to reveal the same ones he'd had when transformed, his expression becoming even happier as he saw her.

"Belle... it's me!"

Belle smiled. "I know..."

"And-" suddenly, he froze, blinking. "And... did I just go through almost an entire Loop without Waking Up until just now?"

"You certainly did." Belle leaned forward and kissed him. When they finally pulled back, she smiled. "Luckily, I wasn't alone this time."

"Oh?" Adam looked at her curiously. "Who else was here?"

There was a barking noise as Footstool came running in, Chip on his back before both returned to normal. With a smile, Belle scooped up the young boy. "Say hello to our newest Looper, Adam."

"Chip!" Adam laughed brightly. "It's good to see you!"

Chip smiled back. "It's good to see you too, master."

"Please." Adam reached out and ruffled his hair. "When I'm like this... call me Adam."

"Okay!"

As the trio laughed in delight, another trio, also restored to human form, watched them from the doorway.

"Do you think there is something more going on here that we were not told about?" Lumière asked his companions.

"Ahem. Well, either the spell breaking has turned them all, shall we say, 'goofy', or perhaps, as much as I hate to admit it, Lumière is, for once, right about something." Cogsworth elbowed his friend.

"What do you mean, 'for once', mon ami?" Lumière huffed indignantly.

Mrs. Potts chuckled as the two started bickering back and forth, then turned back to Belle, Adam and Chip, as the trio celebrated.

"I may not know exactly what's going on here," she said to herself. "But whatever it is, my little boy is happy... both of them." She wiped a tear of joy from her eye at the sight.

And all across the castle, as the last of the curse faded away, its inhabitants celebrated.

* * *

40.2 (Evilhumour): [Beauty and the Beast]

Belle bit her lip as Gaston took the mirror from her and braced herself for the usual song where the village hunter rallied them all to try and attack her future husband. She was about to reach for something in her pocket when there was a loud horse whinny as a fine carriage pulled up, cutting off Gaston mid-song.

Without missing a beat, Lumière opened the door and out stepped the Beast, dressed in complete finery.

"Hello everyone," he said in his most confident voice with no stuttering. "It is good to see you all in person for once. I am Prince Adam, son of our dear King Robin, and as you can currently see, cursed into this form." He gave a light chuckle before walking straight past the stunned crowd to give Belle a chaste kiss on the cheek. "There are you, my dear. And you too, Monsieur Maurice who introduced us two." He then went to hug her father, separating him from the villagers. "To show my gratitude, I personally promise to have your taxes lowered by half!"

Belle had to hold back her laugher as everyone raced to lift Adam up in the air, cheering his name with Gaston looking completely focused. Walking past him, Belle took the mirror back and patted his cheek, saying, " _That's_ the man I plan to marry."

* * *

40.3 (Harry Leferts): [Frozen] / [Kancolle]

Fingers tapping against her arm, Murakumo frowned as she looked at her oldest sister. "Onee-Sama, you certainly seem to be excited. Especially as we're due to meet the newest shipgirl transfers from Europe."

Lips twitching, Fubuki, the name ship of their class chuckled. "Because we have two of our Nee-Sans arriving with them, Murakumo-Chan."

Perking up, Murokumo blinked. "Oh? The Admiral didn't mention that..."

Simply chuckling, Fubuki shook her head. "That's because he might not realize it or consider them a class of their own. Like the Akatsukis." At the nod from Murokumo, she continued. "Shortly after I was launched, there were observers from all over the world. And, well..."

Murokumo smiled a bit even as she kept an eye out for Abyssals. "Ah, and they were all impressed with you. Every Destroyer after you were launched were based somewhat on you... Which is why you have the title of 'Mother of the Modern Destroyer'."

Needless to say, Fubuki was more then a little flustered at that, but still nodded. "Hai, that is correct. But one of the European nations asked for Japan to build some of our class for them. There were some modifications due to the different weapons, but not many. They ended up with two of them and during the War used them to escort their Royal Family to safety in Britain. Not even the Germans were able to stop them."

Eyebrows raising, Murokumo only nodded as she twirled her spear. "Ah, sounds like they lived up to their pride as members of their class." Eyebrows furrowing, she frowned. "Which nation was it...?"

Spotting the ships and shipgirls over the horizon, Fubuki began striding forward, seemingly skating across the water's surface. "Norway as a matter of fact." Coming to a stop, she grinned at the two before her. Both of them were dressed in more European dresses with one blonde and the other auburn though they were the same age as Fubuki herself. Sending off a ping, Fubuki got several back and two winks from the two in front of her. "Elsa, Anna, welcome to Japan."

Lightly laughing, the two hugged her with all three having the same thoughts. 'Sometimes, alternate history loops are fun...'

* * *

40.4 (Evilhumour) & (Anon e Mouse Jr): [Beauty and the Beast]

Adam woke up and saw his younger body. His younger _human_ body. And Adam knew what he had to do. He quickly made his way down the stairs to greet the fairy properly. Seeing the beggar in the rain, he opened the door wide for her and bowed. "Please, come in," he told her. "You must be cold out there."

"Thank you, young man," the woman replied in a strange, high-pitched voice as he moved aside.

"May I... take your cloak, miss?" he asked as she entered the hall.

In an instant, the woman turned to him. "Miss? _MISS?!_ Do I _look_ like a _miss?!_ "

Then she threw her cloak aside to reveal not a woman, but a _male_ figure in a yellowish jacket, wearing a monocle and with graying hair at his temples.

"In all my years I have _never_ been so insulted!" the man thundered. "For that, you shall suffer a fate most terrible, and become as all the beasts I have met in the savannahs and jungles of the world!"

Then he raised a hand, and Adam knew no more.

* * *

"And that's how it happened this Loop," Adam told Belle about ten years later, after she'd figured out the catch in the curse and turned him back to normal.

Belle shook her head. "So instead of an enchantress, you got a sorcerer who looked like Colonel Mustard," she said. "There's something I never expected to hear."

"It's something I never expected to happen," Adam replied. "I'm just lucky he left after that instead of trying to hunt me right away."

"So am I," Belle replied, leaning her head against him.

* * *

40.5 (Boohoooo!): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Super Mario Bros.]

Prince Adam Awoke just before he was going to turn down the Enchantress.

"Wait! Come in! You're looking lovely, miss!" He coughed, letting the Enchantress in.

The Enchantress entered... and dropped the cloak, showing it to be Waluigi.

"Expecting an Enchantress? TOO BAD, WALUIGI TIME!" He laughed, launching a curse.

* * *

"Errr.. Well, having a weird nose isn't as bad as the other curse, at least." A weirded out Belle comforted Adam, who had Waluigi's nose.

"Thanks." Adam smiled.

"Expecting a nice ending? TOO BAD, WALUIGI TIME!" Waluigi exclaimed, appearing out of nowhere and freezing the two.

* * *

40.6 (Evilhumour) & (Anon e Mouse Jr): [Beauty and the Beast]

Adam Awoke and felt himself lifted in the air as the curse began to break, the power surging through his body with his body moving out to its proper state.

Landing on his feet, he opened his eye to see himself... back in his Beast form?

Then he looked at Belle, and at her lioness-like face.

That's when the memories hit.

"Belle," he said as she looked at him in awe. "Did I just..."

Belle nodded. "It seems _everyone_ is a Beast this Loop," she said. "And your human form was the curse."

"So another one of _those_ loops, I suppose," Adam said.

"That's right," Belle told him. "Our friends were still cursed into being household objects, of course."

Just then, an orange, shaggy, four-legged animal ran through the room, hissing and spitting as it was pursued by an even shaggier and vaguely canine creature, barking loudly after its quarry.

"Even the cat and dog are Beasts now?" Adam put his hand on his face, vaguely amused. "Where does Yggdrasil come up with this stuff?"

Belle just giggled as she watched the two animals running around. "Well, at least Gaston's looks finally matched his true self..."

"There is that," the prince replied. "Speaking of him, is he still..."

Just then, a voice was heard from the ground far below. "Nobody... urg... cracks the ground like... Gaston!" Then there was a thud.

A moment later, another voice called up. "He's out cold, mon ami! Shall we throw him in the dungeon for you?"

"Please do, Lumière!" Belle called. Then she turned back to Adam. "Now, where were we?"

Adam smiled, and leaned forward to kiss her... as, unbeknownst to either of them, a plump and furry woman ushered her very interested son away from the door behind them to give the pair some privacy.

* * *

40.7 (Masterweaver): [Beauty and the Beast]

"A blessing," Belle clarified flatly.

"...yes."

"The enchantress thought this was a blessing."

"Apparently she was... into this sort of thing," Adam explained.

Belle rolled her eyes. "I can't entirely blame her, I suppose... so, that explains you. But..."

She glanced at the arguing candlestick and clock.

"...I was trying to be a good host, I got out the best wine, she started rambling on about how nobody really appreciated magic and were going for that new-fangled technology, one thing led to another--"

Belle threw up her hands. "Who even is this woman? I've read the original story, but our version just shifts on a dime!"

* * *

40.8 (smxsonic): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Ranma 1/2 - mentioned only]

"Look on the bright side," Belle tried to console, "At least the curse is easily reversible."

Adam looked over to his lover with half lidded eyes, clearly not amused by this, "What was a Chinese tour guide doing in Paris anyway?"

"Another consolation: you still turn into a familiar form, rather than a cat, or a pig or something."

"That Drowned Girl curse would've been preferable."

Belle thought about that, "That would make our story an odd one."

Adam rolled his eyes, "I have to spend the whole loop worrying about the temperature of my water now."

"Oh stop your griping," Belle teased.

* * *

40.9 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Ranma 1/2]

" _He'll wreak havoc on our village if we let him wander free!_ "

" _So it's time to take some action, boys, it's time to follow me!_ " Gaston bellowed.

"Hold!"

Belle, and everyone else present, turned to see a young man walking towards them in a... non-local style of clothing, and clutching a wooden sword in hand. Beside him was an equally dark-haired girl, a stern expression on her face as she held some unidentifiable object.

"Who dares interrupt Gaston?" the egotistical hunter bellowed.

"My name, sir Gaston, is Tatewaki Kuno," the sword-wielding man replied. "And I am a son of Daisho Kuno, who once served as a guard at the castle that now houses this Beast."

The crowd began to murmur, as Gaston stepped forward. "And you seek to join us in ridding the village of that monster?"

"No!" Kuno's voice was vehement. "My father told me, when I was young, that one day I would take up his place there. And when he passed, he did so having shared the castle's full story." He held out his sword. "That castle was once home to a lovely queen, and her equally cruel husband. When the queen passed, she left a son, who had once been as kind as she. But under his father's influence, he became spoiled, and selfish. Even after his father passed, he kept up this behavior. Yet my father continued to serve him... until that day."

Belle's heart skipped a beat. Did he know...

"My father had been given the task of escorting some of the servants as they gathered firewood in the forest," Kuno continued. "Even when they went back with their loads, he stayed to carry the last of it. But during this time, as he approached the castle, he heard a strange howl coming from within, and witnessed a woman emerging from its doors. He saw the castle somehow changing behind her, and while he was out of range of the foul spell, he knew his duties. In the years after, he stood guard nearby, vowing to keep an eye on the castle and ensure that none left it, nor came near to do it further harm. He brought my sister and I from our home and taught us to keep watch as well. When he passed, I took up his duties full-time, never forgetting my task: to guard without being seen, to be a silent protector of the castle and all who dwelled there."

He paused, and took a breath before continuing. "For ten years, we have watched over the castle. We have seen a few of his servants leave for firewood, but they have never strayed far and always returned to from whence they came. And we saw Maurice and Belle each enter the castle, but we knew they meant it no harm and so allowed this.

"The castle's master, on the other hand, has left the grounds exactly once in all these years. I was worried then, I shall admit, but I witnessed his actions that night... when he fought off an entire pack of wolves to protect miss Belle here as she was running scared."

The muttering was now sounding rather astonished, and Gaston looking rather dumbfounded.

"Ever since then, my sister and I have kept closer eye on things, as has my friend Sasuke, himself skilled in the arts of stealth and thus very suited to observing without being caught. He has reported all he has seen to me, and when miss Belle left the castle again mere hours ago, I witnessed the Beast you speak of, his howls of pain and anguish. Between what I have been told, and what I saw then, I knew just what kind of person he really was. That is why I have come here, to ask miss Belle to return to him before he dies of a broken heart."

Belle stared at him in amazement. "He..."

"Despite outward appearances, he is no monster," Kuno concluded. "He is a prisoner, trapped by his own sorrow and anguish."

Then he raised his sword. "And I shall fight to the death anyone who seeks to harm him!"

Gaston looked disgusted. "You would swear your loyalty to a Beast?"

"Certainly not," Kuno replied. "After all, my loyalty is to the prince... not _you_!"

That did it. Pulling a dagger from his belt, Gaston let out an angry bellow and charged.

Then there was a loud whip-like crack, and the crazed hunter let out a scream of pain, clutching his wrist as the dagger fell. A moment later, he felt the wooden sword under his chin.

"Do you yield, or must the brother and sister Kuno prove their intentions further?" Kuno demanded.

Gaston looked as if he wanted to say something more, but as he looked around to see the angry looks of the villagers who had been with him before, he saw he had no choice, and shook his head.

"Very well then. Monsieur D'Arque, if you would please take this rogue away and see to it that he is given treatment for his wound." After he took the mirror away from Gaston and watched him being led off, Kuno turned to Belle. "My sister and I shall accompany you and your father back to the castle. My master needs you."

"Thank you," Belle told him. "I appreciate it so much."

"'Tis the duty of a warrior, my lady. And a fellow who has been where that scoundrel was." Kuno winked, and Belle smiled.

* * *

The next day, after Belle had successfully broken the curse and explained Kuno's presence to Adam, she finally asked the young man, "And what Loop are you from?"

"Ah, that... is quite the story." Kuno looked at the two. "I am one of the more recent Loopers from my branch, yet mine is one of the oldest out there. I believe you have heard of one Ranma Saotome?"

"The oldest Looper?" Adam's eyes widened. "Of course!"

"The very same," Kuno confirmed. "He is my Anchor, and I will forever be thankful to him for knocking some sense into me before I came online, as I was once almost as bad as Gaston was."

Belle smiled. "Well, I'm certainly glad you were there last night."

"As am I, fair lady. As am I." Kuno bowed to her. "Now, I don't suppose you have a position open in your staff for a guard until the Loop ends?"

Adam held out a hand. "Mr. Kuno, I'd be honored to have you as part of my staff."

"Thank you, your highness. And it will be my honor to serve."

* * *

40.10 (b-wolf95): [Beauty and the Beast]

"Excuse me, is this the residence of Prince Adam?" the professionally dressed fairy outside the castle doors asked.

"Yes...?" _This is new_ , Adam thought to himself.

"Perfect. I've got this place scheduled for Class 5 curse right now."

"WHAT!?!"

"You heard me. Now stop making a fuss. I've got a baby shower to be at in the next kingdom over, and I don't want to be late."

"Why are you even cursing me, when I haven't even done anything, yet?!"

"Look, I don't make the calls, I just curse people. Sorry, not sorry."

"But-"

*ZAP*

* * *

Belle took a bit to process what she just heard. "...I think this is Yggdrasil's way of saying you should invest in shape-shifting magic."

"Or, more likely, that it hates me."

"Combination of the two, then."

* * *

40.11 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Anaximander looked at Billy.

Billy looked back.

"Uhhh... could you get me down buddy?" Billy smiled awkwardly, wrapped up in vines. Anaximander walked off.

"Oh..." Billy sighed. Anaximander promptly came back with a weed whacker and freed his owner.

"Oh thanks bud!" Billy smiled, hugging Anaximander, the rat nodding simply.

* * *

40.12 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer] / [The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy]

Anaximander yawned as he walked into his owner's kitchen, who was having guests.

"I'm telling you, Mandy, someone here is Looping! I gotta hunch." Grim grumbled to Mandy. Mandy grunted, not really caring.

Anaximander raised an eyebrow and approached the two, tugging on Grim's sleeve.

"What do you want, mon?" Grim grunted. Anaximander frowned and wrote down a simple question: _"Looping?"_

"...Told you." Grim smirked to Mandy.

"Whatever." Mandy eye-rolled. Anaximander raised an eyebrow as Grim explained.

One WttM Speech later...

Anaximander nodded and began to write down another question... only for Billy to crash the Loop by beating him to death to his sudden fear of the color yellow.

* * *

40.13 (Skaz Wolfman): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Doki Doki Literature Club]

**Pugnacious in Pink**

Belle had been frustrated all through this Loop, because once again it seemed that Adam was Unawake. Also, he was just... off. Acting really out-of-character, to borrow a literary turn of phrase. He seemed a lot huffier than usual, less like a raging animal and more like a... bratty teenager, actually. And he was obsessed with pastries and sweets, and he kept writing poems and showing them to her. They weren't _bad_ poems, per se... they actually had rather profound messages and themes... if you could see past the childish language. They were usually _very_ well-metered, though.

And then, of course, there was the fact that his fur was _pink_ , for some reason. It was decidedly one of the stranger Variants that Belle had experienced. But they both kept to the 'script', as it were, and soon enough it was time for the Beast to become a prince again...

Except he didn't.

 _She_ became a _princess_.

A girl that looked about her age but a head shorter, decked out in the frilliest pink dress Belle had ever seen. Ever, in all of the Loops.

The princess planted one hand firmly on either side of her head and firmly cracked her neck both ways, then raised her arms and stretched, and then started working her shoulders. "Damn... you'd think being all big like that would make me feel stretched out, but for some reason it made me feel hella cramped... ugh, as if 'Buffsuki' wasn't bad enough, now I just bet 'Beastsuki' is gonna become a thing... stupid frigging Tree..."

Belle could only blink. "Wait... you're a Looper! Have you been Awake this whole time?!" she asked.

The pink-haired girl froze. "Um... yes. Yes I have... sorry..."

Belle facepalmed. "Okay... was there a reason you were Stealthing this whole time?"

"Well... I've seen the movie, y'know, from the Hub? And I... figured the curse wouldn't break if you knew I was a... a girl... I'm really sorry, Belle," said the girl, sounding genuinely remorseful.

"Oh... it's fine, I guess. So... who are you, really?" Belle asked.

"I'm Natsuki, the youngest Looper from Doki Doki Literature Club," the girl replied.

"A literature club?" Belle's eyes lit up.

Natsuki chuckled weakly and half-smiled, half-grimaced. "You... wouldn't like it. You really, really wouldn't like it..."

"Ah... one of the uglier baselines, I take it?" Belle asked sympathetically.

"Definitely _not_ kid-friendly, that's for sure," said Natsuki. "Now, as restitution for deceiving you all this time, I'm going to _personally_ bake you the _best damned cake_ you've ever had in your whole looping life!" Natsuki declared. Then, in a flash of green light, a huge mallet appeared in her hand. "Right after I give that Gaston creep a good thrashing."

"Um–"

"Don't worry, he's not dead. I had a huge bowl of pudding placed to cushion his fall," said Natsuki with a grin, before proceeding to jump down where Gaston had fallen.

A newly un-cursed Lumière hurried outside. "Has the Mis–er, the Master–"

" _She_ is just fine, Lumière," Belle answered with a knowing smile.

"Ah... heh-heh, so sorry, Mademoiselle. But the Mistress insisted that none of us gave away her, eh, 'secret'," said Lumière nervously.

"It's fine. She already explained herself. Said she's going to bake a cake, too."

"Oh, _tres bien_! For a princess, she is a surprisingly gifted baker," said Lumière cheerfully.

Just then, a screaming Gaston, covered head to toe in chocolate pudding, scrambled up the side of the castle and ran past them. He was shortly followed by a bounding, madly-cackling, hammer-swinging Natsuki. "Get back here, coward! I guess no one runs like a chicken quite like Gaston, huh?!"

Not caring that Lumière was standing right there, Belle immediately Unpocketed a camera and snapped a picture. Adam just _had_ to see that one.

* * *

40.14 (Evilhumour): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Pie Glitch]

Ansem, or Xehanort stood in front of the Door to Darkness and said his usual line about Kingdom Hearts being the power of darkness and Sora was ready for the line.

"You're wrong. I know now, without a doubt, Kingdom Hearts... is _pies?_ " Sora blinked as endless amount of pies fell out of the door, crushing Xehanort flat before the tidal wave of pies overwhelmed him.

* * *

Sora sat up in his bed and took a moment to think if he had really just died due to pies.

* * *

40.15 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Pie Glitch]

Annabeth huffed as she grabbed a seat at Piercy's table across from him. Pieron didn't really try to uphold the 'person stays at the table of their parents', since every looper had changed parents at least once.

"The Olympieans apparently have a few new domains this loop. Hades has chocolate pie, Demeter rhubarb, and my mother..." Annabeth grumbled under her breath in lieu of continuing her statement.

Fortunately Piercy was there.

"She took my advice. Your mother's now the Goddess of Pizza Pie."

Annabeth had decided the table was a perfect resting spot for her face as she grumbled some more.

Piercy, noticing she was upset, got up and grabbed a seat next to Annabeth and wrapped his arm around her.

"Look at the bright side. Hera this loop is the Goddess of Cow Pies."

Piercy wasn't certain, but he thought he saw a glimmer of a smirk on Annabeth's face.

* * *

40.16 (Duckapus): [Inside Out] / [Fairly Oddparents]

When AJ Awoke something felt... off.

 _I've never seen this place before. Looks like some kind of control room. Oh man, what if the person in charge finds me? What if_ I'm _the person in charge and I don't get my in-loop memories!? Wait, why am I freaking ou- Oh, you have got to be kidding me._

"Alright, if there are any other Loopers in here, don't Ping! I _really_ don't want to find out how a headache is represented in this setup."

_"Thanks... AJ, right?"_

"Yep. From the looks of things all our human loopers are replacing your emotions."

Trixie looked down at herself and scowled "Ugh. I can handle having to act like old-me, but green is _so_ not my color. Hey Riley, is it alright if I switch with AJ?"

_"We tried that once. Instant Teletubbies."_

"Besides," AJ added, "Do you really want to deal with constant paranoia coupled with _your_ imagination?"

"Fair enough."

"Aw, c'mon guys, it's not all bad," called the glowing version of Chester at the console, "the weird personality shifts will take some getting used to, but any new experience can be turned into a positive one! Right Timmy?"

"Time is an endless abyss into which countless lives disappear forever."

"...Okay, that's new. Is the emotional aura usually this powerful on visitors? Because usually he's only like this when he's drunk."

_"Rarely. I think you guys just got a bit unlucky."_

"I can feel my sins crawling down my back."

Everyone stared nervously at the young Anchor for a few seconds before Trixie spoke up, "Hey guys, Tootie's been pretty quiet for someone representing anger. Anyone have a guess why?"

"Not a clue."

_"I don't know her as well as you guys."_

"Timmy isn't here, he's in sweater town."

AJ, meanwhile, looked around in hopes of spotting their missing friend. He finally spotted her sitting on the couch looking up at her hair.

Her currently _red_ hair.

"Uh oh. HIT THE DECK!"

* * *

Down at Long-term Memory, two Mind Workers prepared to enact their trademark prank.

"Here we go Ted! One gum commercial, free of charge!"

Suddenly, an explosion rang out in the distance, punctuated by a nearly animalistic cry of **_"VICKY!"_**

"... let's save it for tomorrow Frank."

"Good call."

* * *

40.17 (katfairy): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Ranma 1/2 - mentioned only] / [Pie Glitch]

"... What."

"The "enchantress" was Happosai, and when I stopped him from harassing every female within a hundred miles, he threw a water balloon at me."

Belle looked at the exasperated Adam, whose curse was... not quite right.

"But how? No, don't tell me - Jusenkyo. It's the only place in all the multiverse where you could actually drown a squid. I promise to avoid the obvious jokes if you will."

" _Thank you._ "

"But that still doesn't explain the mounted pie launchers all over."

"I've already decided I don't want to know. But I've calibrated them for strawberry-rhubarb and sent Gaston a wedding invitation. Care to watch?"

"Adam, every time I think I can't love you any more, you do something like this."

Adam smirked as Belle accepted a flute of champagne and snuggled into his tentacles to wait for the festivities to begin.

* * *

40.18 (lord Martiya): [W.I.T.C.H.] / [Pie Glitch]

"And now, nobody will stop me and my evil pie launchers!" Phobos shouted from the walls of his castle. "The Veil will be torn, and Kandrakar will bow! HA! HAHAHA-"

Phobos was hit by a giant pie, large about a meter and a few kilometers long.

"Isn't that the pie we get at the end of the baseline?" Irma asked.

"Yep. Last Loop I Awoke right at the party, and nipped it for the next time I have the Saiyan for dinner." Will confirmed.

"Then why did you threw it at Phobos?" Cornelia asked.

"Corny, this was just a small piece."

As the rest of the team exchanged glances, Yan Lin said out loud what they were all wondering: "How long _is_ that pie?!"

* * *

40.19 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [Pie Glitch]

Star sighed as she twirled around her wand, bored.

"GET THE WANDDDDDD!" Ludo exclaimed. All of his monsters were made of pie... except Big Chicken, for some reason.

"Well, this has turned my day around!" Star smiled... before Big Chicken turned around and launched a pie at her out of his butt, causing her to give a disgusted groan.

* * *

40.20 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer] / [Pie Glitch]

Anaximander looked at his owner and his owner's comrades as they argued.

"I'm telling you guys, this already happened! And last time this was the Cheeserator, not the Pierator!" Billy Dilley said to Zeke and Marsha.

"I'm pretty sure we'd remember this." Marsha pointed out.

"Yeah. Can you just fix it?" Zeke whined. Billy grunted and sulked off. Anaximander, putting two and two together, followed.

"Man, Anaximander, this is quite the conundrum! My friends have lost their memories of our time together!" Billy sighed.

"I ran explain." Anaximander shrugged, having Looped in as Scooby Doo recently.

"Oh tha- WAIT, BUDDY, YOU CAN SPEAK?!" Billy shouted in surprise. Anaximander nodded, unphased by his owner's reaction.

One Welcome to the Multiverse Speech later...

"Wow! How fascinating!" Billy smiled. Anaximander shrugged apathetically.

...And then the two got hit by pies.

* * *

40.21 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Anaximander looked at his owner with his usual deadpan expression.

"Come on buddy! Pleaseeeeeee?!" Billy begged.

"Billy, I ron't rhink rou ran rorce an Looper Activation." Anaximander warned.

"But we won't know until we tryyyyyyy!" Billy sobbed. Anaximander sighed and nodded to show his giving in, causing Billy to cheer.

One Zany Scheme later...

"Well, this didn't go as planned..." Billy mused, a giant radioactive meteor flying around at high speeds. Anaximander face-pawed. The meteor then crashed into the duo, killing them and Crashing the Loop.

The Loop after their punishment Loop...

Anaximander and Billy were rocking back and forth in a corner.

"Too big breasts... Too big breasts..." The duo whimpered over and over again. Marsha and Zeke gave concerned stares.

* * *

40.22 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

"Well... this is fascinating." Billy commented, drinking some soda.

"Understatement of rhe rentury." Anaximander deadpanned.

"I am JUDY, QUEEN OF THE SWAMPS! FEAR ME!" Judy laughed, turning everything into swamp water.

"Billy?! What's going on?! Why's Judy acting like this?!" Marsha gulped, hiding behind her friend.

 _"Wait... this is our first time meeting Judy this Loop, so Marsha shouldn't be aware of how our friend usually acts... Which means..."_ Billy mentally mused in excitement.

"Marsha, has time been repeating for you?" Billy asked his female friend.

"Y-Yeah... do you know why?" Marsha asked. Billy squealed happily.

One Welcome to the Multiverse Speech Later...

"That's... a lot to take in." Marsha muttered.

"I know, but you have to admit: It's pretty fascinating!" Billy smiled. Marsha chuckled at her friend's enthusiasm.

"Well, we'd better tell Zeke. He told me time's been repeating for him too." she explained.

"YAYYYYYYYYY!" Billy cheered, running to his blue-haired friend and giving another Welcome to the Multiverse Speech.

"Soooo... Anaximander... You wanna..." Marsha awkwardly began before noticing the rat had fallen asleep. Marsha chuckled and went to check on Zeke to make sure he didn't get too overloaded with info.

* * *

40.23 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer] / [The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack]

"Alright, if you three are going be my cabin boys-" Captain K'nuckles began, walking around Billy, Zeke and Marsha.

"I'm a girl." Marsha pointed out.

"-You need to learn the basics." K'nuckles finished, completely ignoring Marsha.

"I'm willing to learn, Mr. K'nuckles, sir!" Billy saluted.

"I like your attitude, kid!" The elderly wannabe pirate Looper chuckled. With that, the quartet went to set the sails.

6 minutes later...

The four screamed, having set the ocean on fire... somehow.

"BUBBIE! SAVE ME!" K'nuckles whimpered.

Bubbie rolled her eyes as she and Flapjack showed up, saving the quartet.

"Don't worry Cap'n! Me and Bubbie will always be there to save you!" Flapjack cheered, hugging his friend. K'nuckles grumbled.

"But.. the ocean's still on f-" Zeke started to point out.. before they all burned to death.

Next Loop after their punishment Loop...

"Too big breasts... Too big breasts..." Zeke, Marsha and Billy whimpered, rocking back and forth in a fetal position.

Anaximander sympathetically hugged his friends.

* * *

40.24 (smxsonic): [Gravity Falls] / [Doki Doki Literature Club]

Dipper hated late Awakenings. They were random variables; things he couldn't take into account when trying to sidestep things. He made it to Soos's Abuela's house and made a beeline for his room as Soos's Abuela uttered a friendly greeting. He kicked the door open.

"Soos! Wait don't --"

"Oh Honey... You don't need this game to help you talk to girls." The character on the screen consoled.

"I don't... Well I guess I'm talking you, huh, Dude?" Soos Replied.

"Yeah! But... I guess we CAN help boost your confidence..."

The character on the screen changed her portrait to make it look like she was clapping her hands, and soon three other girls filled the screen.

"Girls, I know what we're doing this Loop!"

Dipper raised his eyebrow, "Um... Soos?"

Soos looked back, "Oh, hey, dude! Let me introduce you to Monika, she's gonna help me with my girl troubles."

"Um... yeah, This is sort of throwing me for a loop..." Dipper said while sending out a ping.

"Well, I'll have you know that I am quite well Anchored." Monika responded in kind.

* * *

"Ohmigosh!" Mable gushed while holding a cellphone she pocketed, "You guys are so much nicer than Giffany!"

"Aw... Thank you!" Monika chirped from the Cell phone, her portrait changed to her eyes looking away from the screen, "We... Try to be our best..."

Dipper raised his eyebrow, "What's your guys' baseline like?"

The Screen on the cellphone glitched out as the game's animation became unrealistically smooth, with Monika's bangs obscuring her eyes.

 _ **"You do not want to know,"**_ Her voice was distorted into an almost unhearable mess.

"Ooookay, Dropping the subject," Dipper said while looking around in thought, "So... you guys up for helping us fight a Triangle Demon?"

The Game's animation went back to the static character portraits, "That sounds fun, I'm In!"

* * *

40.25 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer] / [Undertale]

Zeke looked at Marsha's cake, weighing if eating it was worth it.. only to shrug and eat it.

"Mmmm... cake..." Zeke smiled.

Suddenly, Zeke was turned into a heart surrounded by a box.

"What the-" Zeke blinked.

"Hello, Zeke. _Are you ready to have a bad time?!_ " Marsha chuckled, one of her eyes glowing blue.

'Marsha is Mad at You!' a text box stated.

"...I regret my life decisions..." Zeke gulped.

Outside, Billy blinked as he heard Zeke's screams.

"Hmmm... fascinating..." Billy mused, looking in through a window.

"hmmm... it appears your friend has looped in as me recently." Sans commented, sipping some lemonade. Billy nodded and took notes on Marsha's state.

* * *

40.26 (Wixelt): [Gravity Falls] / [El Goonish Shive]

Rather abruptly, Dipper Pines, Anchor of the Gravity Falls branch, Awoke to the feeling of flying through the air at considerable velocity, only having a few moments to process this fact before he suddenly collided with a concrete wall, cutting off anything he might have been thinking about with an audible thud.

"Dipper!"

Clutching his now throbbing head, Dipper blinked, trying to clear the spots from his vision. As his sight began to become workable, he noted his twin sister, one Mabel Pines, crouched over him with a look of concern evident on her face. Vaguely, he could make out a large, greenish glowing gem sat on a pedestal behind her.

"You alright, bro?"

"Yeah, yeah I- Oh... my head." He flinched back, still attempting to focus, "Just feeling a little loopy..."

"Luckily, someone's here to Anchor us." Mabel grinned, affirming her Awake status as another figure, this one unfamiliar to Dipper, approached, holding out his hand.

"That I am." The purple haired teen nodded with a smile, "Tedd Verres, at your service."

"Nice to meet you, but..." Dipper frowned, allowing the local Looper to help him up, "You already knew Mabel?"

"Yeah, actually." Tedd affirmed, managing a light shrug, "She's been Awake for a while."

"Really?"

"Well, duh." Mabel rolled her eyes, giggling slightly, "You think I have that kind of reaction speed when I Wake up?"

"Not really, but..." Dipper shook her head, not thinking too much into it, before something occurred to him, "Wait, I was being thrown. UnAwake me wasn't being stupid, was he?"

The concerned and bemused look Mabel and Tedd briefly shared told him nothing.

"Um..." Mabel rubbed the back of her head, giving her twin a sheepish smile, "You haven't checked your memories yet, have you?"

"No, actually. I guess I haven-" the Gravity Falls branch's Anchor stopped mid-sentence, the aforementioned loop memories finally filtering into his consciousness. He blanched a little, "Uh... Mabel?"

"Yes Dip?"

"Why are my memories your memories?"

* * *

"Magic cloning, huh?" Dipper mused, taking a moment to process that, for this loop, he was a gender flipped clone of Mabel, created by a magical artifact known as the Dewitchery Diamond, having been technically born only moments before he Awakened, "Seems a bit contrived."

"Oh, it is." Tedd agreed, sipping his mug of coffee from across the roadside diner booth the group was sat in. Setting it down, he frowned, "So much so that our Baseline only gave us a full explanation of the events behind it relatively recently." He chuckled, "Elliot and Ellen, the pair you and your sister are replacing, have had strong words about it in the past, believe me."

"Uh huh. So, I haven't had a moment to sift through many of my- or Mabel's, I guess- memories yet." Dipper replied, leaning back in his seat, "What sort of loop is this?"

"Well..." the purplette narrowed his eyes in thought, searching for the right words to say, "You know how you said Gravity Falls has a bunch of weird stuff going on that a bunch of paper thin conspiracies and government coverups seem to divert everyone away from noticing?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, try applying that to an entire world." Tedd explained, eyes briefly shifting to a stereotypical 'grey alien' dressed in a shirt with the words 'Homo Sapien' on it walking past the diner, before looking back and shrugging, "Though I guess the masquerade has broken a little in the more recent expansions, if only for the magic side of things."

"Huh..." Dipper momentarily followed Tedd's gaze, eye twitching a little, "How- How does that even work?! It's so... so..."

"Dumb?" Tedd rolled his eyes with amusement, "Try telling that to my dad. He's one of the guys the government pay to hide this stuff in Baseline. Most of it was even his idea."

"And it works?"

"So far, at least."

* * *

(Hvulpes)

"Remember Dipper, never underestimate the stupid or silly!" said Mabel to her brother. Dipper groaned as he realized this might have worked in their baseline.

* * *

40.27 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Naruto]

Blitzen was in his element as he turned chain mail into another of his trademark neckties. Several Amazonians had stopped by to check out his wares this loop, and had stated that his skill was great enough for them to be sent all over America through their company.

He had just finished the final necktie when a customer seemed to appear out of nowhere, wearing it herself.

"Huh, you know, I should probably wear one of these to the wedding. Would probably look amazing with the dress."

Blitzen glared as he made a grab for the necktie.

"Miss, while I'm thankful for the compliment, those aren't for sale, they're being sent to Amazon as soon as I'm done packing them up."

The customer snorted. "I'm several millennia too old to be called miss, but I do need your help. I'm gonna be at a wedding soon, and I need to make this..." She pulled out enough Imperial Gold and Stygian Iron out of her Pocket. "Into a bridesmaid dress."

Blitzen's eyes widened at the mention of a wedding. That would benefit his business greatly. But there was still some problems.

"Hmm, while I haven't had a chance to work with these materials before..." Blitzen pointed to the black metal. "I can, well, work with it. What I need to figure out is the design."

"Okay, so the dress is going to be made out of Stygian Iron with an Imperial Gold cherry blossom design on the front. I'm not really sure about the dress itself, except for keeping it a simple sheath dress, but that's just for the pun."

"Hmm, the loop won't end for a few years, since I've started this as soon as I Woke up, so keep coming back and I can consult you on the dress."

"Can you make it shift from armor to fabric?"

"Already planning on it."

Sakura left, leaving behind a pile of bits, galleons, drachmas, rupees, and pokédollars.

* * *

40.28 (Wixelt): [Gravity Falls] / [My Little Pony]

"Aww... C'mon!"

"No, Stanley." Twilight deadpanned at the Friendship School's most recent prospective teacher, who was sweating nervously under her gaze, from behind her desk, "I refuse to allow you to teach my students how to be a con-pony."

"But-"

"Or a traveling salespony." she continued, muttering "The less Flim and Flam wannabes we have around here, the better."

"Ah, fine..." Stan Pines grumbled, slouching back in his seat, "Guess i'll have to go with the backup plan, then."

"That would depend." the local Anchor fixed him with a questioning stare, "Is transdimensional portal maintenance and operation a safe field of study in your loop?"

"Well, safe enough, I guess." the proprietor of the Mystery Shack shrugged, before frowning, "Bill, uh, isn't around this loop, is he?"

* * *

40.1: And now, happily, Adam and Belle know they aren't alone in their Loop. :) Also, there's a _lot_ of _Beauty and the Beast_ Loops this chapter.

40.2: Nice way of stealing Gaston's thunder. :D

40.3: Yes, alternate history Loops are indeed fun sometimes.

40.4: Would you believe this was partly inspired by a chapter in one of the actual _Clue_ books? (Spoiler alert: Mustard really did appear in disguise and speaking in such a way that he was believed to be a woman in it.)

40.5: Random Waluigi appearance!

40.6: Yep, this is a thing.

40.7: She's got a point there, about the randomness.

40.8: Again, the guy's got a good point.

40.9: Kuno's really changed for the better since he started Looping. And if wasn't clear, that was Kodachi disarming Gaston with her ribbon.

40.10: Some things just can't be stopped.

40.11: ...

40.12: And so this Loop gets the Speech.

40.13: Yep... Gaston's one of those non-Looping villains who gets the Butt-Monkey treatment and deserves it.

40.14: Random pie glitch that happened across a number of Loops.

40.15: And another one.

40.16: Fairly OddParents characters as Riley's Emotions. This should be interesting.

40.17: The pies strike again.

40.18: From the snip's author - "Not kidding, the final issue of _W.I.T.C.H._ featured a cake so long that only Will, who had just received a power of super sight that allowed her to see across dimension, could see the end. I wonder how many people were at that party for Yan Lin to have such a big cake made..."

40.19: And another!

40.20: The last Pie Glitch snip this chapter, we swear. And now the title character is Looping.

40.21: Your first Eiken Loop is never fun.

40.22: And more Awakenings for this branch.

40.23: Eiken is still not fun.

40.24: Uh-huh.

40.25: Eeyup.

40.26: Indeed.

40.27: Magnus Chase Loops continue.

40.28: Twilight's got a point here.


	58. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-One

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-07-04. This is the first of two chapters posted today.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-One**

41.1 (DrTempo): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Kid Icarus] / [Super Smash Brothers setting]

Link smiled. It was another Smash Brothers Loop, and Sora of the Kingdom Hearts Loop was also there. However, Sora and Pit were glaring at each other. Link, wondering what was up, asked, "What has you two angry at each other?"

Both Sora and Pit then showed they had a red envelope in their hands. Link instantly realized what this meant; these two were going to clash in a Death Battle Loop. Sora then grinned.

"I have this won. Pit hasn't done anything like I have in baseline!"

Pit growled. "Ha! We'll see, Sora!"

Link laughed. "Man, this reminds me of when Cloud and I had our Death Battle Loop. I admit, I was surprised when I won."

Cloud himself then appeared. "I wasn't able to use my best Materia in that one, but the fact that you had a lot more ways to attack than I did meant my chances were low. I admit I was shocked it took Sephiroth defeating Vergil to finally earn my Loop a win."

Sora smiled. "That's the Death Battle Loops for you. Sometimes, it can be easy to tell who will win, and other times, it's closer than we think the fight will be. I am still surprised Kirby actually defeated Majin Buu."

Pit laughed. "Considering the types of foes Kirby fights, I am not that surprised."

Everyone laughed, wondering if Sora or Pit would claim victory...

* * *

41.2 (Boohoooo!): [Big Hero 6] / [Mighty Magiswords] / [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Honey Lemon looked at one of Yggdrasil's newest Anchors, sipping some coffee.

"Hi! I'm Grup! I Have a tail and I like to do things!" Grup sang cheerfully.

"Awwww.. you're so adorable!" Honey squealed, hugging Grup.

"Yayyyy!" Grup smiled.

"What about Anaximander?" Billy smiled, holding up his Branch's Anchor/Pet. Honey resisted to urge to act in disgust.

"He's... uh... niceeee..." Honey smiled, attempting to be polite.

"Rhanks." Anaximander nodded, before falling asleep.

"Awwww.. he's sleepy-weepy!" Billy smiled, snuggling his friend. Honey looked sick and Grup did a little dance.

* * *

41.3 (The One named Light): [A Bug's Life]

"I'M LOOOOOOOST!!!" Flik's eyes snapped open to find that there was suddenly a pile of food where it wasn't before, there was a harvester on his back, and his mind was commanding him to fetch food for Hopper. But wasn't he-?

Was that a dream?

Clearly it was, what with the circus bugs and the traveling cracker box. So he wisely chose to lay his pack aside and do it the old-fashioned way as to not disrupt the offering.

\--The Next Loop--

"I'M LOOOOOOOST!!!" Back here again, Flik stood in shock at what was occurring before him, letting out a sigh. He chose to keep the pack and harvest with caution.

\--The Next Loop--

'Oh, no.' thought Flik, having been sent back to find the harvest pour into the river from his haywire invention. 'Well... at least there's a new plan ready...'

So Flik decided to follow the plan to reunite with the Circus Bugs instead, what could go wrong, then?

\--Several Loops Later--

'It was bad enough that he had to see Hopper's ugly mug every snapback...' Flik thought to himself as he felt the added mass of his body. 'But to end up as a grasshopper, let alone part of his gang?!'

"Flik, this better be good!" sniped Hopper, as bitter as ever.

"Ah... Well, you see..." Flik struggled to get the words out as he cued up his new contraption. "Using rose-petals, some silk string and the Earwax on all the q-tips I've found, I managed to engineer a harvest moving contraption to assist the colony."

"Ain't it cute... do you hear that, boys?" barked Hopper to the rest of his gang, taking interest in the moment. "Pickleboy here wants to help the ants!"

Flik heard the laughter of his 'fellow' grasshoppers before Hopper proceeded to tear his hard work apart. "It's NEVER about the food! If they EVER get it through their THICK little thorax that they OUTnumber US, it's OVER!!!"

Hopper was thrashing about in front of the innovative (currently) grasshopper who wanted to help until Molt restrained him to the best of his ability, Flik could only watch as the two brothers struggled with their values, the elder recalling his promise to his mother and holding back his fists.

At least Flik knew what to do when the grasshoppers showed up next time.

* * *

41.4 (The One named Light): [A Bug's Life] / [Kingdom Hearts] / [Rick and Morty]

"I'M LOOOOOOOST!!!"

There he was, back at that one harvest for the umpteenth time, having lived for far longer than any ant should have. He retraced his steps, did all he could to keep himself in the part he played where it all began.

"No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

Speaking the same words. Doing the same things. Acting the same ways. Meeting the same faces.

"What did you do?"

Making the same mistakes.

"Where's My Food!"

Atta struggled to explain herself to the worst boss he ever had thus far. "Are you sure it's not up there?"

"Are you saying I'm stupid?" Hopper deadpanned to which Atta shook her head. "Do I look. _Stupid._ To you?"

Hopper did his spiel, taught Atta the 'first rule of leadership', burst in anger from the mentioning of birds, and delivered his usual ultimatum.

"If you don't keep your end of the bargain, then I can't guarantee your safety." reminded Hopper. "And there are insects out there that will take advantage of you, Someone could get hurt."

With a snap of his fingers, in came Thumper. Flik promptly mobilized when Dot was introduced to the feral insect, moved back in line but he noticed an odd detail when he made the commission of double the usual order before the last leaf falls. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"How..." Atta piped. "How are you even here!?"

"I think you know the answer to that..." Hopper grinned sinisterly, "Let's Ride!"

And thus, the grasshoppers were on their way home, leaving Atta in a stir.

"Not sure why, But I had thoughts of when I was queen." pondered the Princess, still in apparent shock in what she just saw. "We stood up against Hopper, Hopper was gone, Circus bugs abound- actually, that adds some credence to all of that being a dream..."

"Having a bad day?" Atta looked behind her to find a light-pink worker ant with a flat sheet of stone lined by small rod-like pebbles at the bottom.

"Oh, uh... Yeah," Atta began to collect her composure and focused on the harvest. "First came a flash of... impossible ideas."

"Not for long..." whispered the pink ant.

"Then I hear from the grasshoppers that our harvest fell down the river..." Atta grew more and more uneasy and panicked before grasping the subject's shoulders "Now we have to provide double our order to a gang of grasshoppers led by an insect I saw get eaten by birds!!"

"Hold on, hold on, hold on." Flik scattered to make eye contact with the Princess. "You're repeating the same sunny season, too?"

"Oh, so that's why I turned up here this Loop..." the young ant just sighed as she pulled a droplet from her thorax (certain ants saying that it just magically appeared from thin air). "May a princess Dorothy please step forward."

"Oh! My friends call me Dot." answered the younger princess.

"Not when this thing's through with you." Kairi then handed the little ant the drop. "Suckle on this, if you please."

And Dot promptly suckled the fluid into her body, sensing a faint tingly sensation. "And how will this make me any-" and then it kicked in, initiating a change in Atta's younger sister. "Wubba-Lubba Dub-Dub!"

The echo in the colony was heard near and far, but the reaction that ensued towards her current body gained the ire of the new consciousness. "Really had to be something this small... No matter, the lifespan of a mayfly's short enough. How do you do, I'm Rick Sanchez, not the genuine article, but an extension of his intellect, personality and consciousness made through specific chemicals known to simulate the proportionate aging process of a mayfly for eleven minutes, more than enough for a quick look into the multiverse."

"Wait, M-Multiverse?" piped Flik. "You mean what's beyond the colony."

"A hell of a lot farther than you think." Dot's wings had grown in by that point and thus allowed her to take flight for an illustration of the great tree that marked the colony. "Picture our great tree but, like eleventy-bajillion and infinity-fourteen times larger and with a supercomputer!"

"That's Yggdrasil and it's broken." Dot continued to lecture the ants on the subject of how the tree could have been damaged, the nature of Loopers and a brief detour into the aging of a mayfly as defined by a Robot Chicken comedy sketch over the course of almost nine minutes. All the while the growth of the little princess became more and more noticeable to the colony, her appendages lengthened, thorax widened, and her face lost plenty of her innocence as even her voice matured into something that could easily be mistaken for the worker ant that gave her the droplet to begin with.

"And now that you know the intel, the chemicals will evacuate. Graaaaaass... Tastes bad." A yellow droplet fell to the ground beneath her legs and Dot promptly snapped out of her trance, her freckles being the only indicator that she was who she was. "Okay, why is everybody staring at me like tha-"

Her elder sister looked in shock at her little sister who was now almost as grown as she was, and said younger sibling clutched her throat in shock. "Why do I sound like Kairi?"

* * *

41.5 (Boohoooo!): [A Bug's Life] / [Super Mario Bros.]

Flik whistled as he built some stuff. He had dealt with Hopper relatively early this Loop, so everything should be fine and dandy!

"I want revenge, ant!" Hopper roared, appearing as a zombie. Flik yelped and ran away.

"Expecting Hopper to be dead? TOO BAD, WALUIGI TIME!" Waluigi laughed at Flik.

"WHO THE HECK IS WALUIGI?!" Flik whined as he continued to be chased.

* * *

41.6 (Boohoooo!): [Invader Zim] / [Gregory Horror Show] / [Godzilla] / [Scooby Doo] / [Yo-Kai Watch] / [Who Framed Roger Rabbit]

Zim, Neko Zombie, Zilla Junior, Velma Dinkley and Jinmenken were currently floating in space, arguing.

"THIS ALL YOU NON-ZIMS' FAULT! ZIM IS ENRAGEDDDDDDDD!" Zim shouted.

"Would you shut up?! You're not accomplishing anything other than giving us headaches!" Velma snapped.

"Meh, I've been in worse situations." Neko Zombie yawned.

"Well, while we're up here, we might as well reminisce..." Jinmenken sighed.

"...Why?" Zilla Junior blinked, before realizing everyone was reminiscing about how they got in this situation, causing him to shrug and join in.

**_Three weeks earlier..._ **

The aforementioned group Awoke in a police station.

"I AM ZIMMMMMMMMM!" Zim shouted in introduction.

"We knew that already due to Loop memories..." Neko Zombie deadpanned, rubbing his ears.

"NEO TOON PATROL! REPORT TO MY OFFICE!" a voice shouted over the intercom. The group did as told with a shrug. The Police Chief was there.

"Do you yahoos know why you're here?" The Chief glared.

"No, but we also don't know why people would still use the word yahoo unironically." Zilla Junior joked. The Chief's eye twitched.

"You're HERE because you almost killed several of your fellow officers! You Toons are LOOSE CANNONS!" he roared.

"...Are you done? We got better things to do." Neko Zombie yawned. The Chief promptly pressed a button, resulting in anvils dropping on the 5.

"Just be more careful, ya goobers." The Chief sighed as birds surrounded the 5's heads.

* * *

41.7 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Admin Shenanigans]

Poseidon grinned as he looked down at the code. He was completely finished starting up the Magnus Chase Expansion. Magnus Chase, Blitzen, Hearthstone, and Samirah Al Abbas were all shown looping. All he needed to do was push a few buttons.

"Uncle, are you alright?"

Poseidon turned around to see Hephaestus looking at him concerned.

"Yes, I am, why do you ask?"

"You're smiling, I haven't seen you smile for a while."

"I have been dealing with a nasty bit of code. It's all finished now." All he has to deal with is the various other products he has on his table.

Hephaestus peered down at the code, looking confused. "Uncle, there's something you missed."

"WHAT?!"

"The sword, Summabrandr, or Jack. He definitely has the capacity to loop. It's nothing more than a small mistake, I can fix it real quick if you need me to."

"I'm fine, I'll deal with this." Typing at the keyboard, Jack was now shown looping.

"Perfect."

* * *

Magnus couldn't decide what was stranger, the charging fire giant, Blitzen and Hearthstone charging at said giant, or the corroded piece of metal in his hand.

Normally either one wouldn't phase him, but the familiarity, the idea that he had seen this before confused him.

Faded runes on the metal began to glow, and then it started screaming.

"What happened to me?! Where's my beautiful edge?! Why am I like this?! Magnus, you gotta fix me!"

Magnus focused on restoring it and trying not to strangle it. (Could he even do so?) As he did this, more memories started filling his mind. Friends, allies, enemies, everyone. As he stared at the giant, he started focusing on the feeling of summer while repairing the sword, causing the sun to brighten, ice to melt, and the giant's fires to dim. Eventually Jack started gleaming, perfectly restored. On instinct, he then threw at the giant. Normally this would be a horrible plan, but Jack cut a hole in reality, sucking the giant back into Muspellheim.

Jack then flew back to Magnus, cheering "Sword: Two! Surt: Zero!" Until Magnus turned him into a pendant, buckling slightly. Blitzen and Hearthstone caught up a while after, Hearth signing the word crazy while Blitzen's face shifted from concerned to livid.

"Kid, you just beat Surt! That was completely dangerous! How could you, why did you, what is going on!?"

Magnus shook his head. "I... I don't know. I feel like we've travelled back in time, but that's completely crazy! Even after everything that happened." The look on both Blitzen and Hearth's faces told him it wasn't.

"When I woke up, my fashion store didn't exist." Blitzen said sourly. "I'm pretty sure me and Hearth are still under orders from the Capo."

Magic is also more difficult for me. Hearthstone added. Even though I remember the tips form Odin.

"Odin... Guys, didn't Odin say something about me dying thanks to Surt?"

"Yes, he did." Samirah said while flying down. "I'm not sure how this happened, but we traveled back in time, and we've already changed it heavily."

We need a plan. Hearth signed.

Blitzen shrugged. "Me and Hearth will pick up the Capo, he might know what's going on. At the very least we should tell him about the sword."

"I should probably get a move on myself." Magnus said. "I don't really want to explain everything to Annabeth and Uncle Fredrick. The Norse stuff, she can handle, but time travel might be a little too weird. We'll head out to Fadlan's, pick up enough falafel for me to handle this."

The two groups split, each one on a separate mission. Samirah fidgeted with her headscarf along the way.

"You alright?"

Samirah sighed. "No. part of me wonders if this was some trick from my father, but we already beat him, and I'm not sure even Odin could pull this off. If the gods could travel back in time, we wouldn't have a Ragnarok to worry about."

The two arrived at Fadlan's, but even Magnus was just picking at the food. Eventually Blitzen and Hearth returned with a bowling bag in hand, and the reunited group headed out to the docs.

* * *

Blitzen opened up the bag and placed the cargo into the water. The decapitated head of Mimir bobbed and looked at them with sunken eyes.

"Capo," Blitzen began. "Magnus found the sword. He befriended it, and he didn't die this time."

Mimir stared at the dwarf. "This time?" he asked, but didn't seem surprised.

"Mimir, me, Blitzen, Samirah and Hearth woke up back in time. We have no idea what caused this and..."

"Luckily, boyo, the answer to your question is simple, but not one I can answer myself. Your best bet is to talk to your cousin, who's currently walking our way. Also, Hearth, Blitzen, consider yourselves released from servitude, unless you drink from my well again."

And with that, the water surrounding him began to swirl, and Mimir descended to the depths of the harbor.

The group turned to the approaching demigod heading their way. Magnus began walking towards her, the rest of the gang in toe.

"Annabeth, Mimir told us you knew about the time travel thing. Can you explain it to us?" Magnus asked.

Annabeth's eyes widened as she muttered the word "looping." Taking a second to compose herself, she began to explain.

"Okay, the first thing you need to know is that everything, the camps, the nine realms, the underworld, even Yggdrasil is just a Branch of an even bigger Yggdrasil..."

* * *

The group stared at Annabeth, each one not sure how to respond. Eventually Blitzen spoke up.

"How can we be sure Fenris is actually helping, especially with what happens later on?"

"The Admins are dissimilar to the gods in our Branch. You don't have to like Fenris, you have every reason not to, but understand he is helping to fix Yggdrasil."

"Annabeth," Magnus began. "You said I could see my mom again, but she wouldn't always be the same."

"Yeah. It's hard when an Unawake person you've known for so long, is completely different, but your fellow loopers and Anchors will be there for us. Now, I believe you all met our Anchor, Percy? He's at camp, along with our fellow loopers."

* * *

41.8 (The One named Light): [A Bug's Life] / [Toy Story]

The birthday haul this Loop was more or less the same as any other, Andy's Mom got him Buzz as usual while one of his friends got him a Flik figure from _A Bug's Life_ as that was Pixar's first film in this particular reality.

Once he got up on the bed, Woody Pinged for his fellow Loopers and promptly received three in return. Buzz did his spiel, re-enacted his introduction then gathered on one side of the bed for Roll Call. In addition to himself and Lightyear, Slink and Hamm were the Loopers that were Awake at that time so all they had left to do was investigate this new Flik toy and figure out his purpose for the Loop.

Flik was exploring the bedroom floor with a sense of wonder and curiosity in his eyes when Woody and the rest of the Loopers turned up to greet this new hiccup in the Loop. "Look, I know Buzz is getting a lot of the spotlight but there are plenty of other toys here who can show you around during your time here."

"Thanks." blushed Flik. "I'm kinda new to this whole sensation."

"Well, seeing as you're literally mint out of the box, we couldn't just leave you hangin' like this..." Woody specified to the newer toy. "We could show you around if you like."

"Oh, I don't want to intrude or anything." stressed Flik. "I mean, this is my first Fused Loop and all tha-"

"W-Wait, okay, hold on a tic..." Woody gathered as much of his thoughts as he could muster before asking. "You're Looping!?"

This gained the attention of the four other Loopers present, Flik merely answered. "Yeah."

"Golly bob howdy, seems to me like there's more of us out there every day." chuckled Slink, "Question is, who gave ya the talk?"

"Funny you should mention that, eh..." blushed Flik, embarrassed to let them know how he learned of the Loops. "Actually, Princess Atta had been activated that Loop, so Kairi gave us both the whole 'Welcome to the Multiverse' spiel."

"Kairi?" Woody raised an eyebrow to this response. "As in the princess of heart over in the realm of light?"

"Yeah," Flik scratched the back of his plastic 'scalp'. "Though not in the way you'd expect."

Flik refused to even mention the speech's blunt involvement of the known Looping sociopath Rick Sanchez.

* * *

41.9 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [The Sword in the Stone]

"Wart! Where are you, Wart?" a loud voice called, and Arthur "Wart" Pendragon winced.

"Coming!" he called, then turned back to Merlin. "I've gotta go. Thank you, Merlin. And, and you too, Archimedes!"

"Hmmf! Pinfeathers, boy!" the owl grouched as Arthur ran off.

As he headed for his foster father and brother, Arthur gave an inward sigh. These Lonely Loops were a pain at times... he'd found ways to make them easier on himself, but there were some where the unAwake Merlin just insisted on doing things his own way. Hopefully, the old wizard would be more reasonable when the time came to deal with the squirrel transformation this time - Arthur did _not_ care for that part of his Loop, because he'd seen that female squirrel get her heart broken too many times, and he preferred to avoid it at all possible.

When he'd approached his scowling foster family, Slr Ector did not look amused. "And what, may I ask, kept you?"

"Oh, I was at a lesson with Merlin," Arthur replied truthfully. Then he switched to one of the half-truths he'd come up with in an effort to keep out of trouble - he knew it didn't exactly hold with the code of chivalry he'd been taught, but there was enough of the truth in it that he hoped it would pass. "By the way, he wants to talk to you later - something about an oversized pike in the moat."

" _What!_ " Ector bellowed. "What did he do to my moat!"

"We were walking past when he tripped over something and fell in," Arthur replied. "And when he climbed back out, he was saying something about how he was trying to catch his balance at first, but then he saw this big pike swimming right at him and kind of panicked, so it took him longer to get out than he expected - as it is, I had to take his hand and help pull him ashore."

Ector looked taken aback. "Oh, well... ehem. I suppose that's understandable. But! That pike is there for a reason, boy! It's to keep out any intruders who might try swimming in the moat to test the castle walls for a weak spot! So I hope he didn't do anything to it!"

"No, he just tried to get away from it," Arthur assured him truthfully.

"Well." Ector seemed pleased. "You _were_ helping someone, so... only one demerit for being late, and one hour's kitchen work later. Now, let's get on with it. Kay's got a lot of training to do now, and he needs you to be by his side!"

Arthur nodded. "Right away, sir!"

* * *

Some time later, Arthur was hard at work scrubbing dishes in the kitchen, when Merlin knocked on the door. "Eh, excuse me, Wart," he called. "I - oh," he cut himself off as he saw the pile Arthur was working on. "Ehm, may I ask you something?"

"Go ahead, sir," Arthur replied as he kept working. "I can listen while I work."

"Er, right." Merlin cleared his throat. "Now, have you ever considered being a squirrel?"

"Eh, once or twice," Arthur admitted. "It would be nice to be agile like that, and after what you did earlier, I'm sure you can turn me into one... but I can't right now. I've got too much work to do."

"Oh, I don't know about that..." Merlin pulled out his wand and started to wave it, when Arthur raised a hand. "Merlin?"

"Yes, my boy?" Merlin asked, mid-wave.

"I really don't think you should use magic in here." Arthur gave him a kind of smile. "I really don't mind doing it by hand. Besides, it gives me time to think and review what I've been learning."

"You don't say." Merlin stroked his beard. "Well now... I suppose I can't argue with that. But if you don't mind me staying so we can have a good talk..."

"No, I don't mind that," Arthur replied.

"Good, lad. Now, are you sure you wouldn't like to be a squirrel at some point?"

"I'm sure," Arthur replied as he reached for another dish. "Maybe some other time."

"Well, if you're sure." Merlin drew a stool up. "Now, let's talk..."

Arthur listened, and inwardly gave a sigh of relief. _That's one problem avoided for this Loop..._

* * *

Months later, long after the incident with his bird transformation and Merlin's duel with the mad Madam Mim, Arthur was still working in the castle dining room, listening to Sir Ector and Sir Pellinore's celebration of Kay's recent knighting.

Eventually, when he'd finished clearing the room, he excused himself and headed for Merlin's tower. The old wizard had been in a frumpy mood for some time, and Arthur had a feeling he knew why.

"So, you're back," Merlin grouched as Arthur entered. "Come to visit the old wizard to show off your new status, now that that... that big lad you call brother's been knighted?"

"Not showing off," Arthur corrected him. "But being his squire _is_ an important duty."

"Hmph! Just a personal servant, if you ask me." Merlin turned away, and for a moment, Arthur felt a flare of temper rise up, but he forced himself to calm down.

"Look, you don't get it," he said. "I'm a squire now. And I _have_ to be a squire for a while before I can become a knight! And once I'm a knight, I can help protect this kingdom from anyone trying to invade and take it over!"

Merlin turned and gave him a quizzical look. "Oh... well, I suppose you _have_ thought this through then." Then he looked frumpy again. "But you yourself said you had to be of proper birth to become a knight! How's an orphan boy going to do _that_ in this day and age?"

"Yes, I did. And..." Arthur drew on his memories of a past Loop. "A... a week or so back, I heard Sir Ector talking," he said. "He said I'd been brought to the castle by this strange old man, who told him I was an orphan, but that my parents had been nobles. And he told Sir Ector to teach me the code of chivalry so I could be a knight someday, but I wasn't to know about where I really came from until the right time, and he'd know when to tell me. So Sir Ector's been teaching me what he can, but in a way that won't make anyone suspicious of why an orphan is learning how to be a knight."

Merlin gave him a curious look. "That's quite a story, my boy," he said. "And you're sure of what you heard?"

Arthur nodded. "Very sure. But I can't let anyone know... technically, I'm not supposed to tell you or Archimedes, but I had to." He gave the pair a smile. "You've both gotten to be family to me too."

Archimedes gave a hmph of disdain, but Arthur could see a faint smile on the corner of his beak as he turned away. Merlin, meanwhile, looked contemplative.

"Well, my boy," he finally said, "That is good to hear." Then he gestured with his wand. "But don't forget your book work!"

"I won't," Arthur promised.

* * *

A few days later, Arthur stood in London, Archimedes on his shoulder. Merlin had intended to come along, but at the last minute had been called away, ostensibly to deal with some problem in a distant wood. He had promised to be back in the new year though. Since then, Sir Ector, Sir Pellinore, Sir Kay, Arthur and Archimedes had headed for London and the big tournament. As always, Arthur had forgotten (supposedly) Kay's sword at the inn, and been sent to fetch it. Also as always, the door to the inn was locked.

"Now what are you doing to do?" Archimedes asked from his shoulder.

"Um..." Arthur looked around, then his eyes widened. "There, in the churchyard! It's a sword!" Dashing over, he reached for the weapon that had once been his and would soon be again.

"You're gonna have a time pullin' it out," Archimedes warned. As Arthur laid a hand on it, the sword started to glow.

"Watch it, boy!" Archimedes cautioned him. "Better leave it alone!"

"But Kay's... got to have a sword!" Arthur grunted as he finally pulled the sword out. As he held it, he looked in awe.

_Caliburn,_ he thought to himself as he and Archimedes headed for the tournament.

A few minutes later, he rushed up to Kay, handing the weapon over. As usual, Kay recognized it as being a different sword, before Sir Ector, Sir Pellinore and another knight with black hair studied it, announcing it was the Sword in the Stone.

"Where did you get it, Wart?" Sir Ector growled.

"I pulled it out an anvil in a churchyard," Arthur told him. Then he straightened his shoulders. "And I know what it means, sir."

"Hah!" Ector let out a laugh. "That's impossible..." Then his eyes widened. "Or..."

"Father?" Sir Kay asked, confused.

"There's a chance..." Sir Ector shook his head. "There's only one way to be sure. We'll take the sword back, and then, you can prove you're the only one who can pull it."

Arthur nodded. "Yes, sir."

As they headed for the churchyard, Arthur felt a sudden tight grip on his shoulder. "Who? What, what?"

Looking up, he saw Archimedes shaking his head. "Where, where are we?"

"London," Arthur whispered. "It's time to pull the sword the second time."

"Oh." Archimedes fluffed out his feathers. "Oh, I hate these late Awakenings..."

Arthur smiled at his friend. "I know, Archimedes. I know."

Just a minute later, they arrived at the churchyard, and Sir Ector placed the sword back into the stone. "All right boy, let's have that miracle."

Arthur nodded and reached for the sword, when he felt a hand on his. "Now, wait a minute!" Kay said as he rudely pushed Arthur aside. "Anyone can pull it once it's been pulled." Grabbing at the sword, he tried to pull it himself, and then several other knights hurried over to join him. Arthur noticed that Sir Ector, however, was not one of them; he was standing back, a hand over his face.

"Now hold on, that's not fair!" Sir Bart, the black-haired knight who'd studied the sword when Sir Ector held it, called.

"I say we let the boy try it," Sir Pellinore added.

Sir Bart nodded in agreement. "That's what I say. Give the boy a chance."

"Go ahead son," Sir Pellinore encouraged him.

Arthur nodded, marched up to the sword, and gripped it. As light surrounded him, he drew the sword for the second time, and held it aloft.

"It's a miracle," someone whispered. "This boy is our king."

"By Jove," Sir Ector whispered. "I knew you were meant for great things, boy... but I had no idea..."

"What's the boy's name?" Sir Bart asked.

"Erm, Arthur," Sir Ector said. Then he removed his hat and bowed, . "Hail, King Arthur," he said. "Long live the king."

" _Hail, King Arthur! Long live the king!_ " the entire crowd cheered.

As all of them bowed, Arthur looked around. _And this is just the beginning,_ he thought to himself.

* * *

A few days later, Merlin finally appeared in Arthur's new throne room. "Well, lad," he said cheerfully, "You've finally made it."

"Yes," Arthur agreed. "I have." Then he looked at his teacher. "Please tell me you're Awake this time."

"Oh, I am, boy," Merlin assured him. "Finally."

"Well it's about time." Archimedes flew over and landed on the back of the throne. "Have you been enjoying yourself?"

"Not nearly as much as I'd have been if we'd all been Awake much earlier," the old wizard stated. "You know how I love teaching."

Arthur nodded. "Well, at least you're back now... any lessons you can squeeze in before the Loop ends?"

"Nothing you don't already know, my boy," Merlin assured his Anchor. "After all, you already know plenty about the value of our friendship."

"I certainly do," Arthur told him, as the boy king Arthur Pendragon, the wizard Merlin, and the owl Archimedes all smiled happily at one another.

Then the Loop ended.

* * *

41.10 (katfairy): [Wizard of Oz] / [Sleeping Beauty (non-looping character only)]

Dorothy climbed down off the bed, Toto by her side, ready for the burst of color that would ensue when she opened the door. Waking up to find herself once again a too-tall, unnaturally-buxom-for-a-pre-teen brunette had warned her that she was in that Variant again; she couldn't say she disliked this one, but there were a few things about it that she still found unnerving. Her appearance was just the start; Uncle Henry being clean-shaven and jocular, Kansas being literal shades of gray, and Glinda being pink and chirpy just weren't right. Still, the music was fun and not having to deal with the Kalidahs, Hammerheads, and that dreadful giant spider made up for a lot.

"Ready, Toto?"

"Just a moment; that anti-flea spell takes a few seconds to—and I'm good. Remind me to thank Pikachu again; he said it should work in any magic system."

Dorothy nodded, and the two stepped out into the almost painfully bright Munchkin Village. She was rather looking forward to testing a spell of her own that she had picked up in her previous Loop with Cimorene in the Enchanted Forest. As expected, the soap bubble soon appeared, carrying VariantGlinda (as Dorothy always thought of her), who sang the Munchkins out of hiding with her shrill voice that was so unlike BaselineGlinda's low tones. The celebration of the Wicked Witch of the East's death kicked off as usual, and as usual got interrupted by the arrival of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Well, almost as usual. The billowing smoke was replaced by black and green flames, which was definitely _not_ as usual. Still, that was no reason why Dorothy should change her plan for making this Loop run a bit more smoothly. She pointed a finger at the figure appearing in the heart of the flames and spoke a single nonsense word.

" _Arglefraster._ "

A stream of soapy lemon water shot forward, soaking the figure. Which, surprisingly, did not melt. Instead, the flames died down and a tall, soggy woman in a robe with jagged edges and a hood with horns raised an eyebrow at her.

"Expecting someone else, perhaps?"

Dorothy blushed. Toto sighed, burying his face under his paws. VariantGlinda's jaw dropped.

"I'm awf'lly sorry, but mos'ly when someone appears like that, it means they're a wicked witch an' need to be melted before they cause trouble."

"Ah, I see. Well, my dear, you aren't completely wrong, but I'm afraid it won't be quite so easy. I'm afraid I just don't melt. But where are my manners? I am Maleficent, the Wicked Witch of the West. And who might you be, dear child?"

"I'm Dorothy Gale of Kansas, an' this is my companion Toto. An' I'm terr'b'ly sorry, but if you are a wicked witch, I've just got to defeat you and free the enslaved Winkies an' Flying Monkeys."

"Enslaved Winkies?" Maleficent looked offended. "Glinda, what nonsense have you been telling her? Enslaved, indeed! My dear, I have more than enough minions bound to me; I certainly have no need to enslave humans!"

"I told her no such thing, but you know how rumors are," Glinda said. "Now, why are you in Munchkin Land, so far from your seat of power?"

"Because I felt the death of my most hated rival and I just had to see for myself. Tell me, was it gruesome? I do hope it was."

"My house was picked up by a tornado an' dropped on her," Dorothy explained, curious to see how this would play out. She vaguely remembered hearing about Maleficent, but couldn't place her; she'd have to check her Guide later. "I hope you aren't looking for her ruby slippers, 'cause they got magicked onto my feet when it happened."

"Oh, no, you may keep them; spoils of... well, you can hardly call that war, can you? I have no need of them." Maleficent waved the idea off with an elegant hand, and Dorothy believed her. It was a bit surprising, but it wasn't the first time it had had happened either. "Now, I believe you said you were obligated to defeat me? My dear child, despite that soaking, I have no reason to consider you an enemy yet. Do you really wish that to change? Because I assure you, I am a dangerous adversary and your youth will not deter me should you insist."

As Maleficent spoke, her patronizingly affable demeanor slowly dissolved, darkness gathering around her, hints of green flame shimmering. As displays of power went, it was one of the more effective Dorothy had seen; just showy enough to indicate her power without being cheaply theatrical. She responded by taking a sycamore wand from her Pocket.

" _Expecto Patronum_." She had no shortage of happy memories, and the enormous silvery lion that emerged was almost solid. Maleficent raised that eyebrow again, dropping the display.

"I see. Well then, my dear, if you insist, I will prepare for your arrival. But because you destroyed my rival, I give you one last chance: as long as you do not set foot in my lands, I shall leave you alone. Be wise, child; you cannot hope to defeat me."

"Maybe not, but I might have to try."

Maleficent inclined her head and vanished the same way she'd appeared. Dorothy sighed; this could get difficult. She really had to read up on this Maleficent after she'd asked Glinda about what was known about her in this Loop, and after she'd brought her friends up to speed.

* * *

41.10 continued (katfairy): [Wizard of Oz] / [Sleeping Beauty (non-looping character only)]

Dorothy didn't run down the road, since she knew she had to conserve energy, but she walked at a good clip, wanting to meet her other friends as early as possible. What she'd learned from Glinda the Pink was worrying, indicating a rare darker Variant. Not as dark as that one where they got invaded during World War II or that really strange one where she was really the long lost heir to the throne or something strange like that—that Variant hadn't made a lot of sense to her, either at that time or after she'd had more experience—but dark enough. After the last king of Oz, who sounded like a dreadful man, had been overthrown by a conspiracy of witches, sorceresses, and assorted others, some of the witches had chosen to try to take over the country. During the mess, Ozma had disappeared; Dorothy couldn't be sure whether she'd been turned into Tip as in baseline, trapped in a mirror as in one of the Variants, or something else entirely. But two witches had come out on top: Walpurga, the Wicked Witch of the East, and Maleficent. Glinda had managed to hold onto her power and influence, but just barely. There was no Good Witch of the North in this Variant; the North was effectively No Man's Land, since the witches there were still feuding amongst themselves with magic just powerful enough to make the other three not want to risk getting involved. There was a Good Witch who might have been able to take control, but she had vanished along with her castle just after the rebellion had succeeded. Dorothy made a mental note about that; she'd probably have to deal with it sooner or later. The Wizard was in the Emerald City at least, so she decided that this time she'd drop in on him first, because unless this Variant really wanted to be tiresome, he could be quite helpful once they'd talked him into trusting them.

"Scarecrow! Thank goodness; we've got an awf'lly big Variant this time an' we'll really need your brains!" Dorothy sprinted up to the pole and lifted the Scarecrow down, not bothering with a polite greeting. Scarecrow could frown in this Variant, and he did so.

"I can see that; this isn't the one with... no, my memories would be different then. Is this a new one?"

"It's a Fused Loop; the Wicked Witch has been replaced by a woman named Maleficent an' there was this rebellion against Ozma's father, 'cept he wasn't really her father though I can't make heads or tails of the whole story."

"Maleficent? That name sounds familiar." Scarecrow snagged his Guide from his Pocket and flipped through it as quickly as his clumsy fingers would allow. "Ah, here she is; she's Princess Aurora's nemesis—Sleeping Beauty, remember?"

"Oh, the one who turns into a dragon? That's not good; Aurora said she was awful smart an' can still be a bit tricky even if they can out-magic her these days. And there's a Variant where she's like Elphaba—really good but people think they're wicked 'cause they're awf'lly grumpy. I don't think this is one of those Loops, though."

"Right; Glinda would have said something if they had been friends once, so I don't think we need to worry about it. We might want to keep an eye out for Aurora and Philip, or the three fairies. We didn't get an odd number of Pings, but that doesn't mean anything. We can't be sure the other two were Nick or Lion, after all."

Dorothy nodded, and the two headed for the usual place. As expected, Nick was there, and they quickly de-rusted him and brought him up to speed before collecting the Cowardly Lion. Once gathered, the Loopers sat down to discuss the problem.

"I know these aren't my Winkies," Nick Chopper said, "but I still feel some obligation to them. Even if this Maleficent hasn't enslaved them, they can't be happy living under her rule."

"Going up against a powerful Witch... She is a Witch, isn't she? I thought I heard that she was a fairy." The Cowardly Lion stretched, not looking as concerned as he claimed to be. Scarecrow shook his head.

"That's a Variant, and the fairy tale Dorothy knew did say the one who placed the curse was an insulted fairy, but Aurora said that the fairies who raised her identified her as a witch, not a fairy and she never heard anyone refer to Maleficent as a fairy until that Variant started up. Dorothy, what did Glinda say?"

"She's a Witch; she said so herself an' Glinda agreed. She won't melt, though."

"You tried it already?" Nick asked. "Are you keeping buckets of water in your Pocket, or have you picked up some new powers?"

"I've got both, but this was a spell I learned in my last outside Loop. She may be wicked, but she was awf'lly nice about being soaked in soapy lemon water."

"There's... of course there's a spell for that," the Lion chuckled. "Well, that's a useful one. Which Loop was that?"

"The Enchanted Forest—Cimmorene's Loop," Dorothy said. "They use it on wizards there; it doesn't kill 'em, just melts 'em an' they come back somewhere else. I wasn't sure how it would work here, so I asked our Glinda an' the Wizard to help me practice and see what happened. The Wizard even let me soak him, an' he didn't melt. I'll just try again next Loop. But what should we take care of first in this Loop? Ozma's still missing, that lost Good Witch in the Gillikin Country sounds like something we should take care of, which might help us with Ozma if Mombi's still the one who got her from the Wizard."

"There's a lot of ifs and maybes in that, but we can take care of some of those when we talk to the Wizard," Scarecrow said. "Nick, do you still have that hoverboard? If you ride that, and the Lion will carry Dorothy and me, we should make Emerald City tomorrow afternoon."

"Of course I will; you don't even need to ask, you know." The Lion stretched, flexing his claws.

"Well, it is polite, and we don't want to treat you as a beast of burden."

"If you did, I would let you know." Another flex of the claws, this one gouging furrows out of the ground, reminding them that he was a very large lion. "I've always thought of it as just a friend helping a friend. Now shall we get going so that we can cover some ground before it gets dark?"

They made better time than expected, in part thanks to the poppies not being active; without the usual Wicked Witch casting her spell, they were just ordinary flowers. It was one of the things Dorothy liked about this Variant. Because of that and a few other factors, they found themselves at the Emerald City not long after midday. They got past the gatekeeper by showing him the ruby slippers and telling him they had a clue about Ozma's whereabouts, made their way to the palace, and entered the throne room without worrying.

" ** _I AM OZ, THE GREAT—_** "

"I'm awf'lly sorry, but can we skip this part? We know you're behind the curtain an' we do need to talk to you." Dorothy walked over to said curtain and pulled it back, revealing the white-haired man who stood in for the Wizard she would always consider the real one. His eyebrows shot up, but instead of his usual bluff, he just laughed.

"Hello, Dorothy, I've been waiting for you to get here. I seem to have joined these Loops of yours, and it sounds like I may have done so just in time for a bit of excitement."

* * *

41.10 continued again (katfairy): [Wizard of Oz] / [Sleeping Beauty (non-looping character only)]

They sat down in a side room with cups of tea for Dorothy and the Wizard and bowls of chopped beef for Toto and the Lion; Scarecrow and Nick, of course, did not eat or drink. Dorothy gave the Wizard a copy of Twilight's Guide along with a few others she'd picked up, knowing that when he did start he'd want to read up on the Loops as much as he could, and also gave him a summary of how this Variant was different. The Wizard listened, then it was his turn.

"Well, Dorothy, I did know our Wicked Witches were different this time, thanks to my new memories, but I wasn't aware that our guest was that dangerous. She will be a problem, especially since we can't rely on our Glinda for assistance. This Glinda simply doesn't have either the wisdom or the power that ours does—although she is powerful. But I may be able to find us some powerful allies now that I'm Awake: you see, I know where the missing Good Witch ought to be, and Ozma is with Mombi as usual. I'm afraid I am at fault for both of those, and they both stem from the same event. You see, the King really was quite an unpleasant man, and unfortunately a clever one as well; Ozma had chosen a family to be co-rulers with her as a way of balancing her fairy views with human ones, and had done it in the traditional manner."

"That's... well, it was partly a good idea," Scarecrow said. "In some Loops we have run into problems because Ozma just didn't think like a mortal. But that's also why she had a Council in baseline, which was more practical since it incorporated people, magical creatures, constructs such as myself, and others, giving her a wide range of experiences on which to draw."

"I know; I was part of it," the Wizard reminded them with a raised eyebrow. "Unfortunately, that's not what she did this time, and I'm sure I can't imagine why. To be fair, the family wasn't a problem until Pastorius, but he rather made up for lost time. He managed to blindside Ozma and transform her into an infant, then took over entirely and ruled Oz rather like Prince John in those stories about Robin Hood. It was shortly after that when I arrived here—not Awake yet, that didn't happen until a few days ago—and the various Witches and Sorceresses were already well into organizing themselves. I landed in the midst of a meeting and was immediately sworn to secrecy, which they had ways of enforcing that made me quite determined to keep mum. And, of course, once I learned just how bad things had gotten, I had to help. I'm not a hero, but I simply couldn't sit back and ignore that. So I found my way into the Emerald City and became a servant in the Palace. My dear, I will not tell you what I saw during those months; it was quite distressing and even though I know you have probably seen worse in the Loops, I still can't help but think of you as the child I first met in baseline. Give me time and I can adjust, but..."

"It's all right; I know how hard it can be," Dorothy assured him. The Wizard smiled at her, then continued his tale.

"Thank you, Dorothy. Well, after a few months, a young witch who was working as a scullery maid approached me with a plan to rescue the princess: get one of us posted to the nursery, abduct the baby, and get her to the Witches' rebellion. It was a simple plan, which is why I thought it had a chance of working. Unfortunately, it did. I was assigned to clean the fireplace in the nursery, and while I was there, the nurse decided I was sufficient to watch over the Princess; she left for... well, she thought it was a good reason and we shall leave it at that. I waited just long enough to be sure she was really gone, took Ozma, and delivered her to young Mombi-- which, had I been Awake, I would have never even considered."

"No, of course not," the Scarecrow agreed. "Heavens, the idea of a young Mombi! Although I suppose she had to have been at one point."

"Was she pretty then?" the Tin Woodman asked. "I know it's not terribly important, but I have wondered off and on. Some of the quieter Loops, when the Witches aren't as Wicked as usual, just a bit cranky, I've had the time to really look at them and wonder what they were like as young ladies. I've wondered if perhaps they grew ugly because of their wickedness, or if perhaps, like that unpleasant Potions Master from Hogwarts, they were hounded into wickedness because they were ugly. I've seen it happen in other Loops, where the bullied react by becoming even bigger bullies themselves. Of course, it could be neither case is true, and they simply happen to be both unpleasant and unattractive, with the one having nothing to do with the other."

"Well, that would cover most of the bases," the Lion drawled, not quite hiding his grin. "but let the Wizard finish his tale, so that we can know where we need to start fixing things,"

"She was quite pretty, but since I had fallen for one of the leaders of the rebellion, that truly was not part of my considerations. Just as well, since she proved to be every bit as wicked as in baseline. She took the baby and vanished, which is how we learned that Pastorius had charms to alert him if Ozma was removed from the Emerald City. Thanks to my blunder, we had to start the open rebellion that night, and it very nearly didn't come off. If Pastorius hadn't been even less prepared than we were, and if he hadn't alienated so many powerful magic-users, it wouldn't have. I found myself having to lead the rebels here in the city, and my carnie tricks convinced them I was a real wizard. That helped us bluff our way back into the palace, where we faced off with Pastorius."

"Heavens, that sounds dang'rous," Dorothy said. Obviously her friend hadn't been killed, but she didn't like that he was having his first Loop in a Dark-And-Edgy Variant of a Variant. And from the older man's grimace, it had been ugly.

"It was. More for him, as it turned out, but we lost a few people before he decided to try to use Ozma's wand against us. Fairy magic in this Loop is a bit more Shakespearean, and not friendly to those who steal it. I'll just say that it was his final mistake and leave it at that." The Wizard shook his head, eyes downcast. "Unfortunately, those left with me were not aware of my true identity, and decided that I had caused the wand to misfire, not the fairy magic, and proclaimed me the new ruler of Oz by right of arms. The various Witches and Sorceresses thought I had betrayed them, which under the circumstances wasn't an unreasonable conclusion, and we've been in a state of not-quite-war since. And the woman I fancied was so distraught at this that she went into seclusion, magically hiding her entire castle. I've tried to rule well, since I have the job whether I like it or not."

"Well, if it makes you feel better, the people we've spoken to on the road seemed happy enough," the Scarecrow said, with the others nodding. "Your reputation has kept shenanigans to a minimum, so even though they know the peace is an uneasy one, it's still peace and they're neither getting killed nor transformed into something unspeakable."

"That is some comfort," the Wizard said. "Still, if Dorothy thinks Maleficent needs to be dealt with, that peace will be over soon. From the sound of things, you do have some time, so if you'll allow me to make some of my wizarding tools, I'll help as much as I can."

"I don't have any plans yet," Dorothy admitted. "Not anything I like, anyway. I think I'd like to rescue Ozma an' then see if we can find your lady-friend, then the lot of us can talk it over. Unless she's cruel to the Winkies; Glinda the Pink didn't think so, but I'm never sure how much she knows."

"Set your mind at ease, then; she mostly ignores them. There are three lesser fairies who keep her occupied with minor mischief, and even when they're being quiet, she is more interested in her studies of sorcery than in ruling with an iron fist. Admittedly, she did turn that one man into a mudfish, but he did try to destroy her by some ill-advised scheme that involved a talking wombat and a sword that glowed when turtles were nearby. I chose not to ask about any further details about that."

"I think we can let that one slide," the Lion said. "Even a Wicked Witch has the right to defend herself, no matter how inconvenient it may be for us. However, getting back to the point of this discussion, I believe yours and Dorothy's ideas are best: rescue Ozma, find your friend, and let you get some of your old skills back. By the time we've finished all that, Maleficent will have dropped her guard to some degree. We'll need that advantage if she's as strong as in her baseline, and if she isn't, it still won't hurt to have as many advantages on our side as possible.

"I guess we do have a plan, then," Dorothy said, relieved. "Gracious, but this Loop is involved; mostly we've got one story at a time an' now we've got to take care of three almost all at once. An' here I'd been thinking that this Variant had gotten dull!"

* * *

41.11 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Marsha sighed as Zeke, Anaximander and Billy cleaned out her water. She was a literal marsh this Loop.

"Hmm... this pun loop is fascinating!" Billy smiled.

"Less blabbering, more cleaning." Zeke eye-rolled.

* * *

41.12 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Order of the Stick]

Magnus woke up to see to gods arguing over, himself?

On the left was Thor, or one version of him. With a blond messy beard and in grey armor with a blue cape, he didn't look anything like Chris Hemsworth or the red headed TV junkie in his Branch. On the right was an emaciated woman in a white dress with a chain as a belt.

"This Dwarf drowned in the middle of the ocean! His soul belongs to me!" the woman on the right shrieked. Something told Magnus he didn't want his soul in her hands, regardless of its size.

Also, he was a dwarf? He really didn't want to have any maggots as great grandparents.

"He saved a ship from an attack from an evil cleric! Then fended off a squid that was trying to eat him!"

Man, Unawake him was a badass, though he was surprised Ran wasn't trying to claim his soul. Maybe Thor already won the debate against her?

"Gah! One day Thor, all these dwarves you love will belong to me, and you'll have _Hel_ to pay!"

"And one day Hel, you'll release your name jokes are dumb!"

Hel shimmered away at that, and Magnus tried not to shudder. He really didn't want to deal with Hel, even if she still had all of her face.

"Uh Thor, does thus mean I'm going to Valhalla?"

"No, bunch of stupid legalese preventing me. Enjoy Arborea, and be careful with those Document cigars!"

* * *

41.13 (DrTempo): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Kid Icarus] / [Star Fox] / [Super Smash Brothers setting]

Pit was grumbling. It was another Smash Brothers Loop, and he was angry. Fox walked up to him, and asked, "What's wrong, Pit?"

Before Pit could reply, someone else spoke up.

"I won in our Death Battle Loop." That was Sora, who was smiling. Fox nodded as he realized what happened.

"Oh. Sorry to hear that, Pit. If it helps, Mario was in a similar bad mood as you are when he lost his Death Battle Loop against Sonic. He got over it quickly though."

Pit grinned. "Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I can't improve my skills." Sora chuckled.

"Don't worry about it, Pit. To be fair, I was unsure if your arsenal of weapons would counter any advantages I had."

Pit chuckled as this. "You're a lot stronger, and can take a lot more damage than I can. Not to mention you're pretty fast too. And you weren't even using any of the abilities you learned during your Mark of Mastery Exam, not to mention no Keyblade transformations."

Sora shrugged. "Technically, I can't use Keyblade transformations in baseline yet, so that wasn't going to be in the fight anyway, and even without the stronger abilities I learned during my Mark of Mastery Exam, what I knew already was enough. Anyway, how about a sparring match?"

Pit nodded. "You're on!" Fox just chuckled.

"This outta be good!"

* * *

41.14 (Wixelt): [Gravity Falls] / [Fairy Tail]

**The Falls Fairy**

With a jump of surprise, Erza Scarlet awoke, in both senses of the term.

Drawing in a deep breath, she let out a Ping, frowning as she only received a single, slightly muffled response in return.

"Other dimensions, hm?" the scarlet-haired swordswoman mused, recognizing the feeling from when one of her fellow loopers Awoke in Edolas or the Spirit World, "Curious..."

Slowly, she leant back, taking in her surroundings. She was on a bus heading... somewhere through a thick pine forest, though that wasn't exactly a new experience for her. Plenty of loops had their Baseline begin in transit. Natsu usually Awoke on the train into Hargeon, for instance.

Then there were her loop memories, which were a little hazy at the moment. Again, though, that wasn't anything new, as she was sure they'd come to her in ti-

"Mom?"

Wait. Come again?

Erza's eyes darted across to the seat next to her, where a brown-haired girl of maybe 12 or 13 years of age, dressed in a thick, pink sweater with a shooting star on it, was staring up her in confusion. Staring at her with eyes that the looping Scarlet recognized as being very like her own.

Immediately, Erza's loop memories snapped into focus, and she jumped, slipping clumsily from her seat in surprise.

"Mom!" Mabel yelped in worry, causing a boy of similar appearance sitting on her opposite side to look up with an eyebrow raised, "Is everything alright?"

"Um... yes. Yes, it is." Erza Pines managed, pushing herself up again, "I think..."

* * *

So. This was proving to be an interesting loop, Erza considered.

To start from the beginning, her loop memories went back to the whole debacle with the Tower of Heaven where, rather than Natsu rescuing her from her sacrifice, she had been transported to another world, namely Earth in a comparable manner to Lisanna's experience in Baseline. There, she'd been taken in by a novelty shack owner and swindler by the name of Stan Pines, who despite his choice of job was a well-meaning individual.

Naturally, this led Erza to believe that the Ping she'd heard was probably Lucy, who was still Anchoring this loop despite the multiple dimensions present.

Stan operated an attraction known as the Mystery Shack, in the town of Gravity Falls, itself a hotspot for all manner of supernatural weirdness. But as Erza had eventually learned, the Shack was just a front to pay the bills whilst he secretly worked on a dimensional portal in the basement, in an effort to rescue his twin brother Ford. Erza's unAwake self had been somewhat pissed at first that Stan hadn't told her about a potential way of getting her home, but quickly let it go when it became clear the thing was a long way from being repaired.

Then, the less pleasant part of all this had happened. Or the best part, depending on how Erza looked at it.

Stan's nephew, whom Erza would henceforth only refer to as 'That Bastard', had apparently seduced her (or she seduced him, it was hard to say), and before she knew it, she had a pair of twins running around in California, the pair having moved following a marriage that they should have known wouldn't last. In the last year prior to her Awakening, they'd gotten divorced after that bastard's jealousy over the now 12-year old twins, "Dipper" and Mabel, inheriting Erza's magic ability had reached breaking point. The less said about it the better, but after the divorce had been finalized, Erza had decided to move back to Gravity Falls to be around Stan, who did care, despite his rough demeanour.

After Awakening, meanwhile, had been all sorts of crazy. Within the first couple of weeks, she'd fended off gnomes trying to take Mabel as their queen, defeated a giant, robotic lake monster and ploughed through an army of possessed wax figures. All in all, it felt like an average day in this loop, but it was certainly something.

And then Mabel Awoke.

* * *

"Woah, that's a big sword. Gimme?"

"I... don't think I should be giving a 12-year old a sword, even one who happens to be my daughter for this loop." Erza sighed, shaking her head as Mabel's face fell slightly, "Also, and correct me if I'm incorrect here, but would a certain Pinkie Pie be happy with me supplying one of her 'students' with sharp weapons?"

"Pfft. She'd be fine." Mabel rolled her eyes slightly, "And I'm preeeetty sure I'm older than you, speaking loopily, ya know?"

"I figured, but with that in mind, you can't make me give you a sword."

"Yeah, yeah..." the looping grappling hook enthusiast sighed, before suddenly becoming sombre, "Do you have kids?"

"I'm... not sure I understand."

"In your home loop, silly."

"Oh." Erza blinked, then shook her head, "No, I don't." she paused, then added, "Not yet, at least. Our Admin mentioned we might be due a new expansion in the relative future, but that still won't be for a long while. Might not move that far forward, though. Why are you asking?"

"Because, I can tell." Mabel admitted, shrugging, "I kinda maybe... might've looped in as someone's mom once. It was..." she giggled, "Nice, but I'm just a kid, not counting the Loops, so I didn't really know what I was doing, like, all the time. You're older than me, but it's the same look."

"I guess it isn't something I have any personal experience with, so I probably don't live up to the expectation." The red-haired wizard nodded, rolling the thought over in her mind, "What are yours and Dipper's parents like in Baseline, by the way?"

"They... uh..." the young brunette suddenly looked anxious, "They aren't, mostly."

"...really?"

"Yeah, kinda." Mabel slumped a little, "I mean, I know our dad probably works with computers and our mom liked to dress Dipper in a lamb costume when we were really young, and they gave us archaic names because they're 'counter-culture'." She took a moment to think, eyes narrowing, "I _think_ that's the phrase Dipper used, anyway."

"And that's all?" Erza frowned, clearly beginning to understand Mabel's position on this.

"Apparently our middle names are their first names too, which has _definitely_ carried over to this loop," Mabel Erza Pines groaned, "But we don't know what those are meant to be normally, or what they're meant to look like, or... or..." she took a deep breath, attempting to calm herself from mild hysteria, "Sorry, I guess. It doesn't usually bother me this much, but with a looper around in their place..."

"I understand completely."

"Y- you do."

"I do." Erza nodded, putting a hand on Mabel's shoulder, "For a long time after I started looping, my parentage was unknown to me, despite the semi-regular expansions Earthland was getting at the time." She shook her head, "When I eventually discovered the identity of my mother, it was somewhat damning to know they were on the side of a man who wanted to erase the present world by returning to the past and remaking it to his design."

"Is..." Mabel gave an uneasy frown, "Is this, um, meant to be cheering me up?"

"My point," the 'Fairy Queen' continued, "Is that for better or for worse, your parents will be there for you, one day, when the right set of expansions come to pass." She smiled, "And from what you've said, you have no need to fear what those times might bring."

Mabel stared for a long, apprehensive moment. Then, with sudden tears in her eyes, albeit tears of happiness, she leapt forward, wrapping in-loop mother in a tight hug. Erza froze for a moment, surprised, but quickly returned the gesture.

"Hah..." the local looper laughed lightly as she pulled away, "You know I said I could tell you hadn't been a mother before?"

"...Yes?"

"Well, I take it back. Like, really." Mabel grinned warmly, "I think you'll make an awesome mom someday."

"Thank you." Erza nodded, "That... that means a lot, actually. That said, how does that affect us here?"

"Nah, it shouldn't." Gravity Falls' Second stretched as she spoke, then took a brief pause, "Not mom-daughter, at least. Remnant's thing works for them in those sorts of moments, and that's fine, but it shouldn't need to be a thing for everyone."

"I was going to say."

"...although, I do still kinda want to learn some of that sword magic, soooo..." Mabel grinned, "You mind if I call you Auntie Erza? Not seriously, of course." She giggled again, "Just as, y'know, a promise to hang out?"

"I wouldn't mind hanging out with you anyway, Mabel." Erza chuckled dryly.

"Naturally. I'm _irresistible_."

* * *

41.15 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [RWBY]

Magnus didn't have a second to Wake Up before Jack was out of pendant form, flying towards a young girl in red. Not wanting to hear his sword flirting, he ran after him far easier than normal. Did he become an einejar early?

As soon as Magnus caught up with his sword, he saw Jack wasn't flirting. He was _cooing._

"She's so cute! And she's already gotten her first kill?! Such a prodigy!"

"Uh, thanks? She and I have slayed a bunch of Grimm together already. I actually made her myself."

"Then you did a fantastic job. Oh, Magnus, say hello to Ruby and Crescent Rose."

"Hi?"

"He's not much of a conversationalist. But I'm sure we can continue ours soon."

Magnus waited until the two were out of earshot before he started interrogation. "What happened? I thought you were gonna flirt with her after flying off like that!

"Señor, you wound me! Which is quite ironic, actually. Anyway, Crescent Rose is too young for me, only created a year ago from what I can tell. But I shouldn't have run off like that without telling you where I'm going. We are partners, after all."

"Thanks Jack. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that either. You wouldn't happen to know where we're supposed to go? My loop memories are telling me about this initiation we'll have to go through, but no specifics."

"Hmm, nope. But I'm sure the hot sword at the blonde kid's side would know."

"Jack!"

* * *

41.16 (Boohoooo!): [Mighty Magiswords] / [Percy Jackson - Magnus Chase side]

As Jack and Magnus fell thousands of feet, Jack wondered how they ended up like this... by singing a parody of the 'Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' theme song. Thankfully, before Magnus could test out if strangling a sword was possible, the duo's descent was slowed down by water.

"Thank seno- Hubba hubba! What a beauty!" Jack smiled, interrupting himself upon noticing Dolphin Magisword. Said Magisword blushed happily as Jack continued to lay on the compliments.

"Keep your... thing... away from my baby!" Prohyas demanded.

"Well, keep your weirdo away from Jack!" Magnus snapped back in annoyance. Prohyas slapped Magnus with a white glove, leading to an epic brawl. Jack and Dolphin Magisword watched, whistling to themselves.

* * *

41.17 (Boohoooo!): [A Bug's Life]

Flik blinked as people kept flicking water at him.

"Princess, why do people keep flicking water at me?" Flik asked Atta after the 7th time this happened.

"My UnAwake self made you the designated water-Flicked-at-guy behind your back." Atta awkwardly explained.

"...That's not a very effective punishment." Flik blinked.

"I know, Flik." Atta sighed.

"It's more annoying than anything else." Flik added.

"I know, Flik." Atta repeated.

* * *

41.1: Yep, Death Battle Loops are still a thing.

41.2: Yeah, I got no idea what's going on here.

41.3; Welcome to the Loops, Flik.

41.4: And now Atta starts Looping, and both get the speech.

41.5: A wild Waluigi appeared!

41.6: ...Right.

41.7: And Magnus gets more Loopers.

41.8: Toy Story has also gotten more Loopers, off-screen.

41.9: Looping allows King Arthur the ability to ensure that a lot of things from canon don't actually end up a problem.

41.10 / continued / continued again: Maleficent isn't Looping here... but it's interesting to hear about the _Enchanted Forest Chronicles_ Looping.

41.11: Pun Loops are a groaner.

41.12: ...

41.13: And, reaction to the Death Battle Loop they found out about in 41.1.

41.14: A new friendship.

41.15: Swords flirting with swords.

41.16: Uh-huh.

41.17: Quite.


	59. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Two

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-07-04. This is the second of two chapters posted today.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Two**

42.1 (Boohoooo!): [Pair of Kings]

Mikayla Makoola blinked as she Awoke at the Kings' first day on the Island of Kinkow.

"What the- Where's Boz?! Why are we celebrating the Kings coming here the first time?!" The Warrior demanded.

"...Because It's our first time here?" Boomer stated awkwardly.

"And who the heck is Boz?" Brady added.

"Wha- He's your brother! And you left!" Mikayka insisted.

"Why would I lea- Wait, brother?!" Brady began, his eyes widening.

"She's obviously crazy! It's scaring me!" Boomer whispered to his brother. Mikayka looked annoyed as Mason put a hand on her shoulder.

"Honey, maybe you should go rest. You're speaking nonsense." Mason advised. Mikayka frowned and went to do as told. She hopes this was just a byproduct of the stress and excitement...

* * *

_Okay, no WAY this could happen twice! Someone HAS to be messing with time!_ Mikayka mentally hissed, investigating every nook and cranny.

She'd get to the bottom of this!

* * *

42.2 (Boohoooo!): [Pair of Kings]

After the 5th time restart, Mikayka burst into Lanny's room with a machete, making the Wannabe King scream girlishly.

"What the heck, you she-beast?!" he exclaimed.

"Cut the garbage, Lanny! I know you've been messing with time!" Mikayka exclaimed angrily.

"What are you going on about?! Time Travel schemes are wayyyyyy too risky and complicated." Lanny explained.

"Seriously, Lanny, knock it off!" Mikayka snarled.

"I'm not doing anything!" Lanny insisted. Mikayka glared intensely, but realized she had no evidence. She stormed off, making an 'I'll be Watching You' Gesture. Lanny promptly fainted.

* * *

42.3 (Boohoooo!): [Pair of Kings]

"Ugh... This is getting ridiculous!" Mikayla whined to herself at the 7th restart... as a Laugh Track played.

"Gah! What the heck was that?!" Boomer exclaimed.

"I don't know my Kings! It's quite bizarre though!" Mason exclaimed as a Bazaar opened up behind him, triggering more laughter.

"Knock it off!" Brady snapped, accidentally knocking over a vase, leading to more laughter. Everyone screamed... except Mikayka.

"Great... a repeat of the 3rd restart..." she murmured.

* * *

42.4 (Anon e Mouse Jr.) / (The One named Light): [Monsters Inc.] / [Beauty and the Beast]

**Lost in Scaradise**

It was a nice, balmy day in Monstropolis and the energy plants were slowly chugging to the tune of screaming children. Belladonna Condon-Sullivan, Belle as her friends called her, and her husband Adam toiled hard as the top two Scarers of Monsters Inc.

"Another job well done, Monsieur," the octopus-esque Cogsworth congratulated to his master. "Always one to show little Jimmy how it's done, are you?"

"Cogsworth, he's studying up in MU, have a taste more faith in my younger brother," reassured the brown ram-like Beast. "He's doing well at Oozma Kappa, you know..."

"Pfthahahahaaa... of course!" Cogsworth smiled back, "That's to be expected from a Sullivan!"

"You should see the Mademoiselle in action, Cogsworth!" reminded the dapper looking flame elemental Lumieré. "She's receiving her next door now!"

Lumieré was not wrong as a door was swooping in from the vault and sliding into place for Belle to analyze for a spell before walking through what the debonair selected for the beastly beauty. "Wish me luck." She blushed with a hint of worry, having just Awakened that day as a top scarer with Adam and had hidden doubts in her scaring expertise throughout the hours she'd leaned on her in-Loop memories for added skill.

Creaking the door open and closing it as soon as she entered it, Belle looked around the room as the small child inside stirred awake in the bed and opened her eyes, unaware of the monster that had snuck inside... or was she?

"Kitty?"

Belle lunged forth and snarled at the child before catching a glimpse of her screaming face in the moonlight of the outside world. The beastly beauty looked to the girl and realized something was quite familiar about the girl, recognizing her from the resident Anchor's Baseline. "Boo?"

She indeed sported the same short pigtails and pink nightie, but that could have been any other two-year-old toddler, could it?

Just then, there was a loud banging on the room's door. " _Hey, shut up in there, ya brat!_ "

Belle looked up, and ducked under the bed in time to hear someone come storming in. "Get back in bed and go to sleep, you little..." the same adult voice from before snarled. Then she heard some loud stomping, and a door slamming.

Creeping out from under the bed, she found the little girl in tears, and scooped her up. "Shh... shh... it'll be okay," she whispered as she tried to comfort Boo. Then, glancing at the Door, she confirmed it was white with pink flowers, just as it was in Baseline. Making up her mind in an instant, she headed for the closet Door, Boo in her arms, and shut it behind her as she walked out.

* * *

Later that dusk, Belle drove to Oozma Kappa where her brother-in-law (for the Loop at least...) was hanging around with his closest friend.

"And may I ask why must we see James at this time of night?" Adam questioned his wife, having been dragged along for the ride.

"Because I found a certain someone that needs to see them as soon as possible," Belle answered.

"What kind of someone?" asked the Beast.

"A friend of theirs..." Belle refocused her gaze to the road as she drove up the fraternity block in search of Oozma Kappa. Spotting a humble suburban home with an OK in front, Belle went to park the car and honked for the Anchor and his friend. "Sully!"

Words could be heard from behind the walls, voices wondering aloud what their guest wanted from them, and footsteps came ever closer to the front door as Belle walked up and gave a little knock before Sully opened the door to find his cousin's brother's wife with a new daughter wrapped in a pink blanket. "What's all this then?"

"Something that requires some private time," exclaimed Belle as she held the child abreast in her sprint to Sully and Mike's dorm. "So if you'll excuse me, I need to borrow your room for a spell. Not literally, of course, but it will need a few minutes to gather ourselves for the plan that needs to be engaged." Belle dashed through their door, unPocketed a doll for a child, and emerged with a smile. "Right this way."

"She's probably offering to clean our room." Mike scoffed. "Princesses..."

"Mike, you know what happens when you just assume out of the blue," Sully reminded him before looking to Belle. "You wanted to see us?"

Belle showed the human hand beneath the thick pink blanket to the horror of the two monsters that Belle immediately calmed out of screaming by the sight of the face that accompanied the hand. "Boo?"

The little one giggled: "Kitty."

The big blue bear-like beast reached out for the child as Mike locked the door. "How is this even possible?" Sully asked. "This is before you were born!"

"Oy, must've been an early bird this Loop," the one-eyed Anchor remarked as he walked forward. "What's really bugging me is why Mrs. Beast here nabbed Boo from her bedroom when her parents must be worried sick about her!"

"Not to mention how terrifying humans are to the common folk in our Branch," added Sully.

"And all this when you could have gone to an orphanage to adopt a little sun spot if ya wanted to be a mommy and it'll likely go as smoothly as you went with tall, dark and brooding out there." Mike reminded to Belle. "And you expect to pass her off as one of us?"

"You're not falling to Sakura Syndrome, are you?" the blue furred beast asked.

"No!" Belle was appalled. "It's not even about being a parent, Mike! It's about getting her _out_ of there..." She cuddled the toddler. "Listen, I know Yggdrasil wouldn't normally handle a Looper whose baseline age doesn't progress any further than the terrible twos. But even if she won't activate from this... you weren't there," she said. "You didn't hear the things I did. She's safer in a world of monsters than with the _other_ monster I heard."

Mike and Sully exchanged looks, then looked at her.

"Belle..."

"Please!" Belle demanded. "I'll do what I can to keep up the facade as I raise her, just give me this one chance. You might not get it again."

Sully tilted his sight back with a look of lament before focusing on Boo. "Are you sure you're willing to raise her to the end of the Loop?"

"For as long as I am here, yes." Belle asserted.

"Sully, what about the expansion?" questioned Mike. "What if it goes forward in our lives to when Boo's old enough to have a more concrete personality?"

"Well, then this could be our sneak peak at the kind of girl Boo's going to be." Boo giggled with excitement as Sully spoke to the princess. "We'll help you with coming up with her disguise."

"Thank you." Belle smiled back before holding Boo to her cheeks. "Do you hear that, Boo? You get to stay with us."

"Breathe in that Monstropolis air, kid," smirked the spherical cyclops to his Looping peers. "This'll be your new home for the next decade or so if my boyish good looks are to believed."

"And it will be a very long time, your entire childhood and then some!" Belle smiled to the toddler as she cradled her in her currently beefy arms. "Welcome to the multiverse, little one. I promise I will not let you down."

* * *

"A daughter?" The CEO of the plant eyed Belle. "Why, I didn't even hear a word of your rookery."

"I do hope you understand my oncoming absence, Mister Waternoose." Belle bowed to the six-legged bigwig. "My little tapeworm just hatched this morning and I had to hang up my hard-hat for the time being so that I can raise Mary in the best way that I can."

"Quite the heart, milady," sighed Waternoose, stroking his beard as he looked to the frowning monster in Belle's arms. "I'm sort of a family man myself, what with this company being a part of the family for three generations now."

"And we Sullivans are the same way, Henry." Belle looked to the five-eyed afroed gentlemonster. "I will miss working alongside Adam at this fine plant of yours."

"And I await your return when little Mary leaves the nest." Waternoose smiled back with a salute. "Best of luck with your daughter, Belle."

"I promise, she'll be well-raised under my care, Mr. Waternoose." Belle waved to the arachnoid. "My little baby-boo's going to be a good girl, won't she?"

"Boo!" the girl giggled and hugged the beastly beauty as she walked off to her car.

* * *

_Looping comes to Bonds that grow the strongest_

_Two worlds, One family_

_Trust your heart, let fate decide_

_To guide these lives we see!_

Time elapsed: Three days. Boo's age: 2 years, 7 months, 3 weeks.

* * *

42.5 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts]

Sora couldn't tell what was more horrifying: a mellow Donald or Donald the Rage Monster.

He just had the bad luck of dealing with both.

"Your Majesty," Sora muttered, "what happened?"

"Well, I made the mistake of sending Donald to get his rage extracted," Mickey muttered, before noticing the mellow Donald all over him. "Well, you found him. Now where's his anger?"

"That way," both Sora and mellow!Donald said, pointing towards the trail of destruction.

Sora blinked. "This can't get any worse," he muttered.

Then he noticed a dark portal come in, revealing Isa... nearly Norted completely.

"So that's the power of Rage," he muttered. "Such rage would be perfect for..." Unfortunately, he didn't expect a Keyblade to the face... before it spawned in Mickey's hand.

"We'll deal with you later," Mickey said, completely annoyed. "Sora, help me subdue Donald's anger."

"I would," Sora muttered, carrying Mellow!Donald, "but I've got my hands tied."

Mickey groaned. "Why..."

At least he wasn't singing the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song.

* * *

42.6 (Boohoooo!): [Pair of Kings]

Mikayka blinked in worry as she Awoke. In this restart, Lanny had rigged Boomer and Brady's transport with explosives, killing them before they even arrived.

 _'A competent Lanny? Terrifying...'_ She mused.

"...And I want ten thousand ice cream sandwiches!" Lanny cackled.

"...Nevermind." Mikayka muttered to herself, going to get said treats. This restart was going to be EXHAUSTING...

* * *

42.7 (Boohoooo!): [Pair of Kings] / [Men In Black] / [Wacky Races] / [Boot to the Head glitch]

Mikayka blinked as she Awoke to see Lanny in chains.

"You must face the Ultimate Punishment... BOOT TO THE HEAD!" Boomer roared with tears in his eyes.

"...What?" Mikayla and Lanny both Blinked. With that, Lanny was repeatedly hit in the head with a boot.

"...I hate these restarts..." Mikayla sighed.

* * *

K and J had just finished stopping the Worms from robbing a Starbucks.

"Now, to erase their memories with the Boot to the Head!" An UnAwake J nodded.

"...What?" K blinked. J then Awoke.

"...What the hell was I going on about?" J sighed.

"I have no idea, partner." K sighed, pulling out the Neuralizer... which was now just a boot.

"...Screw this." both Agents deadpanned in unison, walking off.

* * *

Dick Dastardly and Muttley wailed as they were chased by Red Max, who was throwing Boots at their heads.

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?!" Dastardly wailed. Muttley shrugged as the two fell off a cliff, a boot hitting their heads upon landing.

"...Ow... I hate the Loops..." Dastardly groaned.

* * *

42.8 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Order of the Stick] / [Boot to the Head glitch]

Despite Waking up, Magnus knew he was dreaming. Loki lounged across his Uncle Randolph's desk, his lip scars, creepily glowing eyes and Red Sox jersey easily identifying him.

"Death was an interesting choice, Magnus."

Magnus tried to calm his pounding heart. He beat Loki in a flyting contest, put him in a nut, and the gods reimprisoned him. But the sheer difficulty of his quest, the memories of Loki freeing from his bonds and his hate in his voice when he talked about Baldr didn't help.

A boot the size of a Pontiac striking Loki in the face did the trick.

Vidar stood over the sprawled form of Loki, his rubber/Uggs/steel toed boot shrinking down. He turned to face Magnus and signed _Boot to the Head._

The dream faded, and Magnus woke up to Samirah carrying him once more to Hotel Valhalla.

* * *

Despite his best interests, Shojo turned to the deva he summoned. He didn't want to get an actual being from the Upper Planes, nor continue the trial, but with Eugene failing and the Lawfulness of his people, his hands were tied.

"Oh great being of Law and good, you have heard the arguments of both sides of the case. Are you prepared to render your verdict?"

"I am. On behalf of the Upper Planes and the cosmic forces of Law and Good, I declare the Order of the Stick guilty. Their punishment: A Boot To The Head! Phil, please hand me your Comically Oversized Boot."

The lawyer did so, taking the time to stick his tongue out at his colleague.

"Sorry Roy, I didn't expect helping the lawyers out with their verse would lead to this!"

"As good as it would make me feel, I'm not blaming you Elan. This seems a bit too far out of left field, even for you."

Yeah, it smells a bit like a running gag, but it's not something Berlew came up with. Maybe one of the Admins did something ridiculous, and it spread through Yggdrasil?"

"If that's the case they'd be just as bad as the ones in our Baseline, which wouldn't surprise me. At least Belkar won't show up for a while."

With that said, one of the windows was smashed to bits, Miko crashing through with Belkar impaled on her sword.

"May the Boot To The Heads commence!"

* * *

42.9 (Boohoooo!): [Pair of Kings] / [The Suite Life of Zach and Cody]

Mikayla sighed as time restarted for the umpteenth time (she had given up counting).

"This suckssssssss... I've exhausted every possibility!" Mikayla moaned.

Zach and Cody then fell from the sky, screaming, which obviously interrupted her complaining.

"...Ow." The twins groaned. Mikayla promptly pointed a machete at them.

"Great going, Zach! Now we're gonna die only three hours after Waking up!" Cody glared.

"Don't blame me! The Loops are out to get us at times!" Zach glared back.

"Explain these Loops! Are they why time is restarting?!" Mikayla demanded.

"Well, hottie, put away the big knife and I'll explain!" Zach smirked. Mikayla punted him out the castle window, his screams and a thud being audible. Cody sighed and began the explanation.

One Welcome to the Multiverse Speech later...

"That's... That's a lot to take in..." Mikayla mused.

"Agreed." Cody sighed.

"Can I get a doctor now?" Zach called. With a sweatdrop, the duo got Zach a doctor. Mikayla sighed happily. She finally had an explanation!

...She should probably free Lanny.

...At some point.

* * *

42.10 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Power Rangers Dino Charge] / [Sleeping Beauty]

Prince Phillip the Third, Graphite Ranger and heir to the throne of Zandar, brought his horse to a sudden stop as he Woke Up and, after a moment, took stock of his surroundings.

It appeared to be a vast forest, and if his memories were anything to go by, it wasn't far from his kingdom... which, though his Loop memories told him it was still Zandar, it was clearly _not_ the Zandar of his time period. Nor was it Prince Colin's era; that had been in the 1200s, about a hundred years before his current _now_. In fact, if he was remembering right, Prince Colin had been his immediate grandfather, rather than being several generations removed from him.

Checking his Pocket, he was relieved to find that he could still access it, not that it held much more than his Graphite Energem and a few Dino Chargers. Still, it told him this wasn't a Null Loop, something Heckyl had previously warned him about.

Just then, he heard the sound of someone singing in the distance, and prodded his horse. "Let's go, Samson," he told the animal. "I want to find out who that is."

As Samson reluctantly turned around, Phillip let out a Ping, and got one back in return. Nodding to himself, he urged his mount on, heading in the direction of the voice.

It took him some time before he found his way into the clearing, and was amused to see a young woman dancing with an owl, a squirrel and a pair of rabbits, each wearing an item of clothing: the owl had on a cloak akin to his own, while the squirrel was in a hat just like the one he wore, and the boots, hopping around with a rabbit in each, were again identical. Watching them silently, as her song came to an end, he finally coughed politely, catching her attention. As she turned to see him, her face brightened. "Phillip!"

Prince Phillip looked at her in surprise. "You know me?"

"Of course - wait." The woman approached him and looked more carefully. "You're not _my_ Phillip..."

"Perhaps not, but I am still Phillip." He bowed. "Prince Phillip the Third of Zandar, at your service."

The woman looked amused. "Briar Rose, of this forest. At least, for now - my aunts and I are leaving tonight."

"A shame," Phillip replied. "This place will be poorer without your beauty."

"Flattery will get you nowhere except in trouble with my fiancé," Briar Rose replied. "I've been waiting to meet Phillip again for a long time, and even if you share his name, I doubt he would be pleased if he found another man flirting with me."

"Very well then." Phillip bowed. "But before I go, might I ask something? You see, I have come to this forest in search of an Anchor. Have you seen one?"

"That all depends on how Loopy you're feeling," Briar Rose replied.

Phillip broke into a smile. "I take it you're the one for this Branch then." He held out a hand. "I really am Prince Phillip the Third of Zandar, by the way. Latest Looper from my own Branch."

Briar Rose accepted his hand. "Princess Aurora, local Anchor," she said as she shook it. "I've got less than a day until Maleficent gets desperate and turns to extreme measures to enact her curse."

Phillip bowed again. "Thank you, my lady. And, ah, Maleficent?" he asked. He'd swear he'd heard that name somewhere before.

"The wicked fairy who cursed me at my christening," Aurora replied. "It's supposed to take effect before the sun sets on my sixteenth birthday, and if I stay out of her sight until then, she can't enact it." She scowled. "Of course, she can always work up a new one after that, but I'd just as soon avoid such a fate altogether."

"Certainly understandable," Phillip told her. "And in which case, my lady, would you object if I escorted you back home and remained there until sunset, in case she comes after you directly? I pack quite a punch in battle, if I do say so myself."

Aurora hesitated. "I'd say yes, except my aunts have always warned me against strangers," she said carefully. "And I'm not sure how they'd react to you - they aren't Awake this Loop, as far as I can tell."

"I was chosen by a great power to wield it against evil," Phillip said. "I think they might be willing to accept me."

"Very well then." Aurora smiled. "Let's be off, shall we?"

* * *

Needless to say, Aurora had been right. Flora, Fauna and Merryweather had _not_ been happy, and were currently scolding her over her decision. Judging by the faintly annoyed look on her face, she wasn't happy with them either, but she was clearly holding it in.

Finally, Phillip felt the need to speak up. "My ladies, if you don't mind-"

The fairy in blue turned to him. " _You_ stay out of this, young man!" she said fiercely. "If you'd just kept away from our niece, we wouldn't be having this discussion with her right now!"

"And if you will listen, you would know that I am no ordinary young man," Phillip replied. "I am-"

Before he could say anything, the door blew in, and a creature covered in black feathers stalked through it. "Princess Aurora! You're coming with me!"

The three fairies gasped, and Phillip frowned. "Spellbinder..."

"You've heard of me," the creature said as it turned to him. "Yes... I am Diablo the Spellbinder, servant of the great Maleficent. And she always gets what she wants! Goons!"

A horde of ugly creatures crowded through the door, and Phillip rose. "So it's a fight you want..." His fists tightened. "Then it's a fight you'll get!" Throwing himself into battle with a whirl of kicks and punches, he sent the creatures flying every which way, while Aurora ducked behind the table, reaching for something.

"Oh no you don't!" Spellbinder waved a hand, and a set of ropes appeared around Aurora's wrists. A moment later, the golden pendant on his chest swung open, sucking her in.

"Princess!" Phillip looked up from the last Goon he'd been pummeling. "That does it. Dino-"

He was hit in the chest with an energy blast and went flying backwards, looking up in time to see Spellbinder flying away.

"The princess!" the three fairies gasped, then turned to him.

"I _knew_ you were trouble," Merryweather said with a scowl. "Now look what-"

"It's not his fault," Fauna interrupted her gently. "Maleficent would have come after the princess even if he hadn't crossed paths with her. Though..." The green fairy eyed him. "You seem familiar, young man..."

Phillip rose to his feet and bowed. "I am Prince Phillip the Third of Zandar, my ladies."

At once, the trio gasped. "You... you're King Hubert's son!" Flora whispered. "Oh my goodness..."

Merryweather's own face reddened. "I am so sorry, your highness," she apologized. "I had no idea it was _you_... our dear child's fiancé..."

"All is forgiven, my lady," Phillip replied. "But now we must rescue the princess. The question is, where would she have been taken?"

The three fairies exchanged glances. "We don't know," Fauna admitted. "But I have my suspicions. Regardless, we must find her soon..."

"And I'll have to take care of Spellbinder," Phillip said grimly. "Though I'm not sure how he could have absorbed Aurora like he did... from what I've been told, he only displayed _that_ power when he was a part of Spell Digger."

The fairies looked at him curiously, but shook it off. "Either way, we need to get Aurora back," Merryweather said firmly. "Quickly!"

* * *

"Urrgh!"

Having been released from Spellbinder's prison, but her hands still bound, Aurora glared up at Maleficent as the dark fairy stood before her in the throne room of her castle.

"Did you really think you would escape my curse?" Maleficent asked coldly. "It is foolish to resist, child."

"You _won't_ get away with this," Aurora hissed. Loop after Loop of dealing with the dark fairy had worn on her; while she had no true hatred for her enemy, she found these Loops where Maleficent gained the upper hand to be _very_ annoying. If she could reach into her Pocket to get out one of her four Dress Up Keys and her Princess Perfume, that would be one thing, but Spellbinder's magic ropes kept her from being able to so much as twitch a finger.

"Oh, but I already have." Maleficent waved her staff, and a spinning wheel appeared. "Come, and meet your fate..."

Aurora tried to resist, but as a second rope appeared, this one connected to the bindings she already had and spinning her around, she was forced to move backward. Finally, her finger was in the right place, and she felt a prick.

Then as the window suddenly blew in, she fell, and knew no more.

* * *

" _Maleficent!_ " four voices roared, and the dark fairy looked up, a snarl on her lips.

"You!" she yelled. "How did you get here so fast?"

"Because good always prevails!" Merryweather snapped. "Flora, Fauna! Get Aurora!"

"I think not!" Maleficent raised her staff, and a number of fireballs shot from it, only to be intercepted by Merryweather's wall of air.

Meanwhile, Phillip had charged Spellbinder, and was matching his blows. Finally, sending him back far enough, he reached into his Pocket. "'Tis morphing time!" he called. "Dino Charger, ready! Energize! Hah! Unleash the power!"

As his suit formed around him, he held up his fists. "Pachycephalosaurus! Power Ranger, Graphite!"

Spellbinder's eyes widened. "What the blazes are you?"

"Your worst nightmare." Phillip charged, and the pair began trading blows, until Phillip had again sent Spellbinder flying back. "Pachy Punch!"

Leaping into the air, he delivered a charging headbutt straight at the monster, who let out a startled cry as his amulet fell to the ground in pieces. "No!"

Under his helmet, Phillip grinned. "Yes. Now, take this!" Corkscrewing his hand, he built up a charge around it. "Royal Dino Punch!"

The spiked energy construct smashed straight into Spellbinder, who let out a startled cry before he fell and exploded.

"Monster extinct," Phillip said to himself as he turned to see Maleficent still waving her staff and sending fire and lightning at the three fairies. He also noted that Aurora had been successfully moved out of the battlefield, though he wasn't entirely sure where she'd gone to.

"Now," he said as he strode towards Maleficent. "To deal with _you_."

Maleficent turned to him and for a moment, he saw a look of pure, unadulterated _hatred_ at him. "You... you will pay for what you did to my beloved Diablo!" As green and black flames enveloped her, she began to cackle. "Now shall you deal with me, oh prince, and all the powers of **_Hell!_** "

As she proceeded to metamorphose into a gigantic dragon, Phillip grimaced. "What I wouldn't give to have my Pachy Zord here right now..."

Then he pulled a Dino Charger out and clicked it. "Might as well give it a shot. Activate Pachy Zord!" Throwing the Charger away, he waited.

He was rewarded with a loud roar, and moments later, the Pachy Zord burst through the walls of the castle, smashing straight into Maleficent.

The three fairies quickly flew over to him. "What manner of _creature_ is that?" Fauna gasped.

"Don't worry," Phillip replied, still looking at his Zord. "It's on our side."

And as they watched, Phillip silently thanking the Admins that Zenowing must have also been here this Loop, the Pachy Zord unleashed its wrecking ball tail, slamming into Maleficent before delivering a fierce headbutt to her, knocking her off her feet and into the wall.

"Pachy Zord! Let's take her out together!" Phillip called. "Have to thank Heckyl for showing me how to do this," he muttered as he inserted a second Dino Charger into his morpher, spinning the cylinder on it. Leaping into his Zord's mouth, he called out, "Dino Morpher Blast, final strike!"

As the Pachy Zord's roar sent him flying at Maleficent, an energy projection of its head shot from the morpher, chomping down on the dragon's head and exploding, taking its target with it.

"And that's that," he said confidently as the last traces of the dark fairy vanished.

Demorphing, he waved to his Zord one more time as it departed, then turned to the three fairies. "Well. That's taken care of."

"Yes... but poor Aurora's still in her enchanted sleep," Fauna said sadly. "Only true love's kiss can bring her out of it... and since you're her fiancé, it's up to you."

Revealing the comatose princess, she laid Aurora down where Phillip could reach her. He gazed at her for a moment, then nodded. "I shall do my best."

Hoping that the local Prince Phillip would forgive him this trespass, he laid his lips against hers in a kiss, then stood up.

Nothing happened.

"Oh dear," Flora whispered.

* * *

The four were in a somber mood as they brought Aurora back to King Stefan's castle, the fairies flying ahead to speak to the King and Queen to inform them of what had happened. When Phillip entered carrying the unconscious princess several minutes later, the two were decidedly unhappy as they laid eyes on their daughter for the first time in sixteen years.

Laying her on a bier that had been set up, he turned and approached the King and Queen, then knelt. "I am sorry I failed you," he said. "I will accept whatever punishment you deem necessary."

King Stefan seemed somewhat taken aback, but bowed in return. "It is not your fault," he said sadly. "I suppose it just was not meant to be... at least you were able to bring her back to us, and from what Flora, Fauna and Merryweather have told us, you have ensured that Maleficent will never trouble this kingdom again."

Next to him, Queen Leah sniffled, then rushed down the stairs, past Phillip. "Oh my darling daughter," she whispered as she laid her head against Aurora's, gently kissing the young woman on the forehead.

A moment later, Aurora's eyes fluttered, and she opened them to look up. "Mother?"

Queen Leah let out a wordless cry of joy and wrapped her arms around her daughter as Aurora sat up. Still standing on the dais, King Stefan's jaw dropped in disbelief. "How..."

"It would seem that Merryweather's gift did not necessarily define true love's kiss as being of a romantic nature," Fauna said as she watched the happy reunion. "A mother's love is just as true."

The other fairies nodded, and then watched as King Stefan rushed down to join his wife and daughter.

Nearby, Prince Phillip was speaking to his father, who had also been in attendance. "So, it seems that Princess Aurora and I are not quite the match you were hoping for," he said. "Nevertheless, she is alive and safe, and that is what matters the most."

King Hubert nodded. "Quite right, my boy."

"Quite." Phillip looked at him. "I don't suppose you'd mind us remaining just friends, do you?"

"Er, well..." King Hubert looked a little dismayed. "Well, I hope you'll find _someone_ to give me grandchildren with at some point."

"We shall see, father. We shall see." Mentally, Phillip apologized for the lie, knowing full well that he'd never be able to grant the old man's wish thanks to a certain Patch.

Several hours later, when everyone had retired to their rooms for the night, Phillip and Aurora sat together.

"So, this Loop will be ending soon," he said. "I still can't believe I didn't recognize you. Then again, I never did watch too many movies - always busy learning how to run Zandar once I grew up." He smiled. "I'll have to take a night off to watch this one, and the others you gave me, as soon as possible."

Aurora nodded. "I'm sure it'll be an experience." She paused for a moment, then looked up at him. "I know we've only known one another a short time, but I must say, it's been good to know you, Phillip." She clasped his hand. "Friends?"

"Friends," Phillip told her. "And tell your actual fiancé that I said he's a lucky man."

Aurora smiled. "I will," she said. "And thank you for everything."

"You're very welcome," he replied. Smiling, he looked at her one more time.

Then the Loop ended.

* * *

_The next Loop..._

Prince Phillip the Third, Graphite Ranger and heir to the throne of Zandar, came to a sudden stop as he Woke Up and, after a moment, took stock of his surroundings.

To his relief, he saw he was in the Amber Beach Dinosaur Museum, and as his guards started to move ahead, he held up a hand. "Hold, gentlemen."

"Sire-" one started to say, but cut himself off when Phillip gave him a look.

"Return to the limo," he ordered them. "I will handle things on my own. That's an order," he added as he saw one of them start to protest.

The guard nodded. "Yes, your highness."

Once he was certain the guards had gone on, Phillip found an empty seat and settled in to listen to Kendall's lecture about the Stone of Zandar.

Some time later, when the presentation was complete, Phillip approached her. "Excuse me, miss..."

"Kendall Morgan," she replied. "I'm the director of the museum. And you are?"

"Prince Phillip the Third, of Zandar," he said with a bow. "I quite enjoyed your presentation on how one of our national treasures came into my ancestor's possession. But I believe you are missing a part of the story, and I would be willing to fill you in. Downstairs, if you don't mind."

Kendall looked at him curiously. "Downstairs?"

"With the rest of these." UnPocketing his Energem, Phillip showed it to her.

Kendall smiled in relief. "You're Awake then..."

"And more than willing to help free Sir Ivan as soon as possible," Phillip replied. "Also, I have quite the story about my last solo Loop to tell you and Heckyl, if he's around."

"He is," Kendall assured him.

"Excellent." He glanced around. "Shall we?"

Kendall nodded, and led him downstairs. They had work to do.

* * *

42.11 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer] / [Transformers]

Waspinator sighed as he flew for his life from Anaximander, said Anchor trying to eat him after Waspinator was transformed into an actual wasp.

"Why Yggdrasil hate Wazzzpinator?" Waspinator sighed.

"Buddy! Wait! That's A Looper!" Billy wailed, trying to stop Anaximander from eating the Visitor.

"Should we help out?" Marsha asked, concerned.

"Nah, this is too amusing." Zeke shrugged.

* * *

42.12 (The One named Light): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Brave - setting only]

"So you came all this way, eh?" The harridan huffed to Belle as she and Adam walked through the door into the workshop. "What can this old woodcarver help ya with?"

"Well, you did say that you're an expert in changing fate, did you not?" Belle pondered.

"Yes, and I also moonlight as a songwriter for a musical I've been toiling over for decades now." the elder woman took a cane and sang: _"Good News! It's Dead! The end without end is Dead!"_ Belle let out a giggle to this little ditty. "Oh, come now... This isn't the only bit I've got planned, there's going to be more to this."

"But what even is this?" Adam asked the harridan.

"A musical about the slums of the heavens!" chimed the seemingly senile senior to a deadpan-faced Belle.

The hot-tempered prince eyed the harridan with contempt and said: "Just show me and my wife how to shape-shift."

* * *

42.13 (Black Omochao): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Yo-kai Watch]

"This place seems fine," Sora admitted as he and Riku exited the gummi ship, into the new world which looked like a modern day Japanese town, the UnAwake Donald and Goofy not far behind the two Looping Keyblade wielders. "No signs of Heartless, or anything..."

"Well, Heartless won't necessarily just pop up as soon as we show up. If we were led here there's something we need to do," Riku stated calmly.

"Enough talk! Let's find the Keyhole and get out of here, fast!" Donald exclaimed, waving his staff around, the others looked at him strangely.

"Gawrsh Donald, what's the hurry?" Goofy questioned.

The magic-using duck's eyes shifted a bit. "Nothing... this place just gives me the creeps is all..." Donald shivered, glancing behind himself.

"Heartless will be showing up any minute now, I just know it," Riku stated as the four walked around the town carefully.

Sora smiled. "You sure about that? Nothing's seemed out of place so far?" he pointed out cheerfully, of course it wasn't more than ten seconds later that a ring of Shadow Heartless appeared around the group, who all immediately took offensive stances.

"What was it you just said?" Riku questioned plainly, Sora simply let out a chuckle before both summoned their keyblades, Donald and Goofy held their staff and shield out respectively as the team prepared for battle.

"Hey! Stop! No!" the voice of a child suddenly rang, the group looked over in surprise as a brown-haired, eleven-year-old boy approached.

"Hey, kid! Stay back, it's dangerous!" Sora called out, but the boy ignored him, approaching and giving the group of heartless a glare.

"Leave them be! That's not how we greet people around here!" the younger boy scolded, the Heartless backed off, lowering their heads in what seemed to be shame.

"...What just happened?" Sora asked slowly, none of his companions had an answer.

"There, see? When we greet someone new, we need to show them proper courtesy." Keita petted some of the Heartless as they moved around him, their antennae twitching animatedly.

"What are you doing!? Do you have any idea how dangerous those things are!?" Riku exclaimed at the ludicrous sight, after taking a moment to regain the use of his voice.

The local Anchor waved his hand. "Nah, these guys are harmless," Keita dismissed, scratching under the heartless chin, "Aren't you? Yes you are! Yes you are!" Sora and Riku just stared, unsure if what they were seeing was real, or hearing for that matter, as it started to sound like the heartless was purring!

"...Well, it looks like he's got this under control, so let's say we get something to eat, huh guys?" Sora offered, managing a smile.

"Oh, I know a good burger place!" Keita spoke up, still surrounded by docile Heartless.

Riku and Donald just kept their blank expressions.

"...I could eat," Goofy admitted.

* * *

42.14 (Masterweaver): [Phineas and Ferb] / [RWBY]

"...Kali?"

"Yes Ghira?"

"There is a roller coaster in our backyard."

"Oh, yes. I should have told you first, dear, but the visiting loopers have their little... traditions." Kali put a tea tray down on the table. "Generally speaking, they prefer a suburban backyard for their shenanigans to start in, but here on Remnant suburbs aren't really a thing. Villages come closest, but Menagerie is a touch more equipped, so I offered to let them do their thing here."

"...Which involves building a roller coaster?"

"That's mostly tradition, but from the way the boys described it it's also an accurate way to judge the relative resources they have to work with in a particular world."

"Yeah," said the boy stepping in, "this is actually one of our smaller coasters. Not even three kilometers." He scratched his red hair. "I mean I guess it makes sense, almost everything runs on Dust and advanced tools are precious resources... honestly considered cheating with loop powers a bit. Hey, where do you think a good place is for us to put the coaster anyway?"

Ghira blinked. "Put it?"

"I mean we have to clear out the backyard anyway for our next project. Our usual methods aren't going to fly here--unless you have any mad scientists?"

"We do have a smattering," Kali mused. "Doctor Merlot, Doctor Watts... Doctor Polendina is also sort of one, but he's usually saner, and almost always good. Actually, Doctor Watts is a very level-headed mad scientist, dry and deadpan. I would say Merlot's your best bet, if he had any moral redeeming qualities..."

"What is their loop like?" Ghira asked.

"It's pretty zany," the boy admitted. "Out pet platypus is a secret agent and we don't know that in baseline."

"There's also the inexplicable giant floating baby head," said the green-haired boy outside.

Kali snapped her fingers. "Mistral! It's built into a mountain. Add a few stops, and your roller coaster could become a fun and affordable public transport system--especially for the poor."

"Hmm." The redhead looked up at the construct. "It's certainly tall and windy enough. Okay, sounds good! Thanks for letting us borrow your backyard, missus Belladonna!"

"It was no trouble at all, Phineas. Oh, and the tea is ready Ferb. It's not british-style, is that alright?"

The boy gave her a thumbs up.

Ghira sighed. "Kali, I understand you're trying to be a good host, and I would have willingly agreed to this, but... I do like to be kept in the loop at least a little bit."

"Oh! I'm sorry, I just..." Kali chuckled awkwardly as the boys walked past her. "I guess I got used to the idea of being the one running the house..."

"It's fine. Honestly I'm mostly worried about the reactions," Ghira admitted.

As if on cue, the rollercoaster's cars screeched to a stop with four teenage girls.

The blonde one turned to the one sitting next to her with a smirk. "Sooooo?"

"Holy cow." The girl was clutching her bar, a crazed grin plastered on her face as her skin shifted rapidly through purples and greens and pinks. "Oh my god, that was just, I can't---this is, wow, I, WOW."

"And here I remember you saying rollercoasters seemed like a waste of material and effort."

"I can't believe I ever said that. I've been converted, Yang. I'm a believer now, I've seen the light."

The catgirl in the rear seat leaned forward with a chuckle. "It is a Phineas and Ferb coaster, Ilia, top of the line best of the best. You might have to temper your expectations for other ones."

"Blake, don't ruin this for me I am on a serious adrenaline high right now--"

"It's actually on the low end for them," said the orange-haired one with a long neck. "My brothers usually go all out."

Ilia spun around. "Wait, there are coasters better then this?! AND YOU GET TO EXPERIENCE THEM ALL THE TIME?!"

"When my neuroses don't kick in, yeah."

"Hi Candace!" Phineas waved. "We're thinking of converting the coaster into a public transit for Mistral!"

"Sounds about right. Hey, has anybody seen Perry?"

* * *

Ozpin stared at the bound-and-gagged Salem in the middle of his office, and the unassuming teal monotreme in a fedora standing next to her.

"...I... missed something, didn't I?"

The platypus chortled.

* * *

42.15 (Anon e Mouse Jr.): [Classic Disney] / [DuckTales, 2017 variant]

_"Yeah. Right. Cheap old Scrooge probably bailed as soon as it put a dent in his Money Bin," Dewey spat disgustedly._

" **I did no such thing!** " Scrooge bellowed as he suddenly Awoke.

Four sets of eyes looked up to stare at him, and Scrooge sighed. _This again... curse me kilts, why is it that I'm the only one who's ever Awake in this Variant?_ Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he looked at the four youngsters.

"When your grandparents died," he began, "I took Donald and your mother in, vowed to raise them like me own children. Losing Della that day was... well, it broke me heart, like I had lost me little sister Hortense all over again." His fingers tightened around his cane. "But even after we were cut off, I had faith in her. I knew she wouldn't just give up, and neither could I. So I spent more money on that one project than I ever had before. Built over a dozen more rockets, trained more astronauts. All so they could go out to find her and bring her home, or even just some evidence of where she might have ended up. But, as time passed with no results... finally, those vultures on the board of directors had had enough. They didn't care about my family. All they wanted was to make money. So they literally dragged me away from the project, ordered it all shut down because they felt it was drivin' me into bankruptcy on what they called a wild goose chase. Said Della was gone, there was no point." He grimaced. "If I could have fired them all that day, I would have... but their contracts kept it from happening." He grimaced again.

"Despite that setback, I privately vowed to make enough money that I could restart things without their involvement. And I swore that when the time came, I'd find Della and bring her home, even if it cost me my _own_ life." He looked down. "If I had to go back and do things over again, I would have... well, I've have made sure Della wouldn't have been able to get into the _Spear of Selene_ until I was ready for her to do so. Like after you boys were old enough, so the six of us could go up together. And _definitely_ after I was sure it was safe."

The boys' eyes were wide. "You... you mean it?" Dewey finally asked. "You never gave up on her?"

"No lad. I didn't. I still haven't." Scrooge looked at them. "Just in case, I kept the communications equipment all set up and running in me mansion. Hoping to pick up some signal from her and her ship. Hoping for some sign that she's still out there... some evidence that what I know in my heart is true. That Della Duck lives, and that she'll be comin' home some day."

The triplets stared at him, and then rushed around the box to embrace him in a hug. After a moment, Scrooge waved, and Webby came over to join them, Scrooge happily accepting her into the group.

After a moment, Huey spoke. "Um, you said 'Mostly'. Doesn't that mean there's another reason?"

Scrooge gave him a wry look. "Truth be told, lad, there is. The other reason... is because if I passed without making sure your mother was safe and home, your grandparents would never forgive me. So I'm putting off _that_ meeting for as long as I can." He gave something of a grin. "Especially since... well, Hortense and Quackmore had tempers to match your uncle's, and I am in no hurry to be on the receiving end of _that_ again."

"Yeah..." Louie chuckled. "Can't blame you there."

"Well." Mrs. Beakley looked at them. "I am glad that you are able to get all this out into the open, Scrooge. But perhaps now we should focus on _saving our lives_."

"Absolutely, Beakley." Scrooge looked at the four. "Kids, back in your seats. Beakley, go to the cockpit. Launchpad! Keep this thing steady... I'm going outside again."

"Mr. McDuck!" Mrs. Beakley began to protest.

"Not another word, Beakley. I got us into this mess, and by all my ancestors, _I will get us out of it._ " Scrooge's eyes gleamed. "I've got an idea."

* * *

_The next day..._

"So, that's everything," Scrooge concluded as he watched Donald for a reaction. After a moment, the younger duck sighed.

"Why did you never tell me, Scrooge?" he asked. "Della was my sister!"

"And it was _my_ fault," Scrooge replied. "I felt I had to make things right myself... besides, back then you were more ready to hit me than hear me out. I hoped that if I could get Della back before we met again, it would help out."

Donald sighed. "You're right. It might have." He slammed his fist on the arm of the chair. "But you still could have at least sent someone to pass on a message or something!"

"Aye, lad. I know better now." Scrooge rose. "So, now you know the truth... what say we get to work on things again, together?"

"Together." Donald reached out, and the two shook hands.

Then the Loop ended.

* * *

Scrooge snapped Awake again, and found himself in the back seat of his limo.

"I hate it when these Loops end right when things are getting better," he grumbled.

"Uh, gawrsh, Mr. Scrooge," a voice came from the front seat as a familiar face turned around to look back at him. "What are 'Loops'?"

There was a sudden squeal of tires, and a frantic "Eyes on the road, lad!" from Scrooge.

"A-hyuck!" came the response, as the driver turned back forward.

 _If only he were Awake..._ Scrooge grumbled to himself. _Then he'd probably be just as crazy a driver as he usually is, but at least I wouldn't be alone again!_

Ah well. Even if it _was_ an unAwake Goofy driving him instead of Launchpad this Loop, there was one good thing about it: they were in his own comparatively safe limo and not that hunk of junk from that Loop where Max was Anchoring. He'd experienced that car a few times, and it was _not_ something he enjoyed.

* * *

42.16 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson - Magnus Chase side]

The Escafil Device, a blue box that allowed her to transform into any animal as long as she touched it first.

The Omnitrix, a futuristic wristwatch that could transform into any living creature in its memory banks.

Maui's Fishhook, a hook made of bone that could transform the weirder into various animals.

It was a sparse collection, and one Samirah felt guilty for even owning.

With Alex's help, she was able to ignore Loki's commands, make it so her father couldn't control her.

But it was a big tree, and there were plenty of ways to shapeshift, so what was wrong with indulging her curiosity?

She wasn't scared.

* * *

42.17 (wildrook): [DuckTales, 2017 variant]

Scrooge was shocked. "Do you boys know how close I was to dropping this?" he asked Huey, Dewey, and Louie, holding a pizza slice.

"That was Uncle Donald's reaction when he heard us the first time," Louie replied.

Dewey nodded. "We actually had to see it for ourselves," he muttered, "then I remembered that there was a moment when you were still okay and on the Moon, and Della's best friends with Selene... so she might be involved."

Huey shook his head. "It shouldn't be physically possible," he said, "and I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, but we think there might be a chance. She didn't show up in the castle in ghost form, after all."

There was a bit of silence at their declaration, which meant that even Webby (and known to the others, Magica de Spell in Shadow Form) was in shock.

Webby blinked. "You're telling us that it's possible that she's..."

"Yeah, Webby," Dewey replied. "Mom is still alive!"

Scrooge gave out a cackle. "Then I think I know what we're going to be doing for a while," he said. "We need to make preparations, boys! Not just for the trip ahead, but any other factor that may occur. And believe me, there's going to be PLENTY of shocking swerves."

Especially since Scrooge would know that someone from his past might disrupt said preparations. And for once, Scrooge McDuck was full of hope. Hope in which Della's accident was just bad timing on her part.

* * *

42.18 (wildrook): [DuckTales] / [Legend of the Three Caballeros] / [Kingdom Hearts]; / implied only: [Epic Mickey] / [Goof Troop] / [Darkwing Duck]

Donald had his usual mood when it comes to Loops that combined everything he and Goofy went through.

And by usual, he means outright furious.

For starters, when it wasn't his Nephews and Webby being the ones in distress, it was Daisy's Nieces, April, May, and June.

To add to it, Scrooge McDuck's enemies found out about HIS. This time, Magica de Spell teamed up with Lord Felldrake (although they're clearly about to backstab each other) and decided to put them in Mt. Vesuvius. Again.

Then there's the Heartless, Nobodies, and Unversed that pop up, which means Xehanort's in the background with his convoluted plan involving thirteen darknesses and seven lights, which put him on guard because Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, April, May, and June were possible targets.

So in short, Donald Duck was having a bad day.

"So, have you considered the terms of surrender?" Felldrake asked him, showing Daisy's nieces in chains. "Hand over the Number One Dime and the golden book, and we'll consider letting them go."

Donald then growled as he noticed the placements of the three caged ducks. He'd let them go, alright, but not into freedom.

"And I was hoping you'd go after the Pinata of Destiny," he said, trying NOT to go into rage mode.

"The Pinata of what?" Magica asked Felldrake.

"This is news to me, too," he replied. "What is the Pinata of Destiny?"

"Something I picked up during my old adventuring days," Donald replied, looking up as he saw the "pinata" wheeled down. "Its history is that those who are lucky enough would get untold riches or power if they could get it open."

Then Sheldgoose, taking control of his body, stared at Donald. "If that was the case, then why didn't you try to smash it open?" he asked him.

Donald gave him a blank stare. "Do I look like Cousin Gladstone to you, Sheldgoose?" he retorted. "I'm not exactly the luckiest duck around."

"It's true," Magica muttered. "I was hanging around McDuck Manor for a while and got a very good look at him. He's not a lucky duck."

' _Calm down, Donald,_ ' Donald thought. ' _This only helps you in the long run._ '

Felldrake, however, wasn't convinced. "So why is it still intact?" he asked him. "I would have been under the impression that someone would try to destroy it."

"Many have, and only a few of them managed to live to tell the tale," Donald answered. "Besides, it wouldn't be a magic artifact if it didn't have any self-repair magic. I only kept it intact because I knew I would be one of the few that wouldn't make it." He then gave them a stare. "Although you two are luckier than I am...why not give it a shot? You might find what you're looking for in there."

Then Sheldgoose decided to take control. "Let me have a swing!" he yelled, grabbing a bat.

"Hold on a minute!" Magica yelled. "If it's true, then who knows what would happen!"

"But it's a Pinata! There's usually good things in there!"

Felldrake growled as he regained control of the body. "You fool, it could be a trap," he said, growling.

Then Sheldgoose resurfaced. "We don't know unless we try, and I'm feeling kind of lucky!"

"WAIT!" Donald yelled. He then blindfolded Sheldgoose and Magica. "Okay... now you try to swing it."

"Why you..." Magica yelled as she tried to blast a spell at Donald. Knowing Donald's luck, she'd strike him even when blindfolded.

As for Sheldgoose, he was trying to swing the pinata while Magica was trying to shoot Donald. Considering his big stature and how the Pinata had been moved upward, he was having trouble hitting the thing. As to be expected.

"So that's where Lena got her powers," Donald muttered, reflecting a spell. "You're not going to join in the fun?"

"I'm savvy enough to not even try my luck with an artifact like that," de Spell replied. "If it is an artifact in the first place. Why tempt me with its power when I can take the dime from your corpse and seal you in it?"

Donald dodged another spell that she fired. "Why do you even need the Number One Dime when you have your body back?" he asked her.

"It's not about the body. I want it because it makes a good prison for Scrooge McDuck as he watches everything he loves die in front of him."

"Figures you'd be stuck on that." He then reflected the spell back at her as she dodged. "Worth noting that you're not the only magician here."

Magica rolled her eyes. "You're a Red Mage, I'm proficient in the Dark Arts. I could take you on blindfolded." She then realized what he put on her. "Would you like me to demonstrate?"

Donald charged a Firaga spell as she countered with a Dark Firaga. Sheldgoose was unaware of the spell-off as April, May, and June were flabbergasted.

"When did Uncle Donald get good at magic?" April asked the other two, who shrugged.

Amidst the chaos, none of them noticed a troop of Goblins that had sneaked into the volcano, undoing the locks on the nieces.

"Shh," the head Goblin muttered. "We friends of Donald Duck. Keep quiet."

While it took time, Donald put himself into position as Magica fired a dark spell. Seeing where he was, he dodged, and it hit the pinata, smashing it open.

Magica smirked. "Looks like I'm through with that," she muttered, unblindfolding herself. "Now, to see to... the..." Then it hit her... it wasn't Donald she hit... but the Pinata.

It did not take her long to realize the implications.

"You're as shrewd as your uncle, Duck," she muttered. "But it was a mistake to come alone with nothing but a pinata."

However, much to her surprise, Donald was smirking. Sheldgoose, removing the blindfold, was shocked at what was in there.

"Ah, Mt. Vesuvius," a voice said, showing Scrooge McDuck. "It's not surprising that you chose this place again. Thanks for that. It was getting stuffy in there."

"Scrooge McDuck," Magica muttered. "I should have known!"

"Wait, stuffed?" Sheldgoose asked him. "You mean..."

Donald smirked. "I brought enough for a party," he said.

And that's when gunshots rang out, disarming both Sheldgoose and de Spell, as a rooster in cowboy garb and a sombrero came out.

"Party for one million Heartless courtesy of Scrooge McDuck and Party Planner Panchito!" the Rooster yelled. "And several guests, por favor."

"Can we even party inside a volcano?" a rabbit in blue shorts wielding a paintbrush asked the parrot.

"We've had crazier adventures, Your Majesty," a green parrot replied.

And it kept increasing as not only did Donald bring in the other two Caballeros, Oswald, and his Uncle, but his Nephews, Webbigail (who unnerved Magica), Goofy, King Mickey, Beakley, Duckworth, Fenton (in the Gizmoduck Suit), Launchpad, Sora, Kairi, and Riku came out of the broken "Pinata of Destiny", armed and ready for an ambush.

Felldrake growled. "I'll deal with you later," he muttered to Sheldgoose as he retook control. "Magica, release the..." He then noticed that the nieces are missing. "...hostages?"

Magica gave them a glare. "There's no way you could have teleported them into and out of the Pinata," she said, looking at Donald, "so how..."

"I'm friends with a lot of Goblins," Donald replied, smirking as he regrouped with the others. "Sorry if it took a while, guys."

The parrot gave out a smile. "At least you managed to buy them time, my friend," he said, smiling as he brought out his umbrella. "Now, what should we do?"

"Well, if it's a party you want," Magica said, opening a Corridor of Darkness, "then let me bring in a few extra guests!" Said 'guests' happened to be gigantic Heartless of both Shadow and Emblem design. And some of them resembled the tougher fights Sora and the others had.

"Well, at least there's proof that she's involved with Maleficent," Sora replied.

"Never underestimate Magica when it comes to how far in the Dark Arts she can go, Sora," Scrooge said. "It was tough just to keep the pinata intact as it is."

Felldrake gave out a smirk. "I assumed you were going to use those against me?" he asked her.

"Even if you had a few of your own, Felldrake," she replied before turning to the army Donald sneaked in. "I'll have to remember your Trojan Horse ploy for later, but for now, good luck making it out of the volcano alive!" She and Felldrake then took a corridor out as the group found themselves approached by Shadows.

"What's the plan, Mr. McDuck?" Riku asked him.

"For starters, no Blizzard spells," Scrooge replied. "They clearly expect us to make the volcano erupt during our fight. Second, focus all priorities on getting OUT of the volcano. Once we're clear and they end up following us, then you can let loose."

"Figures that they would have intended this place to be our deathbed," Donald muttered.

"We're getting out of this alive, Donald," Mickey replied, before realizing the circumstances. "Well... intact, but you know what I mean."

"I hold no offense to that remark, Your Majesty," Duckworth said to the Mouse King. "In fact, I agree. No one must be left behind."

"Aye, Duckworth," Scrooge said. "The moment we find an opening in this place, we take it. If we can't find an opening, we make one."

"Easier said than done," Sora muttered.

Then the small Heartless charged, forcing everyone to take a defensive position as they fight their way out of the volcano. In fact, Donald was glad that he got the current Goblin King to make paths earlier.

* * *

42.1: The start of a new Looping branch.

42.2: And so they continue.

42.3: More of this.

42.4: Boo's too young to really have a developed personality, so she can't Loop yet (unless there's an expansion where she's older). But she can still appear.

42.5: An angry Donald is a thing to fear. His pure anger unleashed, without his rational mind to hold it back, is a thing to run screaming from.

42.6: More of these guys.

42.7: One of those glitches again.

42.8: And again!

42.9: And finally, they get the Speech.

42.10: Part of an ongoing series of Loops about the Dino Charge setting (Heckyl is Anchor). Given the shared names, one Prince Phillip Replacing the other was inevitable.

42.11: Poor Waspinator.

42.12: Yep, Adam and Belle ran into another of those problems.

42.13: And that was a thing.

42.14: Yes. Yes, you have, Ozpin.

42.15: This was written very shortly after "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!" aired and before the season 1 finale. Wish Scrooge had done it in canon.

42.16: Given where the original variant comes from, I don't blame you for wanting alternatives, Samirah.

42.17: Indeed.

42.18: Donald's having one of those days again.


	60. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Three

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-07-11. This is the first of two chapters posted today.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Three**

43.1 (Masterweaver): [Phineas and Ferb]

Candace took a breath and let it out. "Alright, quick check. Pings, sounds like everyone. Loop memories normal. Busting urge at average levels. And also a craving for waffles?" She looked into the mirror. "Why waffles, though? Did I get hit by a waffleina--FOCUS. Focus... hmm. Hmm. Okay. So ordinary loop so far." She shrugged. "Oh well, going to get me some waffles before I try my basic bust."

She walked down the stairs, deliberately not looking into the backyard as she opened the freezer. "Ice cream, frozen meat, microwavable haggis, some sci-fi doohickey that... looks like a popsicle holder? Whatever, that's not important. Ah, waffles!" With a grin, she opened the box and pulled out a couple frozen waffles, sticking them in the toaster. "Ah, modern convenience. Let the machines do all the cooking for us! And also food storage. And temperature control. Yep. Machines everywhere. This is a thing."

Her fingers rapped on the counter as she watched the toaster.

"...Something isn't right."

She glanced out the kitchen window. "Phineas and Ferb have their blueprints, so that's still working... Isabella comes in, asks whatcha doin'... Phineas says 'Where's Perry...' Little early for Baljeet and Buford to be here..." She tapped her chin. "Hmm. Something is missing. What is it, what is it..."

The toaster popped.

"That's right!" Candace said, snapping her fingers. "I ask Mom if I'm in charge! Weird, usually she'd be getting ready to go to the grocery store by now." She glanced at the fridge. "Wonder what's keeping her."

She grabbed the waffles and put them on a plate as she walked into the living room. "Hey Mom? You doing alright? Are you... stuck on the stairs or something?"

Linda's descent down the stairs was a touch slower than usual. Her expression looked a bit bewildered, eyes drifting around the room without quite settling on anything. "I'm... not sure, actually. It's probably, not really, it's... it's probably nothing."

Candace quirked an eyebrow. "It doesn't sound like nothing."

"I'll... be fine, I'll be fine," Linda assured her. "Anyway, I'm going to go... get groceries. That's right, we're almost out of bread, aren't we?"

"Hmm." Candace opened the cabinet. "Yeah, it looks like it. It's incredible that you knew that without even looking. Hey, is there anything else we're missing?"

"Some... frozens. Ice cream, I think."

"Ice cream?" Candace opened the freezer. "But--oh, wait, duh, this is the Moon ice cream, that wouldn't be here in... base... line..."

She stared at the ice cream for a moment.

"...Hey Mom? Crazy random question. What do you think I should name my second son?"

"Fred," Linda replied distantly.

"Mmhmm." Candace shut the freezer door. "Hey, if you're going out, I'm in charge, right?"

"Nobody needs to be in charge, Candace." Linda grabbed her keys, shaking her head.

"But what if something happens, like, oh, I don't know..." Candace glanced at her askance. "A herd of moose bursting into the house and attacking everyone?"

"Well if that... happens..." Linda blinked. "A herd of moose?"

"Were you expecting a satellite?" Candace asked with a small smirk.

"...Yes. Yes I was." Linda turned around. "Candace, what's--"

"Wait wait wait! Do you remember--no, you were in the movie theatre for the invasion..." Candace rubbed her chin for a moment, then snapped her fingers. "Aha! The pop-up thingy! Do you remember the pop-up thingy the boys rode that one time?"

"I..." Linda blinked. "That was real?! And--why did I forget it? Or... will have forgotten--wait, but if that happened, then it wasn't a dream, and I've come back in time!"

"YES!" Candace pumped her fist. "Yes yes yes yes yes! You're looping, finally! Which means it's only a matter of time before--actually, you know what?" She held up her hands. "I think I need to put off the busting urges for now. It'll be a struggle, but you need to know what's going on before you bust Phineas and Ferb--OH MY GOSH!"

She rushed out to the backyard. "PHINEAS! FERB! CANCEL EVERYTHING, MOM IS LOOPING!"

* * *

43.1 continued (Masterweaver): [Phineas and Ferb]

**Phineas and Ferb in: MOM'S LOOPING!**

"Really?" Phineas rolled up his blueprints. "That's awesome! Ferb, get Perry inside it's time for a family meeting!"

Ferb grabbed Perry, scratching his head. Isabella giggled as she followed the boys into the house. "Have I mentioned how adorable your voice is the first day of summer?"

"Yes, yes you have." Phineas shot her an annoyed look, though the playful smile on his face nullified it. "Several times."

"Guys, come on, be serious here." Candace gestured toward the still dazed Linda. "Mom's going to have a panic attack if we don't talk this all out. Actually, should we talk this _all_ out?"

"Krrkrrkrr," said Perry.

"Just the basics for now," Candace agreed. "We can cover specifics later. Mom, come on, sit down."

"Sit down? Candace, I--you know the future, and I know the future, and that--"

"Is perfectly normal and explainable," Isabella said calmly. "It's a lot to take in at once, though, so... do you want me to get you some juice to drink?"

"Or something to eat?" Phineas said, producing a cake. "We've got--"

"You just pulled that cake out of nowhere!" Linda exclaimed.

"Actually, I pulled it out of a localized subdimension created with the manipulation of--"

Candace coughed. "Phineas, I think she's more 'scared' than 'amazed.'"

"What, really? I didn't get that."

Isabella put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Phineas, you can be a lit-tle oblivious when it comes to reading other people."

"Really?" Phineas blinked. "What makes you say that?"

Isabella leveled a flat stare powered by years' worth of unrequited romance at him.

"Okay, but that was just childlike ignorance of the concept of love. Candace, you're with me right?"

Candace leveled a flat stare powered by summers' worth of stressful failures at him.

"I mean, fine, but that was just childlike naivety and enthusiasm. I mean, come on, Perry--"

Perry leveled a flat stare powered by days' worth of sorrowful regret at him.

"That was a high-stress situation!" Phineas protested. "With, you know, the whole... other dimension thing, and--Ferb. Seriously, bro--"

Ferb leveled a flat stare powered by hours' worth of bulgarian folk dancing at him.

"That... yeah okay, I got nothing." Phineas frowned at the cake in his hands. "Wow. I guess I am a little oblivious when it comes to reading other people."

"It's okay, Phineas," Isabella assured him. "We all have our flaws. That's why we work together to help cover them!"

"That's right. We can all do things to help each other." Candace gestured to Linda. "Like telling Mom about the loops. Seriously," she added to her confused mother, "you want to be sitting down for this, it's big."

"I... is this another busting attempt?"

"No! Geeze, Mom, not everything is about busting with me!" Candace threw up her hands. "Just--we need to focus on the important thing here, which is telling you what is going on!"

"Alright," Linda said slowly. "And... what _is_ going on?"

"Ferb and I have constructed a fully infographic presentation," Phineas replied as Ferb produced a tiny disk and put it on the ground. "It's holographic with surround sound and--"

"Less technobabble more summarizing," Candace said quickly, glancing around. "I don't want the mysterious force to interrupt us."

Linda gave her an odd look. "The mysterious force?"

"Oh yeah, good point." Phineas cleared his throat, tapping the disk and summoning forth a semi-transparent image that hovered in the middle of the room. "Behold, the great worldtree supercomputer that is Yggdrasil! It underlies the entirety of the known multiverse...."

* * *

43.1 continued again (Masterweaver): [Phineas and Ferb]

**Phineas and Ferb in: MOM'S LOOPING!**

"...so that about sums up the basics," Phineas concluded. "Well, for looping in general, anyway. There's a bunch of stuff that specific universes have we need to talk about, but that can wait. What do you think?"

Linda was staring at the various floating images, blinking slowly.

"...That is a very creative story--"

Candace groaned. "Oh come on, Mom, you remember the future--even the parts that were erased from your mind! And there's holographic technology right there, in front of you. That Phineas pulled out of his subspace pocket, basically seeming to pull it out of nowhere. What do you need, a display of literal magic?"

"I'm a part-time fairy godmother freelancer," Isabella offered. "There's not really a call for it in Danville, but Drusselstein is only a short commute away by warp generator."

"I didn't know there was a fairy godmother patch," Candace said.

"There usually isn't. It's not one of the loop stable ones." Isabella rolled her eyes. "That doesn't mean I don't snatch it up when it is a thing, of course."

"Hold on, hold on." Linda held up her hand. "What... what I meant was... I'm suddenly in the past, and I'm being told that my children are older than me, and that magic is real and... and I'm just supposed to accept this? What's next, Perry actually being some sort of spy?"

"Krrkrrkrr," said Perry, walking in with a fedora atop his head.

Linda blinked. "I... I wasn't serious."

"Yeah, he's a secret agent," Phineas admitted. "I was pretty thrown when I found out too. Of course, if his cover is blown, the O.W.C.A. tries to relocate him, so we don't talk about it until he puts the counter-intelligence program Ferb made into place. And that only works in our house, so we don't talk about it outside until Perry tells us it's safe." He gave the platypus a look. "Were you just waiting for her to say that before you walked in?"

Perry smirked.

"Of course."

Linda shook her head. "This is... this is insane."

"Welcome to the loops, leave your sanity at the door." Candace put a hand on her shoulder. "Look, I get it. This is way out of left field, even by our usual standards. It'll take some time to adjust, sure. But you'll have all the time in the world, and you'll have us here to help you."

"And hey, now that you're looping we have a whole multiverse of possibilities to show you!" Phineas looked around. "What do you say, everyone?"

"I say take it sloooooow," Isabella suggested cautiously. "She's the local normie. Maybe keep it to baseline projects before we break out anything too radical."

Candace nodded. "How bout it, Mom? You stick around the house this time, and I'll handle the groceries."

"...I guess that's alright," Linda replied. "What do you mean, local normie?"

The others all chuckled. Even Perry's growl was amused.

"What?"

Candace took a breath. "I can't believe I'm saying this--it goes against all my ingrained instincts--but if you want to find that out, you have to swear _not_ to bust the boys."

"What?"

"Just... trust me on this. Let them do their thing--and you'll be running baseline, right guys?"

"It is a greater sacrifice than you realize," Ferb said, "but I suppose we'll go through the motions this once. It really is a shame how much she's missed after all."

"Saves a lot on blueprints," Phineas agreed. "Oh yeah! We need to get to work on the rollercoaster, doubletime."

Linda blinked. "Rollercoaster?"

"It's a tradition! First day of the loop, build a rollercoaster--well, when we can." Phineas shrugged. "We're usually halfway done by now, but with having to get you up to date on the loops and all--"

"Kids, you can't build--"

Candace put a finger to Linda's lip. "You have to swear not to bust them. Not to ground them, not to put them down. You have to go with it. Or you won't understand."

"Candace--"

"Just this once. Just this loop. We can talk about it more when this summer comes to a close."

"We'll have at least ten years," Isabella added.

"Twenty," Candace corrected.

"Oh yeah. That whole thing."

"Come on, Mom." Phineas looked at her with wide eyes. "Just some fun with your kids? Best way to spend the summer, right?"

Linda looked at him. Then at Ferb. Then her daughter. Then the platypus in a fedora.

"...you are just not going to take no for an answer are you?" She sighed, and managed a small smile. "Alright. I guess I can watch you kids do your thing."

"You have NO idea how much that means to all of us," Candace said. "Oh! Perry, you'll have to tell Dr. D about this. The boys going baseline for Mom I mean, you know, so he can match up things."

Perry tipped his hat, tapped a few bricks on the chimney, and stepped into the small elevator that revealed itself.

"...Where's he headed?" Linda asked.

"Secret underground agent lair," Phineas replied casually. "Oh, come on! We've got a coaster to build!"

* * *

43.2 (Masterweaver): [Phineas and Ferb]

**Phineas the Oblivious, Incident 23**

"Hmmmm." Phineas rubbed his chin. "Ferb? I think I've noticed something over the last few loops."

Ferb glanced up from his partially completed industrial whipped-cream production facility.

"I think... and I might be crazy on this... but I'm pretty sure Isabella has a crush."

Ferb froze.

"Now don't give me that look," Phineas said flatly. "I'm totally cool with it."

"You're alright with Isabella having romantic affections," Ferb clarified.

"What you two do with your life is not my business," Phineas assured him. "Congrats, bro, I'm behind you all the way, no matter what you decide."

Before Ferb could even begin to formulate a reply, the lady herself entered the backyard. "Hey Phineas! Watcha doooin'?"

"Oh, I'm just about to head inside," Phineas said with a grin. "I'll leave you two lovebirds out here." Cocking fingerguns at the pair of them, he walked into the house.

Isabella blinked. She turned to Ferb. "Wait, does he really...?"

Ferb nodded.

"Oh my god." She put her head in her hands. "How can somebody so smart be so stupid?!"

* * *

43.3 (Leviticus Wilkes): [Frozen]

"I'm blowing it up."

"You can't blow up my space elevator Anna."

"It's _asking_ for trouble."

"It's an elevator."

"It's a disaster waiting to happen!"

"What's a disaster waiting to- woah."

It had taken him much too long, but Kristoff had finally found Anna and Elsa. Sure he had to make a blood sacrifice to elder gods to open a trans-temporal portal to the Bahamas, but that was small potatoes in the broader multiverse, what with his auto-revives and all. He hadn't expected to see the seemingly infinitely tall tower of ice in the tropics though. "Uh..."

"Kristoff, thank Birch you're here, tell Elsa she needs to knock that tower over," said Anna.

"I am not knocking over my space elevator," Elsa retorted. The queen of Arendelle pointed at the gargantuan edifice. "Why would I?"

"The elevator glitch!"

"Elevator glitch?" Kristoff was scratching his head when the sisters took a break from their squabbling to throw incredulous looks at him. "What? Should I know about it?"

"An elevator glitch is a glitch where Loopers travel up a slowly ascending of descending elevator. It usually takes a few hours, they can't leave the elevator, and each floor is something weird and different."

"They're rare, but building an _ice elevator to the stars_ is tempting fate Elsa. You know Fate doesn't handle temptation well. It's like a... a chocoholic in a chocolate factory," said Anna.

"I am not knocking it over," said Elsa with steel in her voice. "I made it to make ice starships, and I will use it for ice starships."

"I have a portal you can use," Kristoff said, pointing at the howling Eldritch spacehole that whispered horrific secrets.

"...I'm fine," Elsa said. "Besides, if it goes badly, I will be the only one to suffer." She pointed at the pinnacle of the tower. "I will be going there to make star ships of ice. You're welcome to join me."

Anna and Kristoff followed Elsa to the elevator. When she gave them a self-satisfied look, Anna was quick to retort: "When this goes wrong I don't want you all alone."

"She's not alone. Hi!" said a small snowman at knee height.

"I gave Olaf the title of royal elevator boy," Elsa said cheerfully. "Straight to the top of you please Olaf."

"Can do!" declared the cuddly snowman. Olaf happily pulled a lever, and in no time at all the quartet was at the top.

Elsa threw her sister a very self-satisfied look. Anna feigned blindness. She stopped pretending when a legion of men in red robes marched across the platform of the space elevator. "Um... what is that?"

Three men paused. "We are the Spanish Inquisition ma'am."

"What are you doing on my space elevator?" Elsa asked pointedly.

The trio exchanged looks. "Ma'am, we are here because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition."

* * *

43.4 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer]

Billy laughed hysterically, Marsha looked concerned and Anaximander was as apathetic as ever as Zeke gave an overexaggerated sigh.

"Ha! This Loop you're Geek! PUNS!" Billy giggled.

"...That was obvious Billy, you didn't need to explain it." Zeke deadpanned, annoyed as he adjusted his glasses and bowtie.

"Don't worry Zeke! I still think you look nice!" Marsha assured, earning a smile from Her blue-haired friend. Anaximander pulled out a Taco from his subspace pocket and watched as Billy and Zeke began arguing.

'Humans...' The Rat Anchor mentally chuckled.

* * *

43.5 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Despite his bad luck when it came to these variants, Adrien actually liked it when he looped into Miraculous Chibi.

Admittedly, most of it was the art style, but, there were some pretty paw-some quirks.

Like the Catnip Cologne, which after a lot of prep and defense system sabotage, he would finally be able to use to prank his father Hawkmoth.

_Step one, sneak in as Cat Noir and unlock the cages in the cat shelter._

Adrien donned an invisibility cloak and quickly set to work on the cages. Coaxing them out enough to escape the cages but not enough for the cats to interfere with his next step.

_Step two. Coat himself with a liberal amount of the Cologne._

Taking advantage of the distance between himself and the cats, Adrien ran out of the shelter as fast as he could, then launched himself in the air with his staff. Despite the head start, the cats were gaining on him, leaping through the air as high as he was, picking up a few friends along the way. But Adrien managed to outpace the horde of cats long enough to arrive at his destination.

The Agreste Mansion, otherwise known as Hawk Moth's basement.

_Step three. Destroy the window that led to Hawk Moth's lair, then Cataclysm the cologne off him._

He had no way of using Cataclysm more than once, and the cologne took a dip in the Seine to get rid of the smell, or more likely, mask it with something worse. But there was more than one form of destruction. Acid that was highly corrosive when it came to glass, for example.

When the window was fully opened, he threw the acid as fast as he could, and the glass melted away at an alarming rate. And not a moment too soon, as the cats were right on his tail. Using Cataclysm on the cologne, he jumped into his Pocket, and took a moment to catch his breath. Jumping back out gripped to his staff, he saw his prank was a complete success. Enjoying his branch's modern-day tech, he pulled his phone out of his Pocket to record Hawkmoth futilely trying to escape his feline wall.

For posterity reasons of course.

* * *

43.6 (smxsonic): [Kingdom Hearts] / [RWBY] / [Marvel] / [Bar Loop]

"I'm telling you, It's not that hard to understand!" Ruby huffed from behind her cookies and milk.

"Yup" Yang said beside her, "You guys pressed the family button."

"Look, for most people, Family is a straight line from Relative to relative, but if you look at it from a more subjective, more Multiversal viewpoint, It's more like... a big ball of wibbly Wobbly... Family Wamily stuff."

"Yeah, and Fezzes are cool, I can quote Doctor Who too," Peter Parker said taking a small swig of his drink, "Doesn't change the fact that Scott Summer's family tree is more decipherable."

Sora nodded, taking a bite from his ice cream, "I have to admit, Xehanort's plan starts to make a little more sense after seeing how big your family is, and that's not including the relatives from other branches."

"You guys are the worst" Ruby sighed, taking a bite out of her cookie.

The Subject then changed to new expansions and variants.

* * *

43.7 (katfairy): [Aladdin] / [Dungeons & Dragons cartoon] / [NCIS] / [Wizard of Oz] / [Moomins] / [Batman Beyond] / [Watership Down]

Princess Jasmine of Agrabah, better known as Jasmine Edwards in this Loop, looked at the dorm where she would be killing some time to make her in-Loop parents happy while she set herself up as a glassworker. As timekillers went, it wasn't too bad; Dartmouth was a good school in most Hub-likes and she didn't mind majoring in Anthropology. The fun part was coming up, though: arranging meetups with her fellow Loopers. She didn't expect to end up in the same dorm as any of the others—Dartmouth wasn't that small—but it shouldn't be too hard to find them.

"Hey, Jasmine!"

Or maybe one would find her first.

"Hank! Where's Terry?" She gave her old friend a quick hug, surprised to see him alone in a Loop they were both in. Hank just laughed, shaking his head.

"We really aren't joined at the hip, you know. Despite what some people think. Although we did end up sharing a room in our dorm, so I'll be seeing him before too long. Have you been here before?"

"Once, last fall. We didn't really explore the town much, just a quick look around before touring the campus. How about you?"

"I grew up in Woodstock, which isn't all that far away, so I've been here for concerts and stuff. There's a coffee shop you really need to check out when you can; I think you and Elena would get along great."

And there was another Looper located. They all knew they'd be ending up in the same town, except for Misty, but they hadn't bothered to give exact locations until the students were settled in and had time to visit. It was good to know that Elena would be somewhere she could drop in frequently without comment; after their first Loop together, the two had become good friends. Not as close as Terry and Hank or some of the inter-Loop couples, but Jasmine had to admit she considered Elena her best friend outside of her own Loop.

"Jasmine, honey, aren't you going to introduce us to your little friend?" Leila Edwards asked innocently, barely hiding a grin. It was Jasmine's turn to shake her head at her "mother's" teasing.

"Mom, this is my new boyfriend Hank Greyson. As soon as I can get you guys out of here we're going to do unspeakable things in my dorm."

"Oh, good, you're starting the college experience right off, then."

"Uh, is there something someone wants to tell me?" Hank asked, blushing. Jasmine cracked up, getting a mild glare from Hank, who then turned to Leila. "Hi. I guess you're Jazz's mother. Good to meet you."

"And you, Hank. Please, call me Leila, and I'm sorry we embarrassed you."

"HankHankHankHankHank!!!"

Before Hank had a chance to reply, he was glomped by a Goth girl about their own age and close to Hank's height in her platform boots. He staggered under the onslaught but stayed upright to return the hug with a huge grin. Seconds later, the girl hugged Jasmine almost as tightly.

"Jasmine! It's been forever!"

"Hey, Abby, it has been a while. Once we're all settled in, we'll have to go to that coffee shop Hank was telling me about and catch up. Maybe they'll have that drink you used to like. Oh, Mom, this is Abby Sciuto. She's from New Orleans, and we met at that summer camp you sent me to down in Virginia that time." It was the best cover story Jasmine could think of, and she knew her mother wouldn't bother checking up on it.

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry. Jasmine told me enough about that place that I never sent her back, but if I'd known she'd made a friend there, I'd have tried to get hold of your parents so you could go to a better place together." Leila held out a hand to Abby, who shook it. The older woman then continued, "I'm glad you and Jasmine managed to stay in touch, though; I do feel better knowing she's already got some friends here. Not that you have problems with that, honey, but I remember my own first weeks at college and how my own friends helped me settle in."

"We'll help each other," Hank promised. "Like I said, I know the area pretty well, so I can help them learn their way around. And we're all majoring in different subjects, so we can work together on our overlapping classes and tutor each other when we need to."

That wasn't likely to be necessary, Jasmine knew, but hearing it would make any decent parent relax. It didn't hurt that Hank was almost a walking stereotype of a clean-cut American boy in a completely unironic way; oh, she knew that, like most Loopers, Hank has his darker moments, but it took a lot of pushing to get him there, even after that thing those Mythos jerks had pulled.

"Hey, guys, starting the fun without me?" And there was Terry. Another round of hugs followed, and as usual, a tiny part of Jasmine's mind boggled at getting a hug from a Bat. She ignored it, reminding herself once again that it wasn't fair to judge all of them by Bruce, who she had just never been able to bring herself to like. Respect, yes, but not like. "Has Hank told you our plan yet?"

"We have plans? Hank, why didn't you tell me?" Abby swatted Hank on the arm, and he pretended to wince.

"Because we only started talking about it a couple of weeks ago and decided not to do too much until we could talk face-to-face. Which we couldn't do until a couple seconds ago. And I'd thought we'd wait until we were at least partly unpacked."

"That sounds like a plan to me," Jasmine said. She did want to know what those plans were and if it was anything she wanted to get involved with, but she also knew that if they started talking about them now, they wouldn't even get up to their rooms before dark. "How about we get our rooms sorted out now and meet up again on the library steps around four o'clock? Hit that coffee shop Hank mentioned?"

There was a chorus of agreement and they headed off in different directions. Jasmine turned back to her mother's car, grabbing the first bags to haul inside.

At 3:45 on the dot, Jasmine sat on the grass outside the library, finally having time to think about what Terry had hinted at. She'd heard from Aladdin and others that the two together could get up to serious shenanigans, but this was her first time in a Loop with both of them at the same time. She knew she didn't have to get involved—she could just hang out with Elena—but she did want to know what the plan was before deciding. She also wanted to know what the other Loopers would be getting up to. She knew most of them, but not all of them as well as she'd like. She'd known Abby for eons and was always good with sharing a Loop with her, and she and Moomintroll had shared an awkward but amusing Loop when he'd replaced Aladdin and a highly indignant Rincewind had replaced Jafar, but she'd only met Dorothy and Bigwig a handful of times in various Bar Loops and she wasn't sure if she'd met Moominmamma at all. Since this was a Hub-like, it meant they'd probably have a few years to remedy that; she was looking forward to it.

"Hey, Jazz, your parents leave already?" Hank plopped down next to her. "So where are you from this time around? We never did ask each other that, did we?"

"No, we didn't. New York City, and you would not believe my family history." Jasmine leaned back on her elbows, grinning. "I'll have to tell you sometime when we have a few spare hours; I think it might be one of the most complicated backstory I've ever gotten, and that's saying something."

"Mine's pretty simple this time; my parents run a jewelry store in Woodstock and volunteer at the national historical park. No drama for a change, which I am not going to complain about."

Jasmine gave him a sympathetic grimace; while Loopers liked some excitement to keep from going crazier, sometimes the tree just went too far with their histories. The last time she'd been in a Hub-like with Hank, his father had been a serial killer and his mother a Russian spy, while her parents had been fundamentalists who kept trying to force her to marry a cousin. Okay, second cousin, but still. Thankfully, there was nothing that bad in the hot mess that was her family history this Loop.

"How about Terry and Abby? Anything I should know?"

"Well, Abby's from New Orleans as usual, which you knew, and she sounds happy about her family this time, but that's all I know. Terry's from Juneau of all places, and his family wants him to finish up and come back home to be a tax attorney like his father. Since his major is Earth Sciences, that's probably not going to happen, so that may be our family drama for this Loop. He's not worried though, so neither am I. I got the feeling that they're just boring, not dangerous, which is good. Have you talked to Elena yet?"

"Chatted a bit, but we decided to wait until we could really talk, you know?"

Hank nodded, and the two sat in silence for a while, waiting for their other friends. It was a comfortable silence; neither one felt the need to make awkward chatter just to avoid other awkwardness. It was one of the things she'd always liked about Hank, that he was so easy to hang out with. For a brief time after that first Loop with him, she'd worried that she might have developed a crush—it happened amongst Loopers every so often, even the ones in a committed relationship like her—but she'd soon realized that it was more that she wasn't used to having a guy as a friend than any sort of romantic feelings.

"Our plans aren't really anything major this time," Hank said after a while. "Just something we thought we'd do next time we were in the right kind of Loop. It'll be a hobby for us, not like the storm-chasing we did or that Loop we spent doing adventure stuff for reality TV."

"Any hints?"

"Nah. Not 'til we're all together. Mainly so we only explain once, you know?"

Jasmine nodded; it made sense. She could wait, even if she was more curious than she had been. It was good to know that it wasn't a big deal, since she'd have felt guilty about saying no if it had been something important. Although now that she knew that, she felt a little more inclined to go along with whatever it was, even if it was only for a little while.

"So how's Tiamat doing?" Jasmine remembered to ask. The irascible old dragon had endeared herself to all of Jasmine's native Loop with one simple act, and even thousands of Loops later, the memory of her chasing Mozenrath around the Seven Deserts because his latest attempt to kill Aladdin had interrupted her nap could still make Jasmine chuckle. Hank responded in kind.

"Oh, you're gonna love this: a couple of Loops ago, we had sort of a Fused Loop with Equestria, and it turned out that her unAwake self had dated Venger's boss, and dumped him when she caught him cheating on her."

"No! Okay, I have to hear this one, even if the others aren't here yet. Spill it. By order of the princess." Jasmine sat up again, listening eagerly. Semi-mysterious plans could wait; this was prime gossip.

* * *

43.7 continued (katfairy): [Aladdin] / [Dungeons & Dragons cartoon] / [NCIS] / [Wizard of Oz] / [Moomins] / [Batman Beyond] / [500 Kingdoms]

Jake Peikko, AKA Moomintroll in his home Loop, sat across from his new "girlfriend", waiting for his friends to arrive. He'd gotten a text from Jasmine that read "Trouble Twins have plans", which under the circumstances had to be Hank and Terry; he'd never met Terry McGinnis, but Hank had landed in Moomin Valley a few times, plus he'd heard stories from others, and the name did fit. Unlike some of the other pairs that name could be attached to, however, their plans were rarely intended to cause trouble for anyone who hadn't done something to deserve it. He was looking forward to hearing this Loops plans, as a bit of adventure was always—well, usually—fun.

If there was one thing Moomintroll loved about the Loops, it was that it afforded him great scope for adventuring with a promise of returning home at the end, no matter what went wrong. It was a Moomin's dream: excitement, danger, exploration, and a good meal after. Granted, sometimes those adventures got a bit darker than he liked, but no matter how bad it got, he knew it would pass. Of course, there were certain Loops when he dove into his Pocket as soon as he Awoke and realized where he was, because there were reasonable limits, after all. But those were few and far between and this wasn't one of those. At this point, the biggest danger in sight was what the Snork Maiden would say when he told her he'd posed as Dorothy Gale's boyfriend; although Dorothy was an old friend and the Snork Maiden understood that sometimes you found yourself paired up in ways you hadn't intended, she was also a bit jealous when it did happen.

"They're here, Jake," Dorothy said, bouncing a bit. She was always up for an adventure too, while appreciating the comforts of home as much any Moomin. It was part of the reason she fit into his Loop so well when she was there. "I'm awf'lly int'rested in what they're planning. 'Specially if they're inviting us to come along."

Moomintroll nodded, watching the four walk in. He knew Hank and Jasmine, of course, and figured the dark-haired boy with the strangely pale eyes had to be Terry and the dark-haired, dark-eyed girl dressed all in black had to be Abby. He had met her before, but in one Loop they'd both been Pokémon and the other had been in Equestria. This was the first time he'd seen her in anything like her baseline form. As humans went, she was quite pretty, he thought, but on the whole he still preferred Moomins and Snorks.

"Hey, guys, good to see you all," Hank said, stopping by their table. "We'll order before sitting, but then we can talk, okay? Nothing that shouldn't be overheard, I promise."

A few minutes later, they were all comfortably seated on the plush couches, drinks and pastries if not in hand then at least within easy reach. A few minutes of small talk followed as they caught up as much as they could with non-Loopers around, then Hank leaned forward, setting down his iced tea.

"During our meet-ups, Terry and I usually talk about what we want to do the next time we run into each other, since it happens often enough that we can make plans. Last time, we decided we should give ghost-hunting a try. Not ghost-busting, just doing investigations to determine if a place really is haunted and if it is, does anything need to be done about it. Near as we can tell, a lot of what people think are hauntings do have a more concrete explanation, and the ones that are real tend toward residual: kinda like a video on an Infinite Loop."

"... Seriously?" Terry's glare was pretty impressive, but Hank just grinned, rubbing his shoulder where Abby had smacked it. Jasmine and Dorothy were rolling their eyes, so Moomintroll decided not to admit that he'd thought it to be a clever bit of wordplay.

"I think it sounds like fun," he said instead. "We could start at our house; we've got a lady who wanders around and doors that open at odd times. And Mamma wouldn't mind, so we wouldn't need to worry about getting permission."

"We've got a couple, too," Dorothy said. "Most places 'round here of any age have at least one, an' I know a couple of neighbors who're friendly enough to let us try."

"Okay, that was easier than I expected," Terry admitted. "Anybody not interested? No? Okay, but before we start any investigations, we do need to set ground rules, get some basic structure to our group. I'm not talking about who's in charge—"

"You and Hank, of course," Jasmine said. "This was your plan, so you get to run it. But you'll probably be doing the 'first among equals' thing, right?"

"Sure, why not? But nobody's going to be in charge of any particular aspect of the hunts; we'll all be able to take on whatever job needs doing so that if anyone isn't available for any reason, we can cover for them. That means taking the lead, too, but all of us have proved we can do that even if we'd prefer not to. I've done some preliminary work already, mainly getting a dedicated laptop with pertinent programs set up, a couple of second-hand EMF detectors and IR cameras, and one kinda kludged-together recording setup that we'll probably want to replace with something better before long."

"I'll take a look at them and see if I can help," Abby offered. She was about to say something else, but Elena Klovis came over and perched on the arm of one of the couches.

"We've got a quiet spell going, so I can say hello properly now. So what are you all up to, and do I want to get involved or do I want plausible deniability?"

"Ghost hunting," Jasmine said. "Interested? I think it'll be fun, and I know I'd like to have you along."

"You know you're always welcome to join in," Hank agreed. "When you can get time off from here, anyway, and when you can't, we can stop by and bring you up to speed when it's quiet like it is now."

"All right; I'm in. I can help with history and folklore; this is just my day job while I'm working on my dissertation. Oh, here comes the next lot; maybe we can talk more after closing." The blonde woman headed back behind the counter, pitching in alongside the others. Moomintroll nodded; he'd only met her in passing once or twice, but she'd struck him as a sensible, hard-working type and he was glad to see he was right.

"Okay, so we've got a group," Hank said. "Terry's right, though; we do need to iron out the details and find a good name for ourselves. Oh, and there's one thing I meant to point out before we got sidetracked: the vast majority of our investigations are going to end up pretty tame, Like I said, most are just misidentified issues or residuals, and the ones that are conscious haunts are mostly friendly or at least neutral once an understanding is reached. But... it's not impossible to run into some really unfriendly stuff here. Malicious haunts can be dangerous, although serious injuries are pretty rare. Still, it's something to keep in mind."

Moomintroll frowned at that, but then shrugged.

"It's like keeping an eye on the weather; most of the time it's just fine or at least not bad, but every so often you get a big blow," he mused. Dorothy nodded.

"You spent that Loop chasin' twisters, so you know how that goes. We can all look out for ourselves and each other, anyway."

"That's true," Terry agreed with a grin. "Okay, we've got a group and I think most of the discussion about the details can wait until our first meeting. Any questions for now?"

"Can you see if there's any more of those blueberry oat scones left? You're blocking my view of the counter," Hank said. Now there was a human with his priorities straight.

* * *

43.7 continued again (katfairy): [Aladdin] / [Dungeons & Dragons cartoon] / [NCIS] / [Wizard of Oz] / [Moomins] / [Batman Beyond] / [500 Kingdoms]

"This—ow!—is why I insist on at least all-wheel drive—slaggit!—when I Loop into New England!"

Elena Klovis braced herself as they jostled over the washboard road. Even by her standards, it was rough, and her Loop's roads were mostly just wide enough for an oxcart or stagecoach. But Terry McGinnis was doing the best he could, and the old Outback handled it as well as could be expected. Hank laughed, then yelped as one bump nearly slammed his head into the ceiling. Next to her, Abby Sciuto just shook her head.

"Still better than driving with Ziva!"

"Someday I have to meet this Ziva," Elena said. "But why did the homeowners let the road get this bad if they wanted to sell it?"

"Not their fault," Hank said. "Remember those storms last week? They were a lot worse up this way. They warned us there were washouts but that it should be passable to a sturdier car than theirs. They did offer to reschedule for after the road gets fixed, but it could take a few weeks and the plumbers won't come back until they've been promised that whatever's in there isn't dangerous. And since the last time anything but basic repairs got done to any of the plumbing was in the LBJ years..."

"Ouch." Elena had to search her Loop memories for that one; American political history wasn't her strong suit. "That's... what, fifty years?"

"Something like that—oh, good, we're on some decent road again: I hope Dorothy's mom's car can take that bit. The place should be visible once we're past the trees. I wish I could figure out why I've got this déjà vu thing going, though; maybe it's something from an old Loop?" Hank shrugged. "There shouldn't be any more washouts; the slope of the land would be carrying the runoff away from it now."

" _Good!_ " The other three chorused agreement, then Elena finally thought to ask a question she'd had for a while but never thought of on the rare occasions they'd gotten together with non-Loopers around.

"May I ask why you decided to try ghost-hunting this Hublike? I don't want to pry, but you've said a few things that make me think there's more to this than just a way to kill time."

"Hank?" Terry shot his friend a glance before turning his attention back to the still-narrow, winding road. "Your call. I trust her, but it's up to you."

"Not like it's a secret; hell, a good chunk of the Loops know what those Mythos assholes did to me," Hank said. Elena nodded sympathetically, remembering her horror at hearing about it. She'd liked Hank from the moment she'd met him, and had been impressed at how genuinely nice he was, since he was also good-looking and fairly intelligent. Not brilliant like the Danville Loopers, but certainly above average, and that combination usually led to a fair amount of vanity; vanity that Hank just didn't have. Which was probably why the Mythos targeted him; he just wasn't screwed up enough.

"I still wish they'd let me sic Gibbs on those jerks," Abby muttered. Elena grinned; one thing the Loops had never shaken was Abby's total faith in Gibbs' ability to handle any threat. After that Loop with Gibbs replacing the Arcadian Captain of the Guard (and hadn't that made for an interesting bit of chaos?), Elena could understand it.

"And I'd still pay to see that. But I've been slowly working my way through my issues from it, and one Hublike Terry and I were in, we got talking about it and decided to get a little pro-active. The storm thing was pretty easy, since almost all Loops have storms, the emotional stuff just took a lot of patience and various types of therapy, and there were a few other things that were really just a matter of having time to work on, but the haunting thing, that was a problem. See, I don't usually have a lot to do with haunted houses, and the ghosts and other paranormal crap I deal with in my home Loop aren't anything like what I dealt with then. And since the odds that I'd just happen across a haunted house to test my nerve in aren't that great, we figured that forming our own ghost hunting group was our best bet. Honestly, I wasn't really expecting there to be much in the way of problems, since I have had to go into big old Victorians since then and I didn't have any problems, but I have been blindsided once or twice by stuff since then, so..." Hank shrugged. "This is really more to double-check than because we really think it's an issue. We've gone through that mess step-by-step and this was the last thing we could think might be an issue, since I dealt with the last of my storm issues by spending a Loop as a storm chaser. Last Loop I even went through a hurricane on my own with no problems—well, not that kind of problem, anyway. Plenty of the normal ones."

"Well, yeah, hurricane!" Abby grinned. "Hank, you should have just said something in the first place; you know we'd be glad to help!"

"Hey, guys, want to spend a Loop as ghost hunters in rural New England on the off chance I'm still afraid of the boogeyman?"

"I'm in," Elena said. "Honestly, though, it makes sense to me, and this is the sort of thing I deal with in baseline, just in different guise. And can you really call a town with such a prestigious school rural, even if... well, I suppose it is, isn't it? That's something I just can't get my head around; in my home Loop and most of the Loops I've visited, major colleges and universities are in large cities, not small towns."

"That's a history lesson for another day," Terry said. "Hey, there it is—wow, that _is_ Victorian, isn't—"

The car didn't quite screech to a halt, but only because they hadn't been going very fast to begin with. Before Elena could ask or Abby could do more than yelp in surprise, Terry was out of the car. Elena felt a shield spell slam down, and for a second she thought Terry teleported to the other side of the car before realizing the thump on the roof had been him vaulting over it rather than waste time running around. He yanked open Hank's door, unbuckling his belt and hauling him out. Elena couldn't see Hank's face, but the look on Terry's told her that something was terribly wrong. She left the car as well, with Abby only seconds behind her. When they reached the two men, it became obvious why Terry had reacted: Hank was dead white, eyes staring at nothing, practically catatonic. Elena looked around, but couldn't see anything that should have caused it and hadn't sensed any kind of attack. Granted, there were any numbers of attacks that could have done this that she wouldn't be able to sense, but there was no indication that anyone or thing capable of those was in this Hublike Loop. On the other hand, they were here because the contractors trying to restore the property had been scared off by aggressive paranormal phenomenon, so... She looked around again, but all she could see was a rundown but still grand (a bit too grand, honestly) house, the remains of gardens, and sweeping lawns that badly needed mowing. The woods were quiet too; not too quiet, just the normal quiet of a late October day.

Abby was kneeling beside Hank, holding onto one hand and whispering something Elena couldn't quite hear. Terry was looking at him with the intense yet unseeing gaze that meant he was using telepathy at a much deeper level than usual. Feeling a bit frustrated that she couldn't help—her telepathy was strong enough, but Terry was better, more experienced, and had a deeper connection to Hank, as did Abby—she reached into her Pocket for her favorite wand. It wasn't one of her Godmother wands, or technically a Hogwarts wand, although it had elements of both and from a few other Loops as well. She'd contracted with Terry for this one eons ago, since he was the only Looper she knew who had studied so many wandmaking disciplines. She'd collected hairs from her friend Sergei the Little Hunchbacked Horse's mane and tail for the core, fused with powdered scales from Adam and Gina, encased in mallorn wood gifted by Galadriel herself, bound and capped with gold melted down from one of Genie's bracelets she'd picked up in one of her Agrabah Loops, and carved with Fae script from her own Loop threading through High Gallifreyan. Set in the tip was a star-shaped (to make the Tradition happy) piece of Druselsteinite, a silvery-lavender-blue stone that she always thought deserved a prettier name. It was a masterwork in many senses of the word, and if there was a threat that could blindside an experienced Anchor and warrior like Hank, it was probably her best choice for a weapon. She turned her back on them, scanning the surroundings again for any sign of the attacker.

After a few minutes, a deep shuddering breath from behind her brought her attention back to the others. She turned to see Hank shivering in Terry's and Abby's arms, and thankfully, from the looks of him, it was more from reaction to being brought out of himself than fear. There was some fear, but it was already back under control; so he had been blindsided by something. He said something in a harsh whisper that made Terry jerk back in surprise, temper visibly flaring.

"What?"

" _It's the same fucking house._ "

"Same as wha—oh. Oh!" Abby was the next to catch on, and she wasn't any happier than Terry. Someone or something was about to learn why even Gibbs didn't want to get the Queen of the Perky Goths angry, and Elena approved. Whatever could get Hank to use that kind of language on top of everything else probably deserved everything it—and the penny dropped for her as well, making her feel a bit dim for not figuring it out earlier. Haunted, deserted, gigantic Victorian out in the middle of nowhere? _Of course_ it would be at least a mirror image of the house the Mythos had used to break Hank.

Terry stood up, stepped back, and took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was what she'd once heard Hank call "Defcon-1 Bat Growl"; she'd never encountered it before, but it couldn't be anything else.

"If anyone in the tree is listening, we need to talk to an Admin _right the fuck now._ "

"Ya think?"

They looked up. They stared. Elena was willing to bet that not one of them had expected a response that fast, and they certainly hadn't expected what they got. Okay, the woman was ridiculously gorgeous: thick black hair, dark flashing eyes, amazing figure, all the standards. But that beautiful hair was piled up messily on top of her head and secured with a sparkly pink clip. The amazing figure was almost hidden under battered jeans and a much-washed t-shirt for what Elena guessed was a band named Shriekback. But what really did it was the Pikachu slippers.

"Uhhhh..." Terry said intelligently, for once at a loss for something to say. Elena smacked down the little voice murmuring that anything really could happen in the Loops. The new arrival frowned at them before looking down at herself.

"Okay, I'll give you that one; I was in such a rush I forgot to change." And she was in less disreputable jeans, a scoop-neck tee, and hiking boots. The hair didn't change though, and Elena knew she wasn't about to say anything about it. "Anyway, you set off an alarm I'd completely forgotten I'd set up, for when any lingering damage from Those Idiots threatened your stability. Um, I might have been a little paranoid when setting the parameters though, because you might have been a bit freaked out, but not destabilizing. Still, it went off, and I wanted an up-close-and-personal look at what caused it."

Hank got to his feet, Abby hovering around him.

"We're ghost hunters this time and were on a case. Problem is, the house..." Hank closed his eyes for a moment, not quite restraining a shudder before opening his eyes again to meet his Admin's sympathetic gaze. "The house is exactly the same as the one the Mythos jerks used."

"Is it now." Tiamat-the-Admin turned to look at the house. "Seriously? Lazy copycat bastards, couldn't even come up with an original house; I know I've seen this one somewhere. Well, let me give it a proper look."

They stepped back, feeling the power gathering around her. Elena couldn't see her doing anything, but knew she was. It was almost anti-climactic, although she knew the lack of pyrotechnics was a good idea. No sense in drawing unwanted attention, after all. A few minutes later, Tiamat nodded, satisfied.

"Right. Not saying there aren't some ectoplasmic jackasses in there, but nothing eldritch. I'll keep an eye on this from the office just in case, though. I dropped the ball once; no way am I letting that happen again. I can't promise a trouble-free Loop, not that you'd want one anyway, but I can promise the Mythos assholes won't get another shot at you. Oh, speaking of eldritch, although they aren't really, this Loop has vampires and they mostly come in two flavors: emo and edgelord."

"I know; my roommate's one," Abby said. The Admin raised an eyebrow, getting a shrug in return. "She's pretty nice, and I just pretend I think she's got juice in her water bottle. I overheard her talking on the phone once, and it looks like they've got the usual masquerade going."

"Okay, so that's another thing we might have to worry about; although there aren't any stories about people going missing around here so either they don't kill their prey or your roomie's scouting new territory." Hank looked a lot better now with something concrete to plan for, Elena noticed. She made a mental note to keep an eye on him, in case he was using this to distract himself from his near-meltdown. She didn't think so, but she also knew that he could be distracted without intending to be, simply because he'd regard a threat to people in general as more important than his own mental health. But he wasn't done, so she started listening again. "Okay, guys, I gotta admit, I don't really want to go in there. But I think I have to. So give me your opinions: am I being sensible or pigheaded?"

"Yes," Terry said bluntly. "It's a good idea to face this and get it over with, but you'd do it even if it wasn't because you do think you should."

"What he said," Tiamat-the-Admin said. "My professional opinion is that, since this isn't Those Idiots, then the Tree thinks it's a good idea. And like I said, I'll be keeping an eye on things. So go ghost-hunting, smack some ectoplasmic heads to blow off steam, and call it good."

She disappeared without any flashy effects, and the four just looked at each other. Elena started to say something, then stopped as she heard the rumble of an approaching car.

* * *

43.8 (HollowedOut-Grimoire): [Classic Disney Shorts]

"Mickey! Are there any Awake lawyers in this loop?"

"Technically obvious, why?"

"Legal help for recalling harmful products with my face on it!! I already started destroying them, but I want it official!" Donald Duck then showed the object in question.

Mickey gave only a glance before agreeing. "Yep, need a lawyer for _that_ one."

* * *

43.9 (Boohoooo!): [Billy Dilley's Super Duper Subterranean Summer] / [High School DxD]

It was an average day In Subterranenia-tania.

"AHHHHH! ANAXIMANDER, THERE'S A CAT-GIRL COMING!" Billy panicked to his best friend and Anchor. Anaximander.. scratched his belly and rolled over. Koneko knocked on the door.

"YOU CAN'T EAT MY FRIEND!" Billy roared.

"...I just want to borrow some sugar." Koneko drawled.

"Oh. ...You sure?" Billy blinked.

"Yes." Koneko bluntly stated. Billy awkwardly gave her what she needed as Koneko walked off.

"...That was awkward." Zeke and Marsha mused.

"Ragreed." Anaximander nodded. Billy sweatdropped.

* * *

43.10 (NoLongerBreathedIn): [Mulan] / [Safehold]

"Ms. Fa, can I ask you a question?" asked Cayleb Armahk.

Fa Mulan (formerly known — in this Loop, anyway — as Pei Shan-Wei) was startled. The natural assumption was that Fa was her given name — after all, on Safehold, the only language was English. So why did the prince assume (correctly, at least) it was her family name?

"Um, sure. What?"

"What's your real name? Not Nimue Alban, I assume; if you were her, you'd have picked something Celtic — probably Merlin."

"What?" she said, stalling for time. Nimue Alban had, according to her memories, been the volunteer whose PICA she'd taken. But how could Cayleb know that name, or, for that matter, what Celtic meant, or the name Merlin? It made no sense. Unless–

"No, it actually is Fa Mulan. I was known in this loop as Pei Shan-Wei, but I'm normally born into the Fa family."

"I _thought_ you were a Looper. We normally have Nimue here — she's not Looping yet, sadly — and she uses a male form due to height. Well, welcome to Safehold. Where are you from?"

* * *

43.11 (HollowedOut-Grimoire): [Inside Out] / [9]

Nine was completely alone when he remembered the repeats he suffering from.

The Beast was more efficient striking down enemies this time around, and seemingly serving no one. Hunting down and killing Nine's fellow-no, family one by one. Five, somehow, he remembered was the last one to die by its claws. The beast will kill him to If he did not act!

Nine didn't wallow in his predicament. He could perfectly scream and shout as to no-one WHY time allowed such things to transpire. Not now, for he needs to destroy The Beast on his own. For the memory of his family.

Somehow recalling a plan, Nine set out to put it into motion. Selecting choice objects from humanity's grave, Nine constructed-well not a device. Contraption was a close term, but what Nine made was a true death trap.

And its soon victim prowled near. Clocked in flayed cloth, brandishing the talisman, it crept to Nine.

Nine flared his light to blind it, but The Beast was cleaver, and pounced the stitchpunk from behind! The Beast rendered the last-

Wait, a decoy?!

It realized it was trapped in tar and attempted to pry itself free. Nine landed onto its back and grabbed The Beast prizes and jumped of to trigger the final machination.

Releasing various heavy objects from above, they all crashed onto The Beast and broke through the rotting floor.

* * *

Nine made sure _it_ was dead before commencing the ceremony for his fallen family. It was strange how he had two talismans instead of the one. Well, two halves of a hole.

The spirits of the fallen appeared, free from the talisman. Five and the rest smiled to Nine in gratitude and dispersed peacefully, with the embers of the pyre.

* * *

Ashes long since cooled drifted away as morning came. Nine watch the sun rose, happy to see such a sight for the first time. He hoped time somehow repeated itself again, for everyone to see the sun with him.

Nine's eyes wandered to the lightbulb staff, and went to grab it.

**Part 2**

Nine crashed onto the floor.

"Are you alright?" He heard.

"I'm Fine-huh!?" He said out loud surprised he could speak. Getting up, he saw One through Eight seated around some control panel in a moderately sized room with a huge window in the back. A Monitor showing first-person perspective of..

Memories once again came flooding into Nine's mind. This time around, Nine represented one of the scientist's emotions. Also, today The Scientist was to give a lecture to an American school. It was also strange to see how.. prosperous everything was. Living people, plants, animals, a far cry from the wastelands he remembers. But the Scientist still preferred to work on machines. Nine put the idea to visit the park later in the day.

"Don't be preposterous! Why would we wander into some unkempt lot here?" One, or Fear as he is called here.

"It would be a nice change of pace.."

"Coming here is change enough!"

"Let's go through the lecture first." Two interjected.

Meanwhile...

"Gah, what's with this guy's hair? I've seen combs with better volume!"

_Disgust, be nice._

"Yeah listen to Riley! At least we don't have to do schoolwork for half the day!"

Sadness then spoke up. "Doesn't he seem familiar to you guys?"

_How so?_

"We watch a movie, I think... maybe...

Rapidly, memory orbs flashed by until...

_That's it!_ , Riley pointed to the 'flashback' to a rather dark movie they watched during one of their slower loops.

"I remember that one! I'm surprised the dream guys didn't use that!"

"Do you think that's looping?" Sadness spoke up.

_Well, we can ping, but we would want to distract them, right?_

"No.."

* * *

_Meanwhile-meanwhile..._

"Pandora!"

"Oh! Bes, hello."

"Janus got a code for an unexpected fused loop, with a branch of yours that just activated. Is this your doing?"

"Guilty."

"Why?"

"Oh, just testing the waters. Actually, I want you to ask Janus for a favor on my behalf.."

* * *

43.12 (Leoblade): [Kim Possible] / [DC Comics]

"This is so humiliating," a certain blue man whined shortly after he Awoke this loop. He was starting to pout as he leaned against a table covered in assorted plants when he heard a voice speak up.

"Come on Dr. D, I think it looks good on you," Shego said as she entered Dr. Drakken's current hideout, a greenhouse, through an open window in the roof while also avoiding the killer plants. She was wearing a green variant of Harley Quinn's jester outfit.

"Just look at me Shego!" he yelled as Shego walked up to the evil genius. She got a closer look at Dr. Drakken's appearance and observed he had massive flower petals around his head, his skin was his usual blue color... and he had on one of Poison Ivy's skimpier leaf dresses.

"Come on, it's not like it's the first time you've worn a dress," she said to her partner in crime after spotting nothing too usual. "Not even the millionth time."

"It's not about the dress," Dr. Drakken yelled/clarified before he pulled on the dress. "Look at this color, it completely clashes with my skin, do I look like a spring." Shego looked at the doctor before laughing.

"This is no time for laughing! Do you have any non-toxic blue dye in your Pocket?" Dr. Drakken asked. "This dress is literally growing out of me and I'm currently out of non-toxic dye."

"I think I saw a store selling dye on the way here," Shego said once she stopped laughing. "Let's go get some dye before Batman shows up."

"I'm already here," the dark knight said as he appeared from the shadows and set down a large container of non-toxic blue dye next to the visiting Loopers. Just as mysteriously as he entered, Batman left the greenhouse, leaving behind the stunned visiting loopers.

* * *

43.1/43.1 continued/43.1 continued again: A rare case of kid Loopers having a parent Awaken.

43.2: This is technically a flashback to much earlier in the Loops, as it predates the "Act Your Age" special from canon.

43.3: Elevator Glitches were eventually pretty much been eliminated at the Admin's level, but they still worry.

43.4: Yep, these guys are still themselves.

43.5: They can't deal with the supervillain permanently yet, so they'll settle for pranking him.

43.6: Ruby's family is apparently complicated.

43.7/43.7 continued/43.7 continued again: Even in a Hub or Hublike Loop, Loopers can get into some interesting adventures.

43.8: This involved a comic where Donald Duck's image was used a hand-amputating device. Yeah, if it were me I'd be asking for a lawyer too.

43.9: Cats are a concern when a rat is around.

43.10: ...

43.11: Well that happened.

43.12: Do not underestimate the Batman.


	61. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Four

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-07-11. This is the second of two chapters posted today.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Four**

44.1 (Leoblade): [Inside Out] / [Zootopia]

"This loop is going to be a long one," Judy said looking at the human girl leashed to a corner of her small room.

"You're telling me," the girl said while trying to get the collar off, surprising Judy. Humans were a common pet this loop and from Judy's loop memories, they had little to no sign of being intelligent except for primitive clothing the wild ones wear which many people claimed was a sign they were once domesticated.

"Let me help you with that," Judy said quickly moving over to the girl and taking off the collar, thankfully her pre-Awakening self did not believe in using shock collars. "I'm Judy, anchor of the Zootopia branch."

"Riley, anchor of the Inside Out branch," the newly named Riley said as she rubbed her neck.

"Sorry about the collar, our loop isn't usually like this," Judy apologized.

"It's no big deal, though Disgust and Anger want to have words about the 'Human Chow.'"

"Right your emotions, I saw your movie the last time I was in a near-Hub loop," The Rabbit cop explained. "Are they Awake as well?"

"Only Disgust and Anger right now," Riley said before wincing. "And they are having trouble calming down Fear who doesn't understand why my mind is so different and why I am talking to you."

"Well, let him know I am sworn to protect and serve, and I will not harm you," Judy told the human girl with a smile.

"It's not you he is worried about," Riley grimaced as her loop memories registered. "We were warned not to talk."

"By who?"

"My dad this loop said bad things happened to those who talk."

"Well, between the two of us, I'm sure we can take on anything this loop throws at us," Judy said confidently.

* * *

As it turned out, the loop decided to throw several tons of tanks and infantry at Judy, the Awake Nick, and Riley, along with the entire Zootopia police department. "Who knew trying to reveal that humans are sapient and had an ancient civilization before other mammals would lead to this," Judy said while firing tranquilizers at the approaching solders.

"Anyone who's seen Planet of the Reptiles," Nick snarked as he ducked to avoid a tranquilizer dart.

"Firing turrets," Riley yelled as ship parts appeared on her body, her smaller guns firing and disabling two of the tanks.

"Less talking, more firing," Anger yelled as he used fire to keep some solders from flanking them.

* * *

44.2 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [RWBY] / [Order of the Stick]

In the middle of goblinoid corpses, standing next to the recently treeified Salem was one Annabeth Chase, who was currently rubbing her temples at the carnage from both Redcloak's and Salem's team-up. The only ones not passed out from exhaustion were the two visiting Anchors, Ruby Rose and Elan. Ruby Rose was currently examining the Crimson Mantle, trying to see how it looked on her shoulders, while Elan was playing on his lute, composing a song about their victory. She prayed that Elan would never meet Apollo, their combined suck would probably end Yggdrasil, or at least give her a bigger migraine.

Speaking of Anchors, her own was currently drooling on the pavement, sound asleep. The Curse of Achilles was funny that way.

Ruby and Elan had decided to change courses, and were now gushing about how cool it was to see Percy tying several Sea Feilong together and then decapitating the lot of them at once. Annabeth had to agree.

"Okay, every one of us, demigods, valkyries, adventurers, are all exhausted. Even the talking sword is currently passed out, and not flirting with an ancestral weapon. This is good. Every local looper is now going to pack up, and head straight to the Lotus Hotel and Casino, where we will drink Brain Bleach and not do anything until the world is in danger. Sounds like a great three week vacation. All of you are welcome to join us."

Ruby beamed. "Sounds great! I have a few airships in my Pocket and,"

"Wait!" Elan yelled. "The Lotus Hotel and Casino, that's that weird place that forces you to never leave right? Cause I don't think Roy and the others will appreciate another double, no, a quadruple fantasy."

"They are welcome to stay behind. Now, I hope there will be no more interruptions."

"I can't promise that."

Annabeth sighed. "Tell me more about those airships, Ruby."

* * *

44.3 (Masterweaver): [Frozen]

"Hey Elsa, why have you never seriously dated anyone?"

"Because my people come first and I might need to have a political marriage."

"...that's a terrible reason."

"That's the world we live in, Anna."

"Er... but you're using your ice powers to cool the supercomputer you got from that hub-loop and installed beneath the palace to predict oceanic patterns."

"Yes, but that's just technology. Forcing societal change is... really more _your_ speed, actually. You want to make political marriage not a thing, go ahead and try, I'll support you all the way."

* * *

44.4 (Masterweaver): [RWBY] / [Snow White] / [Wreck-It-Ralph]

"...so the idea of the internet as a place we can walk around in is actually pretty common," Blake finished. "Granted, there are risks, but they're pretty well codified nowadays."

Ilia looked around the vast expanse of structures and flying machines. "I guess...? I mean, I know there are digital beings, but--"

"Oh hello! Blake, wasn't it?"

Blake turned to the newcomer, smiling. "Snow White! It is nice to finally meet you, I hope this whole place isn't driving you loopy."

"No loopier than I usually am," the raven-haired woman assured her. "I am very sorry if I confused you, I've met your unawake self before you see."

"Really?"

"Well, in a way. 'Snow White and the Seven Catgirls.' It was a variant loop. When I brought it up at the next Princess Summit, Belle told me about you."

"Yeah, she's a good friend. Oh, is she Awake this loop? We need to exchange books... "

"Yes she is, I'll see about getting you backstage passes--oh, I do beg your pardon!" The woman curtsied to the bemused Ilia. "Snow White, of the Disney Princesses."

"Ilia Amitola. Uh, Disney princess, huh?"

"That's right. The first one, actually."

Ilia looked her over. "...um... So, maybe I'm not as big into Disney stuff as I should be, but, um... well..."

Snow White sighed. "You don't recognize me, do you."

"Sorry?" Ilia shrugged awkwardly. "I mean, if it's a problem--"

"No, no, it's fine. I know I'm not exactly the most... marketable of characters." Snow White tilted her head. "Although... I do know Remnant has a number of fairy tale motifs. If it wouldn't be too forward of me to ask, what would your reference be?"

Ilia hummed awkwardly. "I... don't really know? I guess I might not have a reference."

Snow White shrugged. "It isn't always the best thing to be derived from a well-known tale. I know that Cinderella has had... significant arguments with Cinder Fall."

"Huh, that's right." Blake nodded thoughtfully. "Cinder does have a sort of... I don't think hatred is the right word? It's more petty than that. It's some sort of rivalry."

"Wait, wait wait." Ilia held up her hand. "I just remembered. Weiss Schnee means White Snow, right?"

"Yes, Snow White is Weiss's template."

"So," she turned to the princess, "have you two met?"

"Yes," said Snow White, her smile gone.

"...uh--"

"We have an understanding," said Snow White, her voice level.

"...so, this isn't like... anger or anything," Ilia said. "You're not mad at her--"

"Oh no!" Snow White assured her quickly, her tone once more bright. "It's just... our situations are different enough that, well... It's really very complicated. We don't dislike each other, we simply... well... it's quite complicated."

Blake rolled her eyes, but deigned not to comment. "So... what are you doing out on the internet?"

"Hmm? Oh, yes well. As the least marketed Disney princess I'm the most free to head out and shop for trinkets," Snow White explained. "You see, Ariel finally got a hold of the most recent Kingdom Hearts game a while back and just recently completed every hidden path, so now she wants to spend a loop briefing the rest of us on that whole... well, you know, just for the next time we end up in that world."

Blake groaned. "Oh, Kingdom Hearts Summary party. Yeah, you know what, you're going to need help with that." She pulled out her scroll and brought it to her ear. "Yeah, Ruby? I know you're going to be busy this loop, but the Disney Princesses are having a Kingdom Hearts post-series talk party, if you--yeah, Weiss would be best to organize this."

"I still can't believe I'm literally inside the internet," Ilia muttered. "Why is this a thing?"

"Wreck-it-Ralph," Snow White explained. "It's a new part of his baseline..."

* * *

44.5 (HollowedOut-Grimoire): [Gravity Falls] / [Transformers] / [Event - Refactoring]

With one of the Norns spelling out Pockets won't be usable for more or less a thousand loops, everyone who had time-sensitive items and entities within were getting them in order.

"Heya, fellow one-eyed bozo! I have a question!"

Like some who had inane collections, for example.

"Cipher, did you rethink my offer to spam memes directly into hardballs?"

"Been there, done time, Whirl. I'm talking about _The Favor_ , remember?"

"Why yes, I remember."

"Good!" Bill Cipher extended an arm. "Now-"

"Shame I got rid of it."

" _I do HOPE YOU **DON'T MEAN-**_ " Bill Cipher got real peeved real fast. But before anyone could assess the situation... 

"Whirl, I found you, asshat!"

A feminine voice called attention to the two, the owner unseen. The bizarre, fractal-necklace thrown, however, wasn't registered until it hit Whirl.

"Worst, Going away gift, Ever!"

* * *

Cipher reverted to his smaller form, elbowing the blue Autobot.

"Well, Whirl, you dog!"

Whirl just looked at the direction of his spurned love's voice. "I'm surprised she actually-"

_*Whappa~!*_

"Kept it-it. Wh-why-y turning s-s-someone into a ice cuu-be makethat sound!?"

"Dunno" Bill looped the necklace on his finger. "But it's the _frost_ that counts!"

" _ktchh!_ " (I'm not gonna dignify that with a comeback!)

* * *

44.6 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts]

"Still reeling from the revelation?"

While Sora was on top of Twilight Town's highest tower, he had stared at Axel, who had brought Roxas and Xion for their usual ice cream rounds.

"Kind of," Sora replied, looking at the two and smiling. He was glad that they were Awake and retained their sense of selves, too. "It just means we have to train harder in case a certain someone throws a few curveballs at us."

Roxas got the idea as he passed his Somebody the ice cream bar. "You're still upset about what happened to Kairi in Baseline, aren't you?" he asked him.

Sora, taking it, gave out a sad smile. "Is it that obvious?"

"Xion was made to be you and I'm your Nobody, but you really don't need that direct of a connection to figure that out."

Xion nodded. "And considering Kairi and Riku are the ones that matter to you the most," she replied, "when it concerns one of them, you tend to be obvious about it."

They weren't wrong about that.

"And you guys wonder why I tend to volunteer for babysitting duty," Axel replied, looking at the sunset. "Still, with that part out of the way, we're more worried about you..."

The look Sora gave Axel was a bit of a surprise.

"How so?"

"You're still... kind of inept with technology," Roxas replied. "Minus the selfie function, at least. And from what we've seen, you end up in an advanced city."

"Forgot that you guys got your hands on the game the moment you entered the Hub Loop," Sora said, in a deadpan tone. "And I've been getting better."

Neither of the three were convinced at that one... leaving Sora to fume a bit.

"Still, I kind of thought you guys would have partied about the whole Xehanort mess being over."

"That was the plan," Roxas muttered, "but finding out that Xigbar not only gave him the idea, but had his own reasons to re-enact the war..."

Axel gave them a stare. "Yeah, the others were told about the guy being a Foreteller," he muttered. "And I don't know if it was Terra or the guy hiding in his heart that made the scowl when they found out, but I can see why Xehanort wanted to possess THAT guy."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Xion said. "Should we head out to Radiant Garden and meet up with the others?"

Sora nodded. "You guys felt the mess of pings, too?" he asked them.

"We did," Roxas muttered. "And a text message from the king about meeting at Ansem the Wise's old lab."

That place, he was familiar with. Add the fact that the massive headache was implied, it probably meant that there were more Loopers from outside the worlds he's visited, sleeping or otherwise.

This was going to be one heck of a reunion, though.

* * *

44.7 (ThanatosTiger): [Percy Jackson] / [Spongebob Squarepants]

**The Magic Conch Shell**

Squidward rolled his eyes as an entire picnic coincidentally fell in front of Spongebob & Patrick. He'd long since given up figuring out how their luck came about, and didn't care about it anymore. He knew that the toy they worshipped was just that, a toy. He could get his own picnic thanks to his Pocket, full of high class foods made by a gourmet chef.

"Heh heh heh. Rubes, as if anyone could believe in a magic conch shell that wasn't a dunderhead."

"At last, the sixth oracle, The Magic Conch Shell. Careful Lester, the oracle does not take well to those it feels do not believe in it." Said a voice a few feet away.

Squidward turned to see an acne ridden teen and a girl in a green dress being lectured by what looked like a centaur with a fish tail.

"Lester, Meg, this is as far as I can lead you. Aphros can train the students in combat well, but he much prefers to teach them lessons in baking and knitting. The magic of the blade won't wear off any time soon, though I recommend not tarrying."

The centaur swam away, leaving the teenagers behind.

"So this is a real oracle, right? A magic eight ball wannabe?" The girl in the dress asked. "You gods are dumb."

"Not my idea, so I don't qualify as dumb." The teenager argued. "Let's just get it to make sure the Triumvirate don't."

As the teenager swam past him, Squidward heard him mutter, I really hope this loop ends soon." Squidward couldn't help but agree.

* * *

44.8 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

Ludo Avarius Awoke... and immediately teared up. He couldn't believe it... his castle, his minions, his beloved old clothes! They were all back! It was impossible! For a brief moment, Ludo was happy. And then, he frowned. He.. didn't deserve this, did he? He had hurt a lot of people. Heck, due to his being manipulated by Toffee, some of these monsters had DIED! Glossaryck... Ludo couldn't even think about it. With a sigh, Ludo turned to Buff Frog.

"You're in charge, old friend. I have to go." Ludo nodded, opening a portal to the Void with his Dimensional Scissors and throwing himself in before anyone could stop him.

* * *

Star was confused as she and Marco showed up at Ludo's Castle, having decided to give her old foe a cake to be friends this Loop. However, Ludo himself was nowhere to be found.

"Ludo would never miss a meal..." She murmured.

"Lord Ludo left me in charge and threw himself into some void. It was very upsetting." Buff Frog explained. Star and Marco looked at each other in surprise. There was only one way Ludo could know about the Void this early in the Loop... 

* * *

Ludo sighed as he started building his trash home, where he belonged, before being startled by Marco and Star showing up.

"...Hey." Marco awkwardly waved.

"I don't need help. I still have my dignity!" Ludo instinctively snapped. Marco and Star stepped back, and Ludo sighed.

"...Sorry." He forced out.

"It's okay, man." Star softly stated.

"Hey Ludo, have you... gone back in time?" Marco asked gently. Ludo blinked.

"Yes... how did you know?" Ludo nervously stated.

One Welcome to the Multiverse Speech later... 

"...Why?" Ludo muttered.

"Well, no one really knows what broke Ygg-" Marco began.

"No, I mean... why am _I_ Looping? I don't deserve the second chance... I hurt people who depended on me, and gave Toffee everything he needed... and Glossaryck... dear corn, Glossaryck..." Ludo blubbered... only to be interrupted by a hug from Star.

"It's okay Ludo. It's okay..." Star assured. Ludo cried harder and, after some brief hesitation, hugged back.

It felt good, he decided. It felt good.

* * *

44.9 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Devil May Cry]

"So," Riku said to Vergil as they both met in the Realm of Darkness, "what have you learned from Baseline?"

"Other than the fact that it's not a good idea to split your human and demon halves," Vergil replied, "it definitely has some similarities from this world's mechanics." He then glanced at Riku. "You're here to save the Keyblade Master?"

Riku gave out a glance. "I'm more wondering if she's Awake. Or in this Branch considering I found you instead of her." Riku then brought out his new Keyblade, the car key. "Knowing you, you're probably going to see how strong Sora is."

"Call it a personal interest after seeing Nero's true Devil Trigger." He then brought out Sparda the Keyblade. "Although if she's not here, I could try to gauge how strong you've become."

Riku had to be wary as he stared at Vergil, who had brought out Yamato as a secondary weapon. Not only was that thing a Gateway opener, it could probably split someone into a Heartless and Nobody. Something Xehanort in his early days would have been interested in.

"...I come out of the darkness to see you two about to fight," a female voice replied, literally showing up out of the water. "Sorry I'm late... had to purge a certain somebody out of my system." She then noticed the demonic-looking Keyblade. "And you definitely would fit the bill of one of the Thirteen Darknesses, Vergil."

"I've no interest becoming another pawn in their scheme," Vergil retorted to the bluenette. "The fact that you resisted that fool's allure speaks volumes about your own strength."

Aqua gave out a small smile before glancing at Riku. "The King's not here yet?" she asked him.

"Nope," Riku replied. "Glad you're here, though... the Realm of Light's kind of going haywire even with Xehanort's plan involving the True x-Blade."

Vergil's interest was piqued. "I take it there's some significance in why he wants to wield it?" he asked them.

"It's Kingdom Hearts in Keyblade Form," Aqua answered. "Requiring Seven Lights and Thirteen Darknesses with the Keyblade War as its forge."

"...So not a pawn, but an ingredient." Vergil gave out a glare. "For the record, I've made mad grabs at power before, but from what I'm hearing, this is pure insanity."

Riku gave the blue-clad half-Devil a glance. "That's exactly what your son told us when he found out about the whole scheme before he shifted to the Devil Breaker and punched him in the face."

If one could notice, there was a faint mark of pride on Vergil's face. "And I'm assuming Dante's reaction matched that of his encounter with Arkham the Clown?"

"Mostly, but he made a spectacle of it and outright mocked the guy in very creative forms. I think the exact terminology is 'your brain must have been fractured if you split your heart into thirteen.'"

That sounded like the Dante Vergil knew.

Unfortunately, talk was cut short by several different creatures coming out of the darkness. Not surprising. One Keybearer of Light would have attracted Heartless, but three? It's practically a bullseye.

"I was wondering when those rats would show up," Vergil muttered. "And some familiar faces."

Riku then gave out a stare as Aqua brought out her old Keyblade. "Let's see... Heartless, Nobodies, Unversed, Nightmares... and demons from your world?" he asked Vergil.

"That means Mundus probably has a way to come back. All the more reason why we need to put him down."

"Or," Aqua muttered, "knowing Xehanort, there's a replica of you running around."

"My stance hasn't changed. It just means that he and the Ancient Keybearer have made this very personal."

And knowing how Vergil acted, it meant that this particular "Darkness" was siding with the Light, even if he may be using them for his own objective.

"All we needed to know," Riku said to Vergil as he and Aqua took stances at the oncoming horde. "We still need to get things ready for the battle at the Keyblade Graveyard."

Aqua nodded. "Try not to break down on us," she said to Vergil, who gave out a glare.

All three Keybearers charged against the horde, personal objectives on hand. While Vergil was a bit standoffish with the humans, he knew that their personal strength is not to be underestimated. After all... their plans and his went hand-in-hand as they both shared the same targets.

Kind of surprising that it took a literal split decision for him to realize that strength should not be gained if there's a huge cost to it... 

* * *

44.10 (Mattman The Comet): [Percy Jackson] / [Kamen Rider Build - not Looping]

"So you tricked me..."

Percy Jackson, facing facsimiles of the Stoll Brothers, was defeated. Having Awoken just as he lost his fight in the tournament for the safety of Touto on the behalf of the Prime Minister (who was Hades of all people), he decided to let the show play out as the man he awoken from likely would've.

"Oh well... I'm the one to blame."

He glanced behind him.

"But... in my place..." he jabbed a thumb behind him, "She'll finish this."

PING PING PING PING

He limped back to the pair behind him: Thalia Grace and Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

Well I say Thalia Grace, but in all likelihood it was Annabeth Chase behind those eyes.

Thinking about it, he would put good money that the other two pings were Leo, who won the previous fight against Travis, and Piper, who helped Annabeth develop her new weapon.

Annabeth, who would be fighting Nico next.

He followed the two back into the staging room where, if the trio hadn't awaken not 30 seconds earlier, he would've been scolded.

"Where's Piper and Leo?" he asked.

"Making sure the next bit goes off without a hitch," Annabeth replied, with a knowing smile.

"You're not gonna tell us, aren't you?"

"Got it in one, Seaweed Brain." Gods, Percy didn't know weather he wanted to kiss or throttle her. Though in all honesty that was probably because she was wearing Thalia's face.

He was, in fact, going to throttle Luke (aka Blood Stalk) for framing him as his Girlfriend/Employer's murder.

Rachel, seeing the situation getting flirty fast, interrupted any thoughts going through the pair's mind. "Well as much as I'd love to see how much serial escalation your flirting brings, why don't we get Annabeth out there and save the day."

The sight of the pair devolving into blushing, blabbering messes was simply a cherry on top.

Annabeth made for the door "W-why don't I get out there and win this for us, okay?"

"Y-yeah. Good luck out there!"

The door slammed and left Rachel and Percy alone.

"Fuck you."

"I aim to please."

* * *

**Third Battle! Kamen Rider Build vs. Kamen Rider Rouge!**

"This is the end, Nico." Annabeth said, facing her opponent.

"Yeah. I'll win, and Seito will unify this country."

Ah, so he was still in his Edgy Teen phase.

"We'll see," Annabeth said, raising a device and slamming it onto her waist.

"A clash of swords," Nico counter, doing the same. "A contest of might. This is everything you ever wanted, Athene"

"The Rider System is not a weapon," _Gods_ is this baseline always this snarkless? She drew a soda can-like device and shook it, popping the the tab before slamming it into newly formed belt.

**DAEDALUSLAPTOP SPARKLING!**

"Henshin."

**STYX!**

"Henshin."

* * *

44.11 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [Camp Camp]

"...This is bullshit." Max Deadpanned as he was thrown out of a Mewman bar due to having Looped in as a Bat Monster.

"I know right? No way magic can be real!" Neil murmured.

"Dude, are you still on that? Get over it, magic exists. I was complaining about the blatant racism... Or speciesism? Whatever, it's an ism." Max grumbled as he dusted himself off. Neil simply scowled as the duo walked off to find Nikki, David and Gwen.

Meanwhile, Ludo knocked on Star's door in her castle.

"Ludo? What're you doing here?" Star asked with a raised eyebrow. While she was by no means still enemies with the Looping Kappa, they weren't exactly friends yet.

"I need a place to hide! Some crazy chick is chasing me! I told her my past and was a little nice, and next thing you know, she's saying tragic backstories are hot! How can a past have a temperature?!" Ludo ranted. Star stared, repressing giggles at Ludo's ignorance. she soon let him in.

Meanwhile Meanwhile, David was giving Gwen a concerned look as she asked around for Ludo. He tried to stay out of it... Only to sigh and drag Gwen off when she started getting a bit too aggressive.

Meanwhile Meanwhile Meanwhile, Nikki was Whooping as she and Ludo's Army (who Ludo had given a dismissal to, though at least with a good severance pay and even better recommendations) ran around the forest.

"Buack Buack!" Big Chicken exclaimed, gesturing to a nearby house. Nikki giggled as Deer Beard rang the doorbell and hid.

"Dang it, ya dirty kids! I have better things tah do with mah time then deal with your pranks!" the farmer complained.

"Nikki, there you are! We've been looking for yo-" Neil began as he showed up alongside Max, getting interrupted by the farmer throwing rocks.

"I'm gonna git you punks!" The farmer roared, believing Max and Neil to be the pranksters as he chased them off. Nikki yelped and chased the farmer, getting chased by a guard dog, who in turn was chased by Ludo's Army.

"...I love fused Loops." Star chuckled as she, Marco and Ludo watched the chaos ensue using the All-Seeing Eye.

* * *

44.12 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Marvel Comics]

"I! Can't! Believe you!" Chloe yelled at the yucky ooze stuck to her back. "That dinner was important, a charity type thing to help Daddy get elected again, and you ruined it by forcing me to dive into the lobster tank! Even worse, that cashmere sweater I was gonna wear today was too waterlogged to wear ever again!"

"I was hungry." The black snot pile whined.

"I fed you six boxes of disgusting tater tots!"

"Tater tots are yummy!" The slime mold reached up behind her back, searching for something or other. It then extended more to the right, trying uselessly to pull Chloe to the right.

"Chloe! Sabrina's here! Let's see her!"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "You just want food. Why can't you be addicted to something delicious, like sushi."

"Raw Fish is disgusting! Blech!"

Chloe couldn't believe him. "I am not hearing this right now! You eat lobster straight out the tank but can't handle fish on rice!?"

"Yucky!"

Chloe searched the hallway to distract herself from her ridiculous pet ink stain. She noticed Sabrina run towards her. Chloe smiled. At least one thing was going well today.

"Oh, Chloe, I got the snacks for your little buddy!" Chloe's smile grew. Sabrina was such a good friend. Loyal, always ready to listen to her, dealt with anything that could trouble her, a perfect friend. To bad she had to be the bearer of bad news.

"My 'little buddy' forced me to swim in a lobster tank, so he's not getting his treats today," Chloe snarled. "So thank you, but I'm putting these where they belong, the trash."

"Oh. That explains why you didn't text me back after I told you about the test today."

"What!" With that snarl, Chloe was covered head to toe in black mass, then reached for the tater tot container and ate the whole thing in one bite.

The Symbiote grinned. "Thank you Sabrina. You do good work." The Symbiote, frowned, thinking to himself. "So there's a test today. Darn shame, Chloe didn't study."

Sabrina looked confused. "And you didn't help her?"

The Symbiote raised an eyebrow. "Why should I, I don't attend school."

At this point Chloe took back control, and began screaming now that she had her mouth back. "That complete jerk! Come on Sabrina, we're heading to class, and I hope you have the answers!"

_'No.'_ Her annoying sludge pile whispered in her brain.

"Or what?" Chloe seethed.

_'I've been holding back a massive burp since yesterday.'_

"Ugh, fine, don't go into any more detail you disgusting slime ball!"

As Chloe marched to class, she noticed people walking outside the school, some complaining about another Akuma attack this week.

"We should help." Her pet puddle said aloud. "We are strong."

"Not a superhero, genius."

"We can be. Ladybug said no because you didn't have a suit, you have one now, me."

Chloe considered this, she did want to be a superhero. But there was one thing to make sure of.

"No eating. That includes the butterfly, I don't need to risk someone getting hurt cause you couldn't stop thinking with your stomach."

"Fine," the Symbiote grumbled. The two disasters ran towards the nearest building to climb it, ready to fight alongside Ladybug and Chat Noir and actually help out.

* * *

44.13 (CrazyCog): [Kingdom Hearts] - Baseline Expansion Saga: The First Casualty

**Baseline Expansion Saga: The First Casualty**

The cry of seagulls sounded through the air. The familiar scent of salt tickled the inside of Sora's nose, causing him to breath it in deeply. Stretching his arms above his head, Sora let out a groan as he felt his muscles pop in a satisfying way. The last loop had been quite the doozy, as he had been replacing Luke Skywalker in a galaxy where one could only fight if they were yodeling the entire time. Standing up, he looked over the wide expanse of the ocean while brushing some loose sand of of his clothes. Perhaps this loop he would take a vacation, take Kairi out to Radiant Garden and treat her to something special. It had been a bit since they had seen each other, and he felt like doing something special for her.

_Fate is a cruel mistress, raising your hopes one moment, only to crush them into grains of sand the next._

The sound of feet impacting the soft ground drew his attention to his left, where Kairi could be seen running towards him, face obscured by her hair. A smile growing on his face, Sora started to speak, "Hey Kai, how's it..." He was interrupted by her slamming full force into him, sending them both toppling to the ground. It was then that Sora noticed the wet feeling where her face was pressed into his chest, and the quiet sobs that came from her lips. "Kairi, what's wrong?"

_Again, he was the one trying to help her, the wheels of fate proving to once more turn against her._

She let out a sniffle, still clinging to him as though he was going to disappear at any moment. "I-I woke up at the beginning of the latest expansion." Sora's face broke into an expression of confusion. He hadn't heard anything about baseline growing, and was about to voice his surprise. However, before he could, Kairi continued without pause, "It was a null loop, and the only other looper there with me was King Mickey acting as a guest anchor. Before he and Riku traveled to go rescue Aqua, we had a talk about our plans for the loop. While we could still try to use the experience that we had gathered in the loops, I suggested that we go through it as close to baseline as possible, in order to fully understand what the expansion entailed." The princess shook her head bitterly. "Mickey was a little skeptical at first, and we had a discussion..."

* * *

Mickey looked up at Kairi with concern in his eyes. "Are you sure you want to go through with this? Neither of us know what is going to happen, and without Sora here..."

A light laugh came from Kairi. "Oh don't worry so much. I think that we've proven that we can handle whatever baseline throws at us." She summoned her Keyblade to her hand. "Besides, I think that after everything our baseline selves have been through, they can finally take care of themselves without too much worry. Right?"

The diminutive King bit his lip for a few seconds before finally responding, "Well..."

* * *

"..which ended with him agreeing, although a bit reluctantly. I on the other hand foolishly went forward without a second thought, unaware to what was to come."

_After all, it had all been building up to this, a chance to see what her baseline self was truly capable of._

"At first things seemed promising. I trained with Axel, while you tried to regain your Power of Awakening." She spat out those last three words, but spoke before Sora could enquire why, "You ended up saving Aqua, who then led you to Ventus. Vanitas tried to stop you, but you learned to harness your power and Ven was able to drive him away. Once all seven of us were prepared, we traveled to the Keyblade graveyard, to fight Xehanort and his Seekers of Darkness." Her eyes hardened. "It was there that Axel and I fought Saix and a hooded figure, who turned out to be Xion."

_She had saved Sora once before that encounter, but that was a mere footnote compared to what had happened next, barely worth mentioning._

"You showed up and tried to help us, but then Xemnas grabbed me before you could react. I tried to escape, thinking that somehow things would be different this time. They were not."

_Who was she kidding? She was once again reduced another damsel in distress._

"I was wrong. Like your first adventure and against the organization, I was useless."

_Unable to fight back, awaiting salvation like every. Other. Time._

"Xehanort ended up needing one more clash to forge the x-blade. To provoke you, he decided to take away what you cared for most, and I didn't notice until it was too late. He struck me with his keyblade..." She let out a hiccup and was barely able to get the next three words out of her mouth, "and I died."

_She had underestimated how weak and pathetic baseline intended her to be. Once again, she was reduced to being less than useless._

Instead of saying anything, Sora just wrapped his arms tightly around Kairi and held her close, gently rocking her as she began to sob again.

_He didn't deserve her. He had saved her thousands of times, and she could barely keep herself from being strung along like fate's puppet._

After a few minutes, he finally spoke, "Hey, don't worry, something like death can't stop me." He gave her what he hoped to be a brave smile, "As long as there's a chance to save you, I'll take it!"

_He constantly brought himself to his lowest points for her, and she was always unable to do anything._

"And that's the problem, you did try to find me! You used the Power of Waking one more time, and in the process of you saving me, you died! I might have returned, but what does it matter if I lost you again?!"

_Fate always conspired to keep them apart, forcing them to do the same dance again and again._

Despite her heavy news, Sora just gave her the same adorkable smile as always. "Hey, don't you worry. I've never let something as inconvenient as death stop me before, and I'm sure not going to let it now."

_She wanted to scream at him, tell him that things were different this time, that it was all pointless, but she held back._

***thump-thump***

_Sora always carried her burdens but adding more to the news of the latest revelations may prove to be too much for even him. No, she would not let fate turn her into an instrument of Sora's misery again._

***thump-thump***

_She would not worry him. This time, she would be strong..._

Kairi gave Sora a small reassuring smile, causing his heart to lighten, if even only a little bit. While he knew that there might be something still bothering her, he trusted her to tell him about it. After all, she always did so in the past, so why would that change now? Whatever it was, they would get through it together.

_Alone, she would stand firm._

***thump-thump***

_No matter how much it hurt._

* * *

44.14 (DrTempo): [Kingdom Hearts] / [My Little Pony]

Sunset was, as she usually did, meditating in the dojo she had created. It was a typical Loop, but she had gotten a Ping earlier, and was wondering who it was. The door opened, and she saw Sora walk in. Sunset smiled.

"Hey, Sora! It's been a while." Sora nodded, frowning.

"Yeah, it has." Sunset could see something was bothering him, and she said, "Let me guess... something about your Loop's baseline expansion bothering you?" Sora blinked in surprise, and then facepalmed.

"Duh... you played the game, didn't you?"

Sunset laughed. "Yep. Apparently in baseline, I'm quite the gamer. But moving on, what's bothering you?"

Sora sighed. "It's Kairi. She and Mickey were the first ones to experience the baseline expansion, and..." Sunset grinned.

"Let me guess. She isn't taking ending up being a damsel in distress, and getting killed, with your saving her causing you to end up in some version of Shibuya, well, is she?"

Sora nodded. "Yeah. I know she isn't telling me something, but I don't know why." Sunset thought for a moment, and then frowned.

"If I had to guess, she's trying to be strong on her own. Guess she forgot what you always say... that her friends are her power."

Sora nodded in agreement. "Yeah. Makes sense. But every time someone's tried, we haven't been able to help her calm down." Sunset nodded.

"It'll take time. She is just being stubborn, and likely feels like she ended up being useless all over again. It isn't her fault. She was caught by surprise, and her baseline self likely, even with all the training she went through, stood no chance against Xehanort. She just needs to realize she needs to talk about it to someone else."

Sora nodded. "I hope she does soon. But, that isn't all that is bothering me. It's what Xigbar... or Luxu... did."

Sunset nodded. "He tricked everyone, all to revive the Foretellers, and have the Master of Masters return from wherever he went. I'm all but sure another Keyblade War is in your baseline's future, and if I have to guess, this time it'll be seven seekers of darkness against thirteen guardians of light. Considering how powerful the Foretellers seem to be, this could mean trouble, especially since they were the ones who caused the first Keyblade War to happen. But, don't lose hope, Sora. Riku'll save you, and you'll stop them. And when that time comes, you'll prevent the mistakes of the past from happening all over again. Stay determined."

Sora laughed. "I know that. But for now, we have to make sure Kairi gets through whatever's bothering her. We likely have a lot of time before the next baseline expansion, but still.."

Sunset grinned. "You can do it, Sora. I know you will." Summoning her Keyblade, she entered a fighting stance. "How about a sparring session? You only use your baseline abilities, while I go all out. Show me what you've got, Sora!"

Sora summoned his Keyblade, and the two clashed. For now, he wouldn't worry, but he knew he had to help Kairi realize she needed to have her friends help her.

Hopefully before things got too bad.

* * *

44.15 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Pokémon]

Meowth grinned as he flew across Adrien's room, finally free from the Miraculous. The headband he was stuck in felt cramped, and he somehow managed to develop a sore back.

"Man, with bein' stuck in dat for such a long time, I'm startin' to agree wit' my Anchor's point on Pokéballs. Hopefully he ain't here, or we might be dealin' with quite the blackout." Meowth shuddered at the thought of Pikachu's particularly zappy reaction. "Anyway, this loop I'm known as Manekko, Kwami of Wealth and Fortune, which is kinda ironic since I can't use Pay Day in baseline."

Adrien hmmed in response. "There goes my Chat Crème idea. Maybe Catsh Money?"

"Twoip, I will summon a dragon's, no a Diancie woithy fortune if ya never say those words again."

Adrien chuckled. "Fine, I'll come up with names later. So what superpowers do I get this loop? And what do you need to eat?"

Meowth's eyes widened. "Only the finest of the fine! Oysters, caviar, and delicious lobster! All that'll be perfect for my pallet."

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "Is that cause you need it or because you want to eat a bunch of rich-type foods?"

"A bit of both actually, since I can tell you about the years I spent living on salt. In regards to power, you transform by saying "Pay up!" and detransform by saying "Pay down." When transformed, you get a gold coin similar to my charm that's linked to an endless amount of cash. You can summon something by shouting Exchange, which will replace the coin with whatever material thing you desire. Keep in mind you can only use this once per transformation, so be smart about this. No charging in without a plan."

Adrien nodded. "Got it, be smart about how to use the Cat Credit Card."

"Yer on thin ice, Twoip."

"Okay, no puns. We should probably transform soon, Ivan turns into Stoneheart around this time, we need to be there to help deakumatize him."

"On it kid, say the magic words."

"Pay up!"

* * *

44.16 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [Gregory Horror Show]

Star, Marco, Ludo and Janna blinked as they Awoke in a creepy forest.

"Oh man, this is a dream come true!" Janna smirked, taking a happy breath.

"...Janna, you scare me more than literally anything else." Marco snarked. Meanwhile, Ludo hid in Star's backpack.

"I'm not scared!" He insisted.

"No one said you were." Star smiled. With that, the 4 came across a hotel.

"Could this get any better?!" Janna beamed as they entered.

"Why hello. Welcome to Gregory House." Gregory smiled, appearing out of nowhere.

"Ooh. Do you have an axe murderer? This place totally seems like it would have one." Janna chuckled.

"Would you like-"

"Or a giant monster?"

"Would you like-"

"Or a curse!"

"Would you like-"

"Or a cursed giant monster!"

"LET ME FINISH!" Gregory snapped.

"Do I have to?" Janna smirked.

"JUST TAKE A KEY!" Gregory roared. The four did as told and walked off.

"You all Visiting Loopers?" Neko Zombie yawned from the ceiling.

"Well, three of us are..." The unnerved Ludo stated.

"Oh, I'm Looping too, if that's time repeating." Janna shrugged as she inspected the place.

"WHAT?!" Marco and Star exclaimed.

"Huh? Oh yeah. I didn't tell you because I knew you'd have funny reactions." Janna snickered. While Marco looked annoyed, Star cheered and hugged her friend.

"Well, wanna help me burn this place down?" Neko Zombie interrupted.

"Sure." Star, Janna and Ludo shrugged.

"Wha- Why are you agreeing to arson so easily?!" Marco exclaimed, before getting ignored as everyone got some fire prepared. He groaned into his hands.

* * *

44.17 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

Janna groaned as she laid on the Diazes' couch.

"What's wrong with her?" Marco asked.

"She's annoyed because our last fused Loop was Count Duckula." Star stated absentmindedly, working on ships in bottles again.

"He was soooooo lame. Vampires are supposed to be scary!" Janna whined.

"...I'm gonna go hang out with Ludo this Loop." Marco sighed, leaving with his Dimensional Scissors. Star nodded, too focused on her ships.

* * *

"Hey Big M! What diggin', mah main man?" Ludo smiled as Marco arrived at Castle Avarius. Marco silently went back into his Portal.

"...I thought it was cool." Dennis assured his brother.

"Thank you Dennis. SOMEONE appreciates Me." Ludo hurrumphed.

* * *

44.18 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [Twilight Saga]

Janna blinked as she Awoke.

"All right, so fusing Ludo's dimensional scissors with Marco's money and then throwing it into a volcano? Definitely gonna crash the Loop." She shrugged to herself.

"Janna, my love! We must be together, but alas, we can't!" Edward Cullen stated as he approached her. Janna looked around at all the sparkly vampires, her eye twitching.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Janna shouted as she fell to her knees.

"Alas, I knew our love was complicated." Edward sighed.

* * *

44.19 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

"...I want a romantic subplot." Ludo stated suddenly as he and the other SvtFoE Loopers were riding on the River of Time.

"Huh?" Marco blinked.

"Yeah! Pretty much everyone in our Branch who's not irrelevant has been a part of one! Even Janna, technically, since she has so much subtext with you AND Star!" Ludo ranted.

"...Please tell me you're trolling us." Star deadpanned.

"...Yeah, I totally am. I'm REALLY bored." Ludo admitted.

"Oh thank goodness." Star murmured.

"...I'm not THAT boring, am I? Fam, I may cry!" Reynaldo the Bald Plate frowned.

"You totally are dude." Janna shrugged. Reynaldo cried as Star went to comfort him and Marco scolded Janna for her rudeness, which she ignored with music.

* * *

44.20 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Pokémon]

Adrien's opponent accepted the loss gracefully, bowing and leaving the the tournament soon after. Though Adrien tried to schedule a meet up later on, the opponent turned it down.

Marinette raised an eyebrow, "Not to knock your fencing ability, but I'm surprised you beat him. Kartana have a monstrous attack, and their speed and defenses are no slouch."

"I'm not." Adrien winced. "Er, I'm not trying to be arrogant or anything. On _paper_ , their _godly_ attack, defense, and speed would have forced me to formulate a _special attack_ plan to _steel_ victory."

Marinette looked confused. "Their defense and speed aren't godly, just good."

"Marinette, I'm trying to lecture here." Adrien mock-whined. Marinette rolled her eyes and smiled, gesturing for him to continue in an exaggerated fashion.

"Okay, so being a _foot_ in height gives it a _leg up_ in defense _,_ making it harder to hit, but kinda hurts its options to attack. Even with how speedy it is, you can _plant_ to stop its charge with a few parries when you're _en garde_ , since it still has to get in close with how short those blades are. _Six inches_ don't _measure_ up against a _three foot_ blade, so it would _half_ to get out of range and force me into offense, where I excel, or focus on re _tree_ ting to create a _steelmate_. Honestly, I kinda knew how this match would have _blade_ out before it even began.

Marinette hummed in affirmation, before turning to face her superhero partner. "Did you just fill your entire speech with puns?!"

"Hey, you started it, calling Kartana's attack _monstrous_. Second, Yggdrasil caused the fight thanks to its love of puns, replacing _Kagami Tsurugi_ with a _Kamiturugi_."

Marinette groaned in response, causing Adrien to grin wider.

"Honestly, Kagami's more of a god-sword."

Marinette groaned louder, mumbling under her breath about "dumb Japanese puns".

* * *

44.21 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

Janna cackled as she entered Echo Creek High, the Empire theme being played by a terrified Ferguson.

"Janna, what're you doing?" Marco deadpanned.

"Oh, I'm a Sith now. Pretty hot huh?" Janna smirked, leaning on a locker before casually using the force to blow up a nearby water fountain, snickering.

"I'm deeply concerned for my life." Ferguson stated.

"...Janna, who even wanted to train you?" Marco sighed, massaging his temples.

"Unimportant." Janna shrugged.

"It was Robot Chicken Palpatine." Ludo stated bluntly, dropping off a clearly traumatized Alfonso before leaving. Star had also been conveniently listening in on the conversation... And so Star and Marco laughed hysterically.

"Bahahahaha! Robot... Robot... Oh Admins, I'm gonna wet myself!" Marco guffawed.

"It's not funny!" Janna complained.

"You're right... It's HILARIOUS! Ahahaha!" Star added. Janna stormed off to plot her revenge.

"I don't understand what is happening." Ferguson murmured.

"So dark... So cold..." Alfonso stated with a thousand yard stare.

* * *

44.22 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

**It's Finally Over**

Ludo whistled as he dusted off his castle's doors.

"Ugh, maybe getting Big Chicken to do it wasn't the best idea..." Ludo murmured.

"Hi Ludo." Janna said, appearing out of nowhere. Ludo screamed and fell over.

"What the heck, Janna?! You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Ludo complained.

"Heh, yeah. Well anyways, Star and Marco's relationship drama is finally over." Janna chuckled.

"Really? Oh thank Goodness, that was getting obnoxious." Ludo stated.

"I know right? Oh no, I have a demon boyfriend I'm clearly not all that into! Woe is me!" Janna said, stating The latter things in Star's voice.

"Uh, I'm Marco! I'm too awkward to make a move!" Ludo laughed in Marco's voice.

"...We're right here." Marco Deadpanned, him and Star standing nearby.

"It WAS getting out of hand..." Buff Frog interjected.

"Et tu, Buff Frog?... Did I use that right?" Star pouted.

"Yep." Marco sighed.

* * *

44.23 (BestEverNoob): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Marinette Awoke in a new loop, and, as had quickly become habit, checked her memories for anything different.

Pretty normal this time around, although she seemed to be Alya's childhood friend already, which was nice.

She pinged, but didn't get a response, Adrien must not be awake this loop. Shame.

_"Right, I need to help fu cross the street... then screw everyone over. How should I play this?"_

* * *

A particularly stir-crazy Ladybug, Wearing a cape made of stolen cell phones, sat cackling evil in her secret evil lair, planning her next great prank, so far, she'd stolen Alya's phone, given it back, stolen it again, egged the Eiffel Tower, dyed all of Gabriel's clothes bright pink, and gotten Cat Noir high on catnip. Twice.

And Chloe _still_ Hero _-_ worshipped her.

She wondered what she could do to Lila that wouldn't end up with Yggdrasil/Tyche/karma sending her to another Eiken loop.

* * *

44.24 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil]

**How this Ends Is Great!**

Marco, Star, Ludo and Janna stood around in the newly fused Mewni and Earth realm.

"Wellp, Baseline really went out with a bang." Marco smiled.

"Speaking of bangs..." Janna slyly began, looking at Star and Marco.

"EW! NO JANNA! JUST NO!" Star gagged.

"I was just gonna ask if there were any cool explosions." Janna smirked. Ludo snickered as he pet Bird and Spider.

"...Janna, you're the worse." Star and Marco grunted in unison.

"Can't deny that." Janna shrugged.

"Aw, you're already speaking like a couple!" Ludo cooed at the new lovers.

"Ugh, this is gonna be annoying." Marco grumbled.

"But it's worth it." Star smiled, Marco soon smiling as well as they held hands.

"Kissssss!" Janna and Ludo insisted.

"Would you two can it?!"

"Nope!"

And so the Adventures continued!

* * *

44.25 (BlueStarOfTheSouth): [Lilo and Stitch]

Stitch found himself in a strange situation: contained in the bubble like cage that he was in during Jumba's trial. Didn't he already do this? Stitch was so lost in his own thoughts, trying to work out which of his cousins was responsible for this, that he missed what the Grand Councilwoman said. Not that it mattered, seeing as he was taken to a cell, the same one he remembered being locked in so long ago, to await his sentencing. Banishment to some distant asteroid no doubt.

But Stitch didn't have time for that, he had his family to get back to.

Breaking out of the cell was trivial. Stealing the small red ship that he had used to get to Earth was easy. The small dogfight that followed his theft was actually tricky, because Stitch was trying to work out the exact angle and time he needed to jump to light speed if he wanted to hit Hawaii while he was trying not to get shot.

Finally, once he was sure he had the timing and angle just right, didn't want to miss and hit Pluto or something, he made the jump, sending the vessel speeding towards Earth. Towards home.

As Stitch's stolen craft burned in the atmosphere of the blue planet he let out a mad cackle. In that moment he didn't care about how, or why, he had time travelled, all that mattered was that he could see his island home growing closer through the flames of his burning spacecraft.

* * *

44.1: One of the more disturbing variants, but luckily, Riley's got friends here.

44.2: Uh-huh.

44.3: They've got a point. Also, Elsa spent years in a state where she really wasn't ready for a romantic relationship of any kind, and even after Looping as long as she has, she's probably still a long way away.

44.4: Snow needs more screentime. Desperately. (Looping has rid her of some of her naivety, at least.)

44.5: The Refactoring was an event that basically got rid of a lot of random glitch outbreaks and also made Pockets temporarily inaccessible for roughly a hundred Loops.

44.6: Post-expansion discussions. There's definitely going to be fallout from KHIII and its events.

44.7: It's a "The Trials of Apollo" thing.

44.8: And now Star's former arch-enemy is Looping. (The guy had reformed by series' end, so it's okay.)

44.9: Been a long time since we've seen these two interact.

44.10: Yeah, that happened.

44.11: Er...

44.12: Chloe isn't actually Looping here, but the Venom symbiote _is_.

44.13: Like I said, fallout. Kairi is going to have a rough time of it for a while.

44.14: And now Sunset's gotten the chance to talk with her friends here about it.

44.15: Kwamis apparently get Replaced sometimes.

44.16: And they got a new Looper.

44.17: Right.

44.18: ...(sighs) Okay, the flanderization here is a little much.

44.19: Uh-huh.

44.20: They must have been in Alola.

44.21: Well that's scary.

44.22: One problem solved.

44.23: (raises eyebrow) Marinette must have been in one of those moods.

44.24: And that's it for this series' expansions. Not for its Loops though.

44.25: And we go back in time to see Stitch's activation.


	62. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Five

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-07-18. This is the first of two chapters posted today.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Five**

45.1 (Skaz Wolfman): [Kingdom Hearts]

**A Recursive Replica**

Roxas Awakened almost as early as he possibly could. It was only his seventh day with the Organization. He was sitting in his throne in the Round Room, watching the small hooded figure of Xion approach the center. Roxas Pinged, and felt a few answers. He glanced across the room at Axel, who was glancing at him. They locked eyes, Roxas subtly popped an eyebrow, and Axel gave the slightest smirk and dip of his head in acknowledgement. Roxas lifted the index and middle fingers of his right hand just a little bit off of his armrest, and made scissor-snip motions with them, silently asking Axel _'snip this in the bud?'_

Axel shrugged and winked. _'I'm game if you are, bud.'_

Roxas, forgoing subtlety, gave Axel a full, firm nod in reply. _'You bet I'm game. Let's rock, brother.'_

Sometimes, when they were both Awake this early in the game, Roxas and Axel would spend the coming year just palling around, more often than not just nabbing Xion and leaving the Organization entirely to do whatever until it was time to meet Naminé in Twilight Town to wake up Sora. If Naminé was Awake, she could use her powers to stabilize the flow of memories between Sora, Roxas, and Xion, allowing the three of them to coexist just fine. If Naminé wasn't Awake... well, Roxas and Axel always made sure Xion understood what needed to happen, and why, and because she was a Sora, she always made the selfless choice. All that was left to do was to entrust the future to Sora.

Sora always did the selfless thing... and right now, that was exactly why Roxas felt like blowing off steam by trashing the Organization here and now. If Axel hadn't been Awake, he thought he might have taken _all_ of them on solo. But he was glad Axel was Awake; fighting him always hurt, and fighting alongside him was always more fun than fighting alone.

The Organization was, to a man (and Larxene), unanimously bewildered by the sudden explosion of motion from the Eighth and Thirteenth of their number. "VIVA LA REVOLUTION!" Axel howled as he materialized his chakrams, gunning straight for Xemnas.

Xaldin and Lexaeus both jumped up in Axel's way at the same time, but Roxas flash-stepped between them and blasted them both away with a roar of "AEROGA!"

Axel's chakrams clashed with Xemnas's ethereal blades. Two Sorcerer Nobodies appeared on either side of Axel, and translucent pink cubes buffeted him backward.

"Axel! What are you doing?!" yelled Saïx as he stood up in his throne.

"It's showtime, Isa! Are you a man or are you a Nobody?" Axel replied.

"Treasonous wretches!" howled Xaldin as he leaped into the air, cyclones and spears whirling around him. Roxas dove in like an arrow, swatting the spears aside with Oblivion and Oathkeeper before smacking Xaldin down into the floor.

Xigbar stood up in his throne and fired a volley at Axel, who materialized his Keyblade and cut through the Sorcerers, kicking off of one as it faded back into nothingness to avoid Xigbar's fire.

Then, they all heard a scream. A girl's scream loud enough to shake the Round Room and raw enough to make Axel and Roxas choke up, and every other Nobody in the room felt a phantom tremor in the empty space where their heart should have been. As her enraged scream echoed, Xion launched herself into the air, Kingdom Key in hand, straight at Xemnas.

The Superior's eyes widened as he jumped up to his feet, crossing his ethereal blades to block Xion's thrust. As their weapons clashed, there was a blinding flash of light, and a thunderous ' _CRACK!_ ' as Xemnas's throne spilt jaggedly in half down the middle.

The glare from the flash faded, and gasps echoed around the room, eyes widening as they all beheld the clash's result. Xemnas was slumped in his throne, using an ethereal blade in his right hand to hold Xion's Keyblade back from his throat. His entire left arm was just _gone_ , along with a fair bit of his left side, thorny streams of Nothingness bleeding out from his body. With a strained roar he shoved her Keyblade aside, and fired a blue beam of energy from his hand. Xion blocked the beam with her Keyblade, but it still shoved her back almost all the way across the room, until she managed to step out of its path.

Xion stood there, in midair, steam rising off her coat. She yanked back her hood, and everyone, even Saïx, saw her face. Her hard, blue eyes flashing with outrage. With quick, aggressive motions, she unzipped her Coat and tore it off, flinging it aside. This left her in her boots, pants, and a black sleeveless shirt. She tightly gripped her Keyblade in both hands, and aimed it at Xemnas.

"I don't know how you came back, or how you brought me here... but I'm glad, Xemnas," Xion said coldly. "I'm going to enjoy making you pay for what you did. You, and Xehanort, and the others... _you're the reason Sora disappeared_! I will never forgive you for that!" she roared before running at Xemnas again.

Xigbar teleported into her path and fired a dual stream of bolts at her; Axel and Roxas leapt at him, but Xaldin and Vexen respectively intercepted them. It didn't matter though, because Xion deflected all of his shots as she ran. Then she flipped into the air and aimed her Keyblade at him, releasing a spray of ice shards with a cry of "Blizzard!"

Xigbar teleported a few feet backward, only to get smacked in the face by Xion's Strike Raid. Xion flickered in front of him, catching her Keyblade and slashing him with it. He staggered back, and teleported away before Xion could run him through. Then Xemnas flew at her, grabbing her by the throat and crashing through a wall.

"XION!" yelled Roxas, who started flying after them. Marluxia appeared next to him, hooking him with his scythe and flinging him at someone's throne.

"Roxas!" yelled Axel.

"I'm fine!" Roxas called back. "I can handle everyone here, just make sure Xion is okay!"

Larxene actually started laughing out loud at that, but Axel just nodded and took off, gushing fire from his hands to propel himself through the hole Xemnas had made. Saïx leaped after him.

"All eyes on me, Nobodies!" Roxas called out as he pushed off from the throne he had smashed into, landing in the middle of the Room. "Final Form, DRIVE!"

Light exploded out of Roxas, and when the glare faded he was floating inches above the ground, his Coat shining silver, Oathkeeper and Oblivion crossed and floating behind him. "I'm in a hurry," he said, "So if you could all attack me at the same time, that'd actually be convenient."

* * *

Axel and Saïx were running full-tilt through the halls of the castle. Everything started shaking, making both men stagger against the walls. "Wow! Roxas is really riled up, today," Axel said with a laugh.

"What in blazes is going on, Axel?" Saïx demanded, again.

"Roxas and I are in a time loop that's repeated _sooooooo_ many times," said Axel, "We're both billions of years old, mentally. Not even joking, man. The Keyblade Kid, Sora, is thousands of times older than that. We call the moment of remembering all the loops we've had 'Waking Up', and Roxas and I both just Woke Up a few minutes ago. And Roxas has some emotional baggage he needed to work off, so he decided we were going to flip the script and slap the Organization silly... earlier than we usually do, that is."

"That's insane!" Saïx exclaimed.

"Yeah, man, it really is. But it's also the unmitigated truth, so get it memorized," said Axel, jabbing his finger into the side of Saïx's head. "Now come on!" he shouted as he took off again.

They emerged into an open space, where they found Xion being slapped around by a huge Twilight Thorn. Xemnas hovered in the air, sneering down at her, his arm half-mended.

"Aw, _hell no_!" Axel snarled. Flames swirled around his hands as he materialized his Keyblade, Flame Liberator, and leaped into the air while Saïx gawked at him. "HEY SUPERIOR! Hold still so I can tender my resignation!" Axel roared as he rocketed at him.

A squad of Sorcerers, Dragoons, and Snipers all materialized in Axel's way, but he slashed and burned through them all without slowing down. Unfortunately, they successfully held his attention long enough for the Twilight Thorn to sucker punch him out of the air.

"LEA!" Saïx screamed, shades of worry coloring his normal monotone. Without thinking, he jumped at the Twilight Thorn with Lunatic raised overhead. The Thorn swung a massive fist at him with unnatural speed. Saïx felt time slow as he realized that he wouldn't be able to avoid the blow.

Then Xion grabbed him by the hood and yanked him back, both of them spinning through the air as the Thorn's fist zoomed past. They came to a stop in midair, and Saïx glanced down in disbelief to find that they were standing on a shimmering, barely visible translucent hexagon of... light, maybe?

"Go for its legs, okay, Sai... Isa?" she said.

"You're... bleeding," he said. Indeed, blood was running freely down the side of Xion's face, and her left eye was swollen shut. _'How can a Nobody, much less a Replica, bleed? Wait, how does she know my true name?!'_

"Sweet of you to worry, but I'll be fine," she replied, mistaking his confusion for concern. "Go for its legs," she repeated, "I'll distract it. The barrier panel will linger a second after I leave." Then, without another word, she sprang into action. She leaped high, to the left, shooting a ball of lightning from the end of her Keyblade. A second later, as promised, the surface under Saïx's feet ceased being, and he plummeted to the ground.

The Thorn swung and swatted and flailed at her, but Xion jumped all around, bouncing off of her split-second light panels to outmaneuver the hulking Nobody. Then, Xion came to a stop and stood still. The Thorn shrieked, like metal scraping and twisting, and brought both of its fists up to smash her from both sides. Xion wanted until the last second to yell "Reflega!" A translucent bubble barrier materialized around her, and the Thorn's fists bounced off of it as the barrier shattered and exploded outward. Shockwaves rippled up the Thorn's arms, and it gave hollow, metallic howl of pain.

At the same time, Saïx hacked at the Thorn's legs with his claymore, bringing it down to its knees. Without missing a beat, Xion charged, skipping off of flashes of light like a stone across water. She thrust her Kingdom Key into the Twilight Thorn's chest, and twisted. The colossal Nobody shuddered, and then pillars of light started erupting from inside its body, until finally it exploded into a sunburst of light and streams of Nothingness.

Meanwhile, Axel had emerged from a pile of rubble and thrown himself at Xemnas again. Xemnas, having fully healed, materialized his ethereal blades and met Axel's charge in midair. But then the Thorn exploded, distracting both Xemnas and Axel, who slammed into each other. Axel deftly slipped behind Xemnas and kicked off from him, aiming his Keyblade and blasting him with "FIRAGA!"

Xemnas _almost_ slammed into the ground at the same time Axel landed on his feet, but at the last second, just inches above the ground, the Organization's Superior seemingly became weightless. He drifted upward, rotating onto his back and then inclining until he was vertically aligned. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. "No. VIII, this mad display of senseless rebellion–"

"OH JUST CAN IT, would you?!" Axel interrupted. "I've heard my fill of your monologues. Xion, you ready?"

"Ready!" Xion yelled back as she stabbed her Keyblade into the ground. A pillar of light exploded out of the ground, right under Xemnas. It split around an invisible, oblong barrier around him, but it still sent him flying into the air. "HRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" Xion screamed, the ground trembling as another, bigger, even brighter pillar of light pulsed up around the first one. Xemnas's eyes widened as his barrier cracked like glass when the second wave of searing light impacted it. He thrust both of his hand down, the barrier regenerating and hardening, becoming visible.

"Isa!" Axel shouted. He dismissed his Keyblade and summoned his chakrams, flinging them both into the air, one much higher than the other.

Without any further prompting, Saïx leaped high into the air, kicking off of one chakram, and then the other, bringing him directly over Xemnas. With a two-handed overhead swing, Saïx smashed Lunatic into Xemnas's back. At the same time, Xion tore her Keyblade out of the ground. Her pillar of light didn't fade away instantly, though, and Saïx pushed Xemnas down through it. Just before Xemnas slammed into the ground, Saïx planted his feet on the Superior's back and jumped off.

"Axel," said Xion, shifting her Keyblade into a position he instantly recognized. "Buy me a minute."

"Right. Isa! Get clear!" Axel yelled out, summoning his Keyblade. It glowed hotly as he swept it back and forth through the air, sending motes of flame into the air. Axel threw one hand up high, and the fire motes expanded into great, burning stones. Saïx very, very quickly backpedaled until he was further away from Xemnas than Axel and Xion were.

Xemnas jumped up to his feet with a roar and an explosion of magical force, and Axel swung his hand down like an axe, yelling "METEOR!"

Two dozen fiery, molten rocks came down and slammed into Xemnas, one after another. He threw his hands up and created a barrier before being obscured by explosions.

Without waiting for the smoke to clear, Axel ran forward with Keyblade in hand. Saïx ran up alongside him. "Starting to feel like old times... Lea," he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Xemnas burst out of the smoke, ethereal blades blazing, and Axel and Saïx both swung at him. He blocked, and snarled, "Begone, you nuisances. **All-Vanity!** "

"Crap!" gasped Axel as he jumped back. Saïx backpedaled as well, but he was a hair too slow and was thrown back by the spherical shell of energy that flared out from Xemnas. Two powerful blue beams erupted from his hands, slamming into Saïx and Axel and blasting them back into walls.

Xion's eyes widened, and with an angry scream she bolted forward, the teeth of her Keyblade glowing with power. Xemnas, astutely guessing that Axel and his inexplicable Keyblade were a bigger threat than Saïx, pulled his beam off of the latter and swept it toward Xion. She picked up speed and jumped, vaulting over the beam, and continued running across her light panels in the air. So Xemnas started pulling the beam upward.

Axel, who was using Flame Liberator to block the beam but was still pinned against a wall by the force, Formchanged his Keyblade into chakrams. He levitated one in front of his hand, making it spin rapidly to deflect Xemnas's beam, and threw the other one toward Xion. The chakram intercepted the beam where it would have hit Xion, and with a final burst of speed she seemed to disappear from sight. The glow on the teeth of her Keyblade became a long straight line, angled down toward Xemnas, that cut through the air, as did a shout of "ZANTETSUKEN!"

But even the great armor-breaking technique was harmlessly deflected by Xemnas's barrier. Xion hit the ground behind Xemnas and skidded to a stop. She panicked, seeing his barrier undamaged, and started thinking quickly. Her eyes widened with realization as a wild idea suddenly sprang upon her. She grit her teeth, and charged at Xemnas from behind.

Xion was a Replica. She had grown into her own person, of course, but unlike all of her friends she had _started_ her life as a copy of someone else. This meant that her nature was less static, more mutable, than most people. In her first life, she unconsciously used this power to emulate Roxas and eventually Sora's power in battle. Then, when she had to fight Roxas and force him to... do what needed to be done, she had pulled out all the stops and gotten creative with her powers. More recently, during her brief stint as a Seeker of Darkness, she had learned to expand her power to emulate others, besides Sora and Roxas, the two she was connected to. She had replicated Saïx's Lunacy powers at the Keyblade Graveyard, and she had even summoned copies of his claymore, Lunatic. Xemnas's barrier was virtually impenetrable... but his lasers passed out through them, and they, as well as the barrier, were made of the same energy he conjured his ethereal blades from.

Xion hadn't tried to Replicate Xemnas's powers the last time she had fought him, alongside Sora and Roxas; whether out of uncertainty that she could, or out of disgust against her former "Superior," she had never really reflected upon. But she tried to, now. She had to try, because she wasn't going to let Xemnas hurt Axel. She thought of Xemnas, remembered every time she had witnessed a display of his power, concentrated all of her mental energy on capturing a complete picture of his power, and all of her willpower on making that power her own. The Replica Kingdom Key disappeared from her hands, replaced by a perfect copy of Xemnas's Interdiction: a pair of plain red energy beams suspended in blade form and rooted to the palms of her hands.

With a triumphant howl, halfway between battle fury and savage glee, Xion slashed through Xemnas's protective bubble. Feeling his barrier collapse, Xemnas's eyes widened in shock, and he whirled around to face Xion... as she thrust both of her Replicated weapons into his chest.

The beams streaming from Xemnas's hands abruptly fizzled out, and he dropped to his knees. "This... this cannot... how... just a puppet..." he murmured as he began to break down and dissolve.

"I... have _never_ been just a puppet. And I'll never let anyone treat me like one, ever again," Xion muttered as she dismissed her Keyblade.

"Well said, Xion," said Axel, clapping as he ambled up to her. Then, without warning, he swept her up off of her feet into a tight hug, spinning around. "Hot _damn_ it is good to have you onboard!" he exclaimed. "Uh, just to be sure," Axel quickly added, setting a bemused and slightly dizzy Xion on her feet. "You remember... everything, right? The Keyblade Graveyard? Hanging out with everyone on Destiny Islands? You remember meeting Aqua, Terra, and Ventus, right?"

"Remember... of _course_ I remember all of that! How could anyone forget all that?" Xion asked incredulously.

Rather than answer, Axel broke out the _biggest_ and wildest smile Xion had ever seen and picked her up again, jumping up and down and whooping with joy. Saïx could only stare at this emotional display in absolute bewilderment.

Then the whole Castle started quaking, throwing Axel and Xion to the ground. Saïx narrowly managed to stay upright by jamming Lunatic into the ground and leaning against it.

"Oh yeah, almost forgot. It was Xemnas's will that was holding this Castle together," said Axel when the tremors... settled down enough for him and Xion to stand up, at least.

There was a thundering crash as a beam of light erupted from a distant hub of the castle, where Axel recalled the Round Room was located. The light arced and slammed down in front of them. The light floated, and there floated a silver-coated Roxas. For a moment, at least, before another, softer light enveloped him and his silver coat became black again, and his Keyblades disappeared.

Roxas had another black coat slung over his shoulder, which he held out for Xion. Seeing her expression, he gave her a small smile and said "I know, but we've got to use a corridor of darkness to get out of here before the Castle falls into the Realm of Nothingness. Me an' Axel'd probably be fine without our Coats, but you're..."

Abruptly, Roxas choked up. He lunged forward and pulled Xion into a crushing hug, which she returned without thinking about it, perplexed by his and Axel's reactions. "You're finally... it's so great to have you back, Xion," he said, a half-laugh of blind joy bursting from him.

"Uh... where did I... how long was I 'gone'?" Xion asked.

Roxas opened his mouth, but the Castle rocked again. He and Xion slammed into each other, keeping each other from falling down but butting heads in the process. Saïx's hands slipped off of Lunatic and he faceplanted this time, and Axel fell to his knees but summoned his Keyblade in time to prop himself up so he fell no further. "Hey, let's get out of here and have the mushy reunion somewhere safe!" Axel shouted. He raised a hand, and a swirly, shadowy portal opened in front of him. "Hoods up, everyone get a move on!" Axel ordered as he ran through. Saïx followed him after a moment of hesitation. Roxas grabbed Xion's hand, and they ran through as well.

* * *

Naturally, they emerged atop the Clocktower in Twilight Town. They took a moment to appreciate having solid, immobile ground under their feet again. Then Axel and Roxas both glommed onto Xion, again.

"Seriously, what happened?!" Xion asked, enjoying the affection but at a loss as to why her friends were acting like they hadn't seen her for years.

Roxas and Axel both felt a Ping. They Pinged back, as did a few others. Altogether, the same number of Pings as before. A moment later, another Ping, with Roxas, Axel, and whoever else answering again. Nine Pings, altogether, which _could_ mean all nine–well, ten now–of the Loopers unique to their Branch were Awake. But it was impossible to be certain considering all the Disney and Final Fantasy Loopers that could be Awake.

"Oh!" said Roxas, remembering what this meant. He Unpocketed his Gummiphone, which was ringing. Axel followed his lead, Unpocketing his own Gummiphone, which was also ringing. The screen on Axel's phone showed Naminé, while Roxas's showed Riku.

"Well, that's all of us, then. Except for Terra, Aqua, and Ven," said Riku, "Meet up on the Island?"

"Sure thing," agreed Roxas, "And you're not going to believe the news we've got! See you guys soon."

"But first," Axel spoke up, "There's something we need to do."

"One step ahead of you," said Roxas with a grin, three bars of ice cream appearing in his hand. He tossed one underhand to Axel, and handed another one to Xion.

"And man, do we have a story to tell you, kid," said Axel as he unwrapped his ice cream and sat down.

* * *

45.2 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [Legend of Zelda]

Marco groaned as he Awoke (in both senses) and stretched, looking at his bed.

"Man, straw beds are really not comfortable." He mused, getting up. He looked in a mirror. He was pretty much the same as usual, except with a green outfit.

"Huh. Nice hat." He nodded, checking his Loop memories.

"Hey, Li- Oh wait, you're being Replaced this Loop. What's your name, kid?" Navi flew In.

"Marco Diaz. Do we have to save Star? I know for certain she can handle herself." Marco asked, having finished checking his Loop memories to see Star had been Captured by Evil forces.

"Eh, she hasn't done anything yet, so we probably should." Navi Explained.

"Hmmmm... That's unlike her." Marco frowned, concerned for his girlfriend.

"Don't worry about it, Marco. I'm sure she has her reasons." Navi assured.

"Yeah, probably. Off we go, huh?" Marco shrugged. With that, the duo were off, Marco riding Epona.

"... This is weird." 'Epona' stated in Ludo's voice. Marco yelped and almost fell.

"LUDO?! why haven't you said anything the past few miles?!" Marco complained.

"I dunno." The Kappa turned Horse Admitted. Marco face palmed and groaned.

Meanwhile, at the Lair of EVILLLLLLLL!

Janna gave a Snicker as she watched a horror movie.

"Aw, this is the funniest part!" Janna stated while shaking an Octorok. Said scene made the Mook faint in terror but Janna laugh hysterically.

"Ma'am, shouldn't we be going after the Hero?" A Moblin asked.

"Hmmm... yeah, send who you want." Janna nodded. The Moblin saluted and grabbed dozens of Mooks before leaving.

"Hey, Janna Banana, can I get some popcorn?" Star asked from a cage.

"Sure bud." Janna nodded, handing her some.

"Thanks!"

"You're welcome, prisoner."

"I could leave at any time Ordonia, Don't push it."

"... Right, sorry."

* * *

45.3 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [A Hat in Time]

"FOOOOOOOLLLLL! You dare intrude upon my domain??! State your business!" The Snatcher demanded.

"You buy souls, right? I'm here to sell mine." Janna smirked.

"... Wait, Really?" Snatcher blinked.

"Yep!"

"No strings attached? No trickery? No bargain?"

"Nope."

"... Well hot dog! Sign here!"

Janna pulled out a skull pen and did so.

"So, what do I get?" Janna smirked, rubbing her hands together with a creepy grin.

"Forced servitude." Snatcher smirked back.

"... That's it? Working for a demon is cool and all, but It's not much compared to everyone else I sold my soul to." Janna pouted.

"... Wait, what?" Snatcher blinked.

"Yeah, There was Mephisto, Dorammu, Hunson Abadeer, M. Bison, Grim, Rick Sanchez, Dr. Victor von Frankenstein... Hey, where ya going?"

With each person listed by Janna, the Snatcher had backed up, just straight up booking it before she could stop him.

"... Lame. I wonder if those zombie singers Ludo mentioned are in this Loop... and if any of them are single..." Janna shrugged as she walked off.

Meanwhile, Hat Kid patted a Ranting Snatcher.

* * *

45.4 (Boohoooo!): [Star vs. the Forces of Evil] / [Legend of Zelda]

"How are you so good at this?" Janna grouched as Star beat her at Go Fish again. Star simply Chuckled.

"JANNADORFFFFFFFFFF!" Two voices screeched.

"Please no..." Janna sighed. The Two Moblin guards were sent flying as the doors to the throne room fling open, revealing Twinarova!

"JANNADORFFFFFFFFFF! What are you doing?!" They glared.

"Nothing!" Janna sighed, Before getting whacked with a staff.

"Exactly! We didn't train you to be one of those evil overlords who sit on their thrones doing nothing until the end!" Koume complained.

"Why can't you be more like your brother?" Kotake added with another whack.

"Ow! Look, we all evil differently!" Janna whined.

"Well you evil lamely! Go to your room! You're grounded AND We're giving this Operation to your brother!" They hurrumphed with another whack.

"Ugh! Fine! We'll see who's better when your precious Ganondorf dies again!" Janna grumbled as she stormed off. She passed an UnAwake Ganondorf on the way.

"This is your greatest screw up yet, sister!"

"Go suck an egg, bro."

Ganondorf entered with an evil Chuckle... after putting a kick me sign on Janna's back.

Meanwhile, Marco was fighting off dozens of Mooks.

"This is ridiculous!" He complained.

"STRIP THE FLESH FROM HIS BONES!" a Skeletos cackled evilly.

"HOW ABOUT NO!" Marco shouted, simply hopping on Ludo, who ran off.

"This isn't good!" Ludo whined.

"No duh!" Navi snarked as they continued to be chased.

So not really a good time for anyone so far...

* * *

45.5 (wildrook): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind]

Sora groaned. He had heard of the events of what happened in the third game... and why Kairi was worried earlier.

He, Donald, and Goofy put up a better fight against Vanitas unlike last time, where he was paralyzed with fear and Ventus was reacting to him. He still is, but only to inform him of counterattacks.

'Fade!' Ven yelled in his mind, Vanitas thrusting his own Keyblade against Sora, who was rearing back. 'Now, strike!' Doing so, Vanitas was surprised.

And to Sora's credit... Vanitas looked impressed.

"Huh," he said. "I can't tell if he's taking control of you or your skills have increased. No wonder Xehanort tried to mark you as a vessel."

"Yeah, well," Sora replied, "I've already got roommates in my heart, so there's no vacancies left."

Roxas, from within, gave out a smirk. 'At least he doesn't charge rent,' he said to Ven.

Donald and Goofy were helping as best as they could... even better due to Donald using a wider variety of spells. Goofy, on the other hand, threw his shield towards Vanitas and had disarmed him. Both of them knew it was only a temporary measure.

And while they were gaining the upper hand... something had happened that caused all sides to lose balance as ten seconds had felt like they were stolen.

That was the opening Vanitas needed as he struck them aside.

"Now," Vanitas said, "Ven... let's become one once more..."

"Psychologically," a newcomer's voice said, "and physically, Sora... you had the upper hand until the time stealing."

Vanitas got distracted at that moment as he felt something invisible punch him out.

"WHAT THE..." Vanitas yelled before he heard a zipper open from behind him... as he felt himself falling forever, velocity increasing.

Helping Donald and Goofy up was a man with a bowl haircut, while Sora's helped up by a blond man.

"Thanks, Giorno," Sora replied, before noticing Vanitas. "Is Diavolo on the loose?"

"Unfortunately," the black-haired man replied. "Had time not been stolen, you probably would have won."

"WHEN I GET OUT OF HERE," Vanitas yelled, Donald and Goofy just looking up and down as he fell through several portals, "YOU TWO ARE GOING TO BE THE FIRST VICTIMS OF THE KEYBLADE WAR!"

Giorno shook his head. "Tell your Boss this," he said. "If he ends up coming to Italy, he'll end up in the wrong neighborhood. Bruno!"

Bruno nodded as a portal opened towards them, Vanitas coming at full speed.

"GOLD EXPERIENCE REQUIEM!" Giorno yelled.

"STICKY FINGERS!" Bruno yelled.

And that's when the punches began. Vanitas felt pain like he never has before, physically speaking. Whatever Gold Experience Requiem was, it was a mix of both the light that Giorno protected and the darkness that was his origin, and adding Sticky Fingers's blows to the dark half of Ventus, it meant he was going to think twice about confronting these guys.

"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!" Giorno yelled, repeating onward.

"ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI ARI!" Bruno yelled, his Stand matching the punches.

And when the portal opened to somewhere outside Italy...

"Arivaderci," was their final word before Vanitas was launched toward said portal... before it closed.

Donald and Goofy stared at each other.

"So," Donald said, remembering Scrooge's enemies being Mafia... or rather, the variants... "how much do we owe you for that?"

"It's on the house considering you managed to help save one of our own," Bruno replied, smirking. "And tell your Uncle that he doesn't have to worry about the nephews or your kids. We're planning on ending the drug trade."

"All we needed to hear," Goofy replied. "Although... I take it that was a Stand ability?"

"Or two," Sora replied. "Ven's memories tend to bleed in... but I think he and Terra were trying to stop your Dad."

Giorno nodded. "Jotaro and Koichi told me about that," he said. "I don't know how powerful this True X-Blade is, but if he shows up here, he will never reach reality."

Sora and the others could tell that his words weren't just empty phrases. They held a huge weight. Granted, they knew about how powerful it can be, but Giorno... no... Gold Experience Requiem... vs Xehanort and the True X-Blade... that was something he'd like to see.

* * *

45.6 (Skaz Wolfman): [Kingdom Hearts]

**Dr. Naminé**

On a grassy hill somewhere outside Radiant Garden, Kairi was laying on her back and watching the clouds. The sky was bright and blue, the clouds light and fluffy looking. Nothing like the heavy, laden clouds in her mind.

The whole thing kept replaying in her mind. Like it was nothing, Xehanort had taken her away, used her to hurt Sora, and just like always the beautiful dope didn't think twice (or even once, most likely) before sacrificing himself to save her. _'Different dance floor, but the same tired old steps'_ she thought darkly.

Soft footsteps rustled the grass towards her, and Kairi glanced over. It was Naminé, drawing pad tucked under her arm and holding down a wide-brimmed sunhat on her head. She gently stepped over Kairi, then turned around and sat down with her back against the wind. She opened her drawing pad, pulled a pencil from behind her ear, and started sketching.

Kairi said a perfunctory "Afternoon, Namy," and went back to cloudgazing.

Naminé said nothing back, fully absorbed with her drawing, and silence reigned save for the wind tickling the grass and shaking hands with the trees.

After a few minutes, Naminé spoke up gently, "Could you take off the sunglasses, please? I need to see your eyes."

Kairi suspected she had timed her request; the sun had just hidden behind the biggest, closest to gray cloud in the sky, and the light had dimmed considerably. Kairi wordlessly obliged, removing her sunglasses and tucking them into a pocket before folding her arms under her head again.

Just as the sun was starting to peek out again, Naminé said "Okay, you can shade your eyes again, Kai. Now to just touch up the fine details." She trailed off into near-inaudible muttering while Kairi put her sunglasses back on.

A few more minutes later, as Kairi felt herself begin to doze, Naminé gently prodded her arm. "Finished. Wanna see?"

Kairi shrugged and sat up, pulling the sunglasses down again. "Sure."

Naminé handed her the pad, and Kairi couldn't hold in the shocked gasp. Her blood ran cold and her fingers felt numb, and she almost dropped the drawing pad. Seeming to have anticipated this, Naminé caught the pad and held it up for her. In spite of herself, Kairi couldn't tear her eyes away from the drawing.

She had expected a sketch of herself lying in the grass, but it was just her face; well, a bust drawing of her, to be more accurate. In the drawing, her eyes were just short of spilling over with tears, and her face was screwed up in a tortured expression of pain and anger. But the keystone detail was that her eyes were downcast, her face slightly tilted down, and her shoulders drawn up and visibly tense. The effect was obvious to her. The Kairi in the drawing was struggling under a tremendous mental burden.

"Na–Naminé, w-why?" she stammered.

"New technique I've been working on. Drawing how people look on the _inside_ , rather than the _outside_. You may not _appear_ like this, Kairi, but I know this is how you _feel_. Ever since the expansion, you've been a bit withdrawn. It's subtle, not everyone has noticed, and I don't think the others who have realize how serious it is... but I _know_ you, Kairi. As well as anyone possibly can. The smallest changes in your behavior tell me as much as full-tilt meltdown rant. So, what's eating you, my Other?" Naminé asked.

Kairi sighed and handed the drawing pad back. "It's just... _nothing has changed_. A gazillion and two years ago, Sora had to sacrifice himself to save me. I've been looking forward to this expansion for so long, because I knew in my heart that things would be different. This time, I'd fight side by side with Sora and Riku. But _nothing changed_. Not really. Just like before, I was in trouble and without any hesitation Sora did the bravest, dumbest thing he could to save me."

Kairi jumped up to her feet and started pacing back and forth. "So what was the point?! I trained with Axel to become a Keyblade wielder strong enough to fight alongside my friends. In the loops, that training took _eons_. As I am, right now, Awake, I can beat Xehanort and his whole True Organization with one hand tied behind my back. But in Baseline I'm _still_ the gosh-danged damsel in distress, so what in the heck was the flapping point of it all?!"

"Please don't hold back on my account. Feel free to use coarse language if that's how you feel," said Naminé.

"I know I should be focusing on how far _I've_ come, as a Looper," Kairi continued, genuflecting wildly, "But Baseline is _more real_ than the Loops, you know? It's the way Yggdrasil remembers things _should_ be. So apparently, no matter what I do, that weakness–being _Sora's_ weakness–is supposed to be a part of who I am. Forever. Nothing I do as a Looper can change that."

"You know Sora doesn't see you that way," said Naminé. "He's never thought of you as his weakness. He loves you, and his love for you is his greatest source of strength. But of course, this isn't about how Sora feels about you. This is about how _you_ feel about you."

"Right! This expansion has completely tanked my personal pride. Fully robbed me of every sense of accomplishment I've built up since I started looping. My self-confidence is at an all-time low. And I know how much Sora adores me but _that just makes it worse_ , somehow. I feel like I'm the lamest possible girlfriend he could have, and the fact that he doesn't see that... I mean, of course he doesn't feel that way about me. He's _Sora_. And that's the kind of thing I love about him. But like you said, my deal doesn't really have as much to do with Sora as it does with me. And I have no idea what to do with this. No matter what I do, no matter what kind of crazy training or awesome power-up I get in the loops, _Baseline will always be there_ , taunting me."

Kairi flopped down onto the grass, burying her face in her arms. "And right after the not-looping me and him finally shared a Paopu, too," she muttered. Then she gave a muffled scream.

Once again, except for the wind it was quiet between them for a time. Then Naminé spoke up, "You're wrong. Between then and now, something did change. Remember, you fought back against the Organization at the Castle That Never Was. That's not nothing, you know. So Baseline You didn't exactly _not_ grow at all. You just got blindsided by Master Xehanort. So did everyone else. As I recall, Terranort alone caught _everyone_ flatfooted. The bad guys would have won... if _you_ hadn't kept Sora anchored to the world, so that he could come back and give us a second chance. And thanks to your connection to Sora, I got suspended in the Final World, and from there I was able to make my trick play with Terra's Lingering Will. You're disappointed that you didn't make a bigger splash as a Keyblade wielder, and you have every right to feel that way, but you're overlooking the good that you _did_ do. We would have lost everything, if it weren't for you, Kairi. That's a fact, as black and white as ink on paper."

Kairi rolled over, onto her back. She had a thoughtful look on her face. "Hmm. You're not wrong. Still, right now our Baseline ends with Sora in a really ambiguous situation because of me. Where is he? Did he get stranded on some strange world? In the Realm of Nothingness? Is he _dead_? We're not sure and I can't help but be worried."

"And it's only natural for us to be worried for Sora," said Naminé. "He means a lot to all of us. Especially to... to us," she said with a faint blush. "But... and this might sound bad but please understand that I don't mean it that way... Sora would have done what he did for almost anyone. So you can't blame yourself for whatever it is. And because of the bond you two share, you have to know that _nothing_ will stop Sora from finding his way back to you, or even vice-versa. You two _did_ share the Paopu, after all. Your destinies are bond together eternally, now." Naminé giggled, "You two are practically married."

Kairi's face burned beet-red. "Namy! Pull your punches, please!"

"Am I right or am I right?" Naminé asked impishly. "Janus assured us that the last expansion wasn't our _last_ expansion. So, yes, this one ended on a bit of a sour note, but there are more to look forward to."

Kairi huffed, and then smacked both of her cheeks twice. "You're right, I need to focus on the positives. Remember what I've gained instead of dwelling on what I've lost. And nothing is ever really _lost_ in the loops, anyways."

There was a sound of tearing paper, and Naminé held the drawing out to Kairi. With a wicked grin, Kairi accepted the paper, crumpled it up into the smallest, tightest ball she could, and chucked it into the air as hard as she could throw.

In a burst of luminous petals, Destiny's Embrace materialized in her hand, and she aimed it skyward. Closing one eye and sticking her tongue out a bit, she took aim. Then...

" ** _FIRAGA!_** "

She annihilated the offensive drawing with a massive fireball.

Naminé smiled and gave her a standing ovation, and Kairi gave her a sweeping bow.

"Well, this is the lightest I've felt in several loops," Kairi remarked. She then slapped a closed fist into open palm. "This calls for Uncle Scrooge's sea-salt ice cream. My treat."

Kairi and Naminé started towards Radiant Garden. "Y'know, you're pretty good at hearing people out, Naminé. You ever consider being one of those therapist Loopers, like Twilight and Weiss?" Kairi asked as they walked.

"Hmm." Naminé put a finger to her bottom lip and looked up. "I don't know about that. Like I said, I know you as well as anyone possibly could."

"Yeah, but you're also good at cheering up Roxas and Riku, and you've been a _huge_ help with Xion since she started Looping."

"... huh. You've got a point there, Kai," Naminé admitted, "I'll have to think about that. Goodness knows the Looper community could always use more therapists."

* * *

45.7 (Evilhumour): [Gravity Falls] / [Little Mermaid]

Dipper knew right off the bat that it was going to be an interesting loop seeing as his sister had been replaced by someone with red hair while still having the same wide expression of joy.

"Oh my gosh, look at all of these!" the girl taking Mabel's place said as she pressed her face to the window, staring at the passing signs and trees. "It is so cool." she said as a Ping came out.

"Mabel, are you feeling Loopy?" Dipper asked cautiously as he sent out a Ping himself.

"Yeah, but I'm glad I'm able Anchor myself," the girl said, turning around to hold out her hand to him. "And it's Ariel, by the way."

"Dipper," he said, taking her hand with her giggling as he realized she already knew his name and his introduction was kinda pointless. "So which Ariel are you?"

"Oh, I'm usually a princess under the sea," she said, still smiling at him.

"Oh you're that Ariel," he said leaning back in his seat, shifting the bags on his back.

"How many Ariels do _you_ know, Dipper?" she asked him, sitting back down next to him.

"Well I'm," he began to stammer only for her to giggle and push him playfully.

"I'm joking with you," she said in a way that was exactly like his twin sister. "So when do you think we will get to Olympus Falls as this is your Branch?"

"Olympus Falls?" Dipper said, sitting upright with as his memories started to come in as the bus began to slow down. "So it is a variant based Loop then and we're off to see our Grunkle?" Dipper sat back in his seat, tapping his chin as he wonder if it would be Hades or...

With a smoke bomb, a figure in Grunkle's Stan clothes appeared before them. "Hey there, you must Dipper and Ariel," the man with a big white beard said. "It's me, your great uncle Hades!"

 _Zeus_.

Welp, Dipper figured that must mean Hephaestus was Soos or something.

This should be interesting at the very least.

* * *

45.8 (Shimmer712): [Cinderella]

Cinderella hurried down the stairs. When she had gone to the Ball this loop, Charming hadn't been there, much to her disappointment. However, in the days since, she had found him as one of the guards that patrolled the city.

He had today off so they had planned to meet for lunch and maybe go for a walk afterwards. But her stepmother had locked her up so she had to hurry or she might be late.

It wasn't until she stepped into view of the foyer that she remembered why she had been locked up.

It was _that_ day.

Despite her avoiding this loop's Prince, a glass slipper had been left at the ball. Cinderella was sure it wouldn't fit her as she had both of hers up in her room. But she didn't want to jinx it.

Plastering a smile on her face, she made her way down the stairs. "My apologies for rushing off, stepmother, but I'm afraid I'm running a bit behind." She bobbed into a polite curtsy at the Duke as she glided past.

"Now wait a moment!" the Duke cried. "We were told there were no other ladies to try on the slipper."

Cinderella turned and bowed her head. "Well, the purpose of trying to slipper is to see if it is the lovely young woman who his Highness found to be utterly delightful. My Stepmother, Lady Tremaine had me stay home that night as I was quite ill. I spent the night throwing up. So it couldn't possibly be me you're looking for." She looked up at Tremaine, with a sweet smile. "Isn't that right?"

"My stepdaughter is quite correct," Tremaine said, rolling with Cinderella's story. "A girl who was not at the Ball cannot be who you are searching for."

"I do have two step sisters," Cinderella offered, her tone earnest. "Maybe it is one of them? They were both at the Ball and told me all about the music and exquisite decor you had." She gave him another curtsy. "I hope you find her." She turned to her stepmother. "I'll be back around mid-afternoon." Cinderella turned and hurried off before anymore interruptions could occur.

Tremaine made a note to be a bit more lenient with the girl. She had assumed, with the her obvious lovesick daze, that she was the one to charm the prince. But if she was, why lie to the Duke? If she was ever found as the mystery woman, the Duke would recognize her and know she had lied to him. It was more likely the girl had been moping over someone else.

For now, she needed to focus on securing her own daughter's rise to money and prestige. With that, Tremaine put thoughts of Cinderella out of her head.

Cinderella, for her part, had a lovely time with Charming.

* * *

45.9 (Mattman The Comet): [Percy Jackson] / [SCP Foundation]

**On the Subject of SCP-4006**

Annabeth couldn't believe it.

Magnus couldn't believe it.

Massachusetts just... didn't exist. Was a product of The Mist. Why? No one truly knew. I mean, it could be surmised that the in-loop Yggdrasil developed the idea of Boston and the greater Massachusen state to better disguise itself but still.

Fucking Massachusetts.

Meanwhile Percy - bless the anchor's heart - was trying his best not to devolve into rancorous laughter while the good(?) Dr. Clef explained SCP-4006 in the most high-brow manner.

* * *

45.10 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir]

Alya was a journalist, admittedly a non professional one, but a journalist nonetheless. This meant she noticed things others didn't. For example, time repeating.

She wasn't sure how it happened, but she had travelled back in time to where school first started. Some of it pointed to Hawk Moth and Timebreaker or Time Tagger, or maybe something with Bunnyx or Viperion. But all those had holes. She didn't see a second version of herself, and she didn't remember using those miraculous, or seeing the two akumas return,

She had to figure this out. Option one was Find Ladybug and ask if she could use the Snake or Rabbit. That might not work, as she might not know if they exist yet. Option two was Hawk Moth.

Option two would be the easier one to try, but was extremely risky and completely horrible. Willingly going out and getting akumatized, hurting other people just to make her life easier? That wasn't even something Chloé would do, and Alya was not and will never be Chloé.

Speaking of the aforementioned devil, as soon as Marinette sat down Chloe appeared to force her to move somewhere else. Alya wasn't going to let that happen, and told her to back off.

Ugh, five minutes in and she already broke the first rule of time travel. It was worth it, since Chloe did back off, but still.

Class hadn't changed much after that, aside from a stewing Chloe Bourgeois. Unfortunately, what happened afterwards didn't either, despite trying to knock him away from the approaching butterfly.

Stoneheart threw her off him, knocking her into a wall. Her right arm hurt when she tried to move it, and she was pretty sure her back had a few bruises, but that didn't matter. She could take video in her left, which she had to to get Ladybug on the spot.

Fortunately, Lady Luck, or rather Ladybug, was listening to her, as she and Chat Noir were facing Stoneheart seconds after Alya asked her to come.

"Ladybug!" Alya yelled as she ran towards the hero. "Thank goodness. The akuma is in his right..."

"Alya!" Ladybug interrupted. "You need to get away. You're injured, oh Branches you're injured, and we can't have you around like this. Me and Chat will handle the akuma, we're the superheroes."

"But.."

"No buts!" With that Ladybug deposited her on the nearest building, then jumped off, leaving her there.

* * *

From what she heard, Ladybug had defeated Stoneheart similar to the first showing, except that she captured the akuma this time, so no multiple Stonehearts in Paris.

Mylène and Ivan also got together quicker than last time. So far everything had gone for the better.

Unfortunately, while Ladybug had probably travelled back in time, Alya wasn't certain. And the only way to confirm was to wait for another akuma, which Alya wasn't entirely looking forward too. Especially since it was her future boyfriend that was coming up the soonest.

Alya couldn't stop fretting over what was to come, which meant that she was prime for akumatization, something she didn't realize until her entire phone had turned black.

"Greetings, Cassandra. I am Hawk Moth."

No. Alya thought, fear emanating from her very pores.

"Ladybug isn't here to hear your prophecies, and she probably wouldn't listen if she was." Hawk Moth chuckled at that. "However I'm all ears. I'm sure you already know what I desire, and what I will promise you in return."

She should say it. It was only two letters, a single syllable. Something she said a thousand times. But it felt like she was climbing up the Eiffel Tower without her miraculous.

She struggled. She didn't want to, but it was almost impossible to resist.

"Ye-"

No! She won't do it. She won't get akumatized again.

"Cassandra, bring me their miraculouses!"

"No! I won't become another super villain!" Alya screamed. She felt herself dropping her phone. She couldn't hear Hawk Moth's voice. She was still herself.

Marinette ran towards her and picked her up, which Alya was grateful for.

"Alya, you're okay! Thank goodness!"

Alya chuckled a little at that. "Yeah, guess Chloe is good for something after all," Alya joked. She could still hear her bragging about forcing Hawk Moth out of her head.

Marinette's eyes widened, and a few seconds later Alya's did too. Marinette probably didn't travel back in time, and she just spilled some major future knowledge.

"Come with me." Marinette grabbed her and started dragging her to the nearest girl's restroom while texting someone with her other hand. The restroom was empty, but she dragged her to a stall and told her to sit down. Alya did so, wondering what was going on.

She heard the door open and the sound of running water. Someone knocked on their stall door, and Marinette opened it up. Standing before them was a blond that almost looked like Adrien except for one small detail.

"Adrien, have you always been able to turn into a girl? Cause I'm pretty sure your dad will be pissed that he missed out on having you model girl's fashion too."

Adrien rolled his, or her eyes at that. "I'm not exactly one to listen to my dad anymore."

"Adrien, I was kinda hoping we wouldn't drop too many bombshells on Alya." Marinette said darkly, and Alya was left with more questions than answers.

"Okay, Alya, have you been experiencing time repeating?"

"Yeah, Ivan just transformed into Stoneheart again. Wait, you and Adrien time traveled too? That's great! We can team up and try to find Ladybug and let her know what's going on!"

"That's, not exactly a good idea right now." Adrien said.

"Why not?" Alya accused

"Because you don't have any of the information. We can't just go running to Ladybug without everyone being on the same page." Marinette said.

"Oh, all right. Tell me everything."

"So there's this world tree called Yggdrasil that has every single world out there, with our world being one of its branches. It got broken, so while the Admins, ancient gods from myths try to fix it, we're repeating our lives until it's fixed. For us it's been almost a couple hundred years. For others it's been eons. We keep experiencing time looping, and sometimes our world has changed a bit. Sometimes it changes drastically. Sometimes we end up on a different branch. Adrien looped into Ranma ½ and ended up in the spring of the drowned girl."

"Marinette is the Anchor, and her job is to keep our world stable. My job, and yours, is to help keep her stable."

"You've been keeping her stable?"

"Ha-ha, I'm crazy for Adrien. No need to make the joke Alya."

"Wait, you too are together! Girl, that's awesome!"

"No. We're kinda taking it slow. Both of us have put each other on a huge pedestal and it's been taking us a while for us to accept each other as normal people. Plus how we've acted in pursuit of each other has us not willing to change that."

"Sounds like it's my job to unpause the relationship. I'm glad I have eternity to do so."

"No, Alya. We aren't going to change that any time soon."

"You're killing me girl. But all right. Can we go and tell Ladybug this now?"

Adrien and Marinette turned to each other, then Marinette nodded.

"Tikki."

"Plagg."

"Transform me!"

A minute later and Alya was sitting in front of Paris's number one superheroes.

"Eeeeeeeeee! Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh! Ladybug and Chat Noir are my friends! I've interviewed my best friend. You're the best Marinette! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!"

"Think we should remind her that both her ships have sunk?" Chat Noir joked.

"Eternity." Alya said smirking. "So anything else I need to know?"

"How to Pocket. How to Ping. We'll show you those later. We'll tell you who the O7 are. But we should probably show something about our branch.

The two superheroes looked at each other. Adrien typed on his baton then handed it to Alya. A video started playing.

She saw Natalie transforming into Mayura. Adrien's dad turning into Hawk Moth. Adrien's mother in a crypt. Lila warning Marinette of what she'd do if she lets everyone know the truth.

"I... I'm the worst friend you've had."

"Alya..."

"I demanded you to prove Lila was lying when I just accepted she was telling the truth. Why are you being so nice to me?"

"Because you're better than you think you are right now. You helped me stand up to Chloe when I wasn't confident in myself. You've helped me try to get together with Adrien. I can point to a million moments where you've been an amazing friend, and hardly any where you weren't. You're my best friend Alya."

Tears were running down Alya's eyes. "You're too good Marinette. I promise to be the best friend you deserve."

"Uh, forgot to mention this. But me and you won't always realize time is repeating, or Awake. Sometimes we'll be Unawake."

"Then I'll be the best friend she deserves when I am Awake."

The three loopers hugged for what felt like hours before being cut off by a Marinette and Adrien detransforming.

"We should probably leave, I've got a kwami that will try eating toilet paper if I don't give him Camembert."

"That was one time!" Plagg yelled before getting cut off by everyone else laughing.

* * *

45.11 (The One named Light): [Disney] / [Kingdom Hearts]

**Out of Ideas?**

Mickey Mouse looked long and hard at the slate of projects laid out before him and sipped his coffee. Sora stepped into the room with a disappointed look on his face. "Alien, Home Alone... and Die Hard."

"Yeesh." Sora sat beside the mouse. "Is the company out of ideas?"

"Hollywood is out of ideas, hence why they rely on Reboots, Remakes, Reinterpretations and the like for easy money." emphasized Mickey. "We're just waiting out the storm until it finally turns to dust leaving room for the indies."

"Still, it's Disney. They've been a big well of Archival for as long as we could remember. As long as most people in the Hub could remember." Sora reminded him. "Why can't we just come up and get new ideas in there."

"It's not that simple." Mickey mentioned back. "The bigger the company and the more people under their employ, the smaller the individual voices become in comparison to the shareholders."

All Sora could do was lay there on the ground mumbling to himself. "God, I hate reruns..."

"There's just no escape."

* * *

45.12 (Masterweaver): [Bolt] / [Katawa Shoujo]

Oops.

Hanako tapped her pencil against the desk rapidly, trying to keep herself contained while Mutou introduced Hisao to the class again. She could see Shizune and Misha twitching as well, their eyes locked on the boy who, himself, was fidgeting awkwardly. It wasn't long before he took his usual seat next to Misha; she could see the pink-haired girl signing quickly at him, but from her vantage it wasn't clear what the two of them were saying to each other. Shizune, who _was_ close enough to see the conversation, stiffened for a moment, before adjusting her glasses and putting on an exasperated expression.

Class continued as per usual, though none of the four of them paid too much attention. Shizune did glance back at Hanako and try to sign something, but Hanako wasn't able to get much from it--she really needed to learn how to read that sort of thing. It wasn't until the bell rang and the class dissolved that she managed to get to Hisao.

"Hey, so... about last loop, what--"

"Hisao, what the hell happened last loop?" Emi demanded, striding up. "I mean it was the middle of the loop and then, poof, suddenly I'm back on the track!"

Hisao bit his lip. "You know how we got warned about... Anchors dying?"

"Yeah, that's kind of why I'm here."

"Well... I was out in town and... well..." Hisao swallowed. "A white dog just jumped at me, out of nowhere, with this... incredibly loud bark."

"Really."

"And... I was so startled, that, um..." He rubbed his chest awkwardly.

"... that you had a heart attack, and wound up..." Emi pinched her brow. "Okay, wow, that's just... are we going to have to have somebody watching you at all times?"

"Erm."

"I mean..." Hanako cleared her throat. "I... guess it would make me more comfortable if, you know, somebody was on hand to prevent this sort of thing in the future."

[We can talk about it later,] Shizune decided. [Seriously, though, a dog?]

"Yeah, I don't know what that was about..."

* * *

"So let me get this straight. You thought this guy was cheating on multiple girls, so you jumped him to drag him to justice--and he fell over, died, and the loop crashed."

The white dog sighed. "Yes, Mittens."

"You just have the _worst_ luck sometimes Bolt." The cat threw up a paw. "I mean, how does that even make sense?!"

* * *

45.13 (The One named Light): [Beauty and the Beast] / [Codename: Kids Next Door] / [Terminator]

**Skunkbomb**

It was quite the curious matter that Chip had found himself thrust into. One minute, he was getting ready to walk Sultan out to the backyard and was greeted with an explosion of rancid stench the next. One that was strong enough to knock him out cold for an hour or two whilst his assailants carry him back to their base.

When Chip came to, he awoke to a room of monitoring equipment made from the standard 2x4 technology of his colleagues at the Kids Next Door organization. But there was something off about it, something that made his surroundings feel new compared to the curious dream he had one night.

"Numbuh 30, it appears you've tripped up on the Skunkbomb we've left on your doorstep." His commanding officer, Numbuh 1, has begun probing him on his performance amidst the training drill planned out for today. "A rookie mistake, but we'll forgive that since you're a new addition to the team."

"Sorry, Mister Uno..." Chip sighed before catching his slip of the tongue. "Er, sorry, sir. Numbuh One, Sir."

"At ease, Cadet." Reassured his superior. "Just try to take better precautions with your training and be prepared for any unexpected attack that might be pulled by enemy adults in order to have their way."

"Roger that." chimed Chip. "As an aside, sir... Have you had any weird dreams?"

"Depends..." Numbuh 1 shrugged. "How would you describe you dream in particular?"

"Well, it's sorta like a fairy-tale that can't stop repeating itself." Chip started "I wake up as a teacup if that's surreal enough for you."

"Surreal, but not unexpected of your origin." hinted the elder boy. "Were you, by chance, under the dominion of the castle's native prince."

"Who got transformed into a big hairy beast!" exclaimed Chip. "But there was also this girl who came by to rescue her father-"

"Say no more, Numbuh 30." Nigel Uno gathered his thoughts and proceeded to ask one last question. "And you're certain this dream couldn't stop repeating and repeating before you woke up back home?"

Chip solemnly slunk back into his seat with a look of worry on his face. "It wasn't a dream, was it..."

"Afraid not..." Numbuh 1 sat beside the cadet two years his junior and talked up to the nearest computer screen. "He's one of us, Skynet. Fresh from his Branch, has not received the speech. Engage the presentation on my command."

\-----One Speech Later----

Numbuh 1 took great in explaining the function of the Loops as well as their purpose in maintaining the stability of Yggdrasil with technology engineer Hoagie P. Gilligan, designated as Numbuh 2 in the Kids Next Door Organization, sprinkling in his own two cents worth on the matter.

"So all this is is just a break in my 'baseline'..." Chip sighed to the Looping elder. "Before I wake up as a teacup again..."

"Disney franchising at its finest." Numbuh 2 sarcastically snarked.

"He's not exactly wrong, what with the new Variant and all." Numbuh 1 quickly caught what he just said and added: "What I meant to say is, you shouldn't focus too much on Baseline but instead what you can with so much time now in your grasp."

"Keep Movin' Forward." smirked Gilligan. "Modus operandi of the Disney Decade that led ya here."

"By archiving my world, right?" Chip added.

"Indeed." Numbuh 1 confirmed as an alarm siren sounded all over the treehouse.

"Trouble!" Numbuh 3 cried from the intercom system. "Stickybeard's raiding a riverbank of M&Ms, Mr. Fizz called in a buncha Ice Cream Men to apprehend our smuggling network and the Toilenator just snuck into a movie theater without paying."

"All vital missions worth taking." signaled the commander as his teammates rolled out for their next mission. "Numbuh 3, get Numbuh 4 to monitor our cinema spy. Numbuh 2, escort Numbuh 5 to the riverbed. Numbuh 30, consider this another test."

"Ready when you are, Mr. Uno!" Chip cheered.

"Then let's get to work, then." Numbuh 1 smiled back. "Kids Next Door, battle stations!"

* * *

45.14 (Masterweaver): [Alice in Wonderland] / [My Little Pony] - also compiled in _MLP Time Loops_ as Loop 60.8.

Twilight shook her head as she Awoke, looking around to find herself sitting at what seemed to be, for all intents and purposes, an ordinary cafe. Well, ordinary for the victorian era anyway. She brought a hand up to her sunhat, tapping her finger against it as she waited for the loop memories to settle in.

"Oh dear. You're a guest looper, aren't you?"

"Ah..." She turned to the voice, discovering a young girl in a blue dress, the slightest curl to her blonde locks, and shimmering azure eyes that bespoke of a mind both ancient and strange. "Well, yes. Do you mind telling me where I am?" Her head tilted slightly. "According to what I recall, I'm... a librarian, which isn't out of the norm for me."

"An intellectual, then. Perhaps you will stay sane as you become unsane." The young girl curtsied. "I am Alice, if that means anything. If it does not, then we will have to talk about something with meaning."

"Alice, as in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?" Twilight smiled. "I've read the books, and the Hunting of the Snark too."

The girl smiled, pulling up a chair and sitting down across from her. "It is so rare that somebody remembers the full title. I thank you for that."

"Not a problem."

Alice tilted her head. "You do actually mean that. How interesting. Tell me, are you human?"

Twilight giggled. "No. In my baseline, I'm a unicorn mage. Well, I do eventually become an alicorn--that's pegasus and unicorn and earth pony all rolled up into one--but it's an induced transformation."

Tap tap tap went Alice's fingers against her cheek. "That will be interesting. I must apologize, but this loop is not the safest even at its safest, and it is not at its safest now. In fact, in some ways it is at its least safe."

"Ah. Thank you for warning me. I suppose you want to discuss the details?"

Alice picked up her menu. "Quite. Did your preawake self order anything?"

"Ah, yes. A light salad, I believe." Twilight glanced down at her own menu for a moment before blinking in shock. "Hang on, what?"

"We've fallen down to chessboard one." The girl put the paper down. "Things are more truthful here than chessboard zero, but they are also less real. Up in the waking world your shadow, who may very well be a unicorn, is mimicking your current thoughts and actions as you _mean_ them, not as you are doing them."

Twilight nodded, accepting the strange explanation. "'Leaves and cold roots tossed in spices with sliced fruit' is certainly a way of describing a salad." She clasped her hands. "So, I take it that this is wonderland we're in?"

"What wonderland is varies from loop to loop," Alice explained. "Sometimes it is merely a dream. Other times it is the world of the fae. Here and now it is the realms between reality and the department of works, which projects reality up onto the higher chessboards."

"...that sounds disturbingly like an exposed portion of Yggdrasil code."

The girl shrugged. "Maybe it is. It would certainly explain some things, but leave others unexplained."

The librarian unicorn sighed. "I guess that was to be expected. So, if chessboard one is the most overtly normal of these layers, I'm guessing that the Queen of Hearts is on one of the lower chessboards?"

"Hmmm, yes. She and the other Caretakers stay down on five and six, away from the filth of humanity. Though they do send agents up here," Alice added. "Trying to make us more like them, or wipe us out before we can get to seven and take over the department."

"...Is this one of those 'humans are special' settings?"

"Yes. The Caretakers are ancient and powerful but they operate by rules of narrative, where we humans can use logic and reasoning." The girl shrugged. "So that means we're the only one that can run the department."

"That makes them afraid, I take it."

"Oh yes. Thankfully, you've looped in early. It gets so much worse later on. Do you know, the admins don't come here anymore? They used to, trying to figure out what was wrong with this loop. Eight of them went insane, though. I don't know if they were cured."

A chill went down Twilight's spine.

"Not to worry," Alice continued calmly. "You'll be gone and back to unicorn land before you can go truly mad. But so long as you're here, do you mind helping me get down to chessboard seven? I always lock the doors to the Department as soon as I can, so that nobody ascends."

* * *

45.1: Welcome to the Loops, Xion. (For those who follow the Spacebattles thread, note that this is compiled somewhat out of order, but I wanted to get it in before another snip that mentioned Xion as a Looper. Also, this might technically take place before 44.6, I'm not sure if Xion was actually Awake then.)

45.2: Uh-huh.

45.3: You know, sooner or later that's probably going to come back to bite you, Janna.

45.4: Actually 4.2 continued.

45.5: And that was a thing.

45.6: Naminé makes a good therapist. Then again, she does have lots of experience with the mind.

45.7: Weird variant families are also a thing.

45.8: Smart of you, Cinderella.

45.9: Eeyeah.

45.10: Welcome to the Loops, Alya.

45.11: A real-life problem that desperately needs to be solved.

45.12: Mittens is the Anchor for _Bolt_.

45.13: And we go back in time to Chip's getting the Speech.

45.14: Another older Loop that's being crossposted here. Alice didn't originate as a Disney Looper (her baseline is the books by Lewis Carroll), but the 1951 Disney film is one of her regular variants, and she is a Princess of Heart in the _Kingdom Hearts_ series, so she counts.


	63. Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Six

**Author's note:** Originally posted by Anon e Mouse Jr. on 2020-07-18. This is the second of two chapters posted today.

* * *

**Disney/Kingdom Hearts Loops, Chapter Forty-Six**

46.1 (B-wolf95): [Zootopia] / [spoiler - see end]

Judy Woke up in both senses of the word in her apartment. That, by itself, was a bit weird, but nothing too concerning. No, she was more confused by the fact that Nick was sitting right next to her bed, surrounded by a dozen empty coffee cups.

"Finally Awake, I see," Nick said in a vaguely sleep-deprived voice.

"Yeah, still a bit Loopy, though." Judy suddenly felt a sharp pain in her neck. "What happened last night?"

"Oh, nothing much. I was just doing a lot of taxes while you were sleeping soundly thanks to a trank to the neck." Nick let out a sharp yawn. "Speaking of sleeping soundly, I think it's about time we switch places."

"...Okay then." Judy got out of bed while Nick got in bed. "Who shot me?"

"I did. Didn't want you getting yourself killed. That reminds me, you might want to do something with the masked intruders passed out in the hall. Well, good night." With that, Nick passed out, leaving Judy with more questions than answers. Fortunately, her Loop Memories came in to answer most of them. Unfortunately, they weren't pleasant answers.

"Oh, sweet cheese and crackers, why do I have to deal with this Loop?" she ranted to no one in particular. "It's bad enough that this variant exists at all, but I didn't even get to do anything, you stupid-" Judy stopped herself from cursing out Yggdrasil and took a few deep breath. "Okay, I'm okay. It could've been worse, Nick and I are still alive. Though I'm still wondering why Nick chose to do taxes at a time like _that_."

* * *

Later that Loop, Mayor Lionheart was _furious_.

"WHAT DO MEAN, THE CITY'S AT A NET LOSS?!"

"Well, s-sir, while our poverty rates are at an all-time low, we ended up having to expend a lot of our resources to deal with damage done to several of our museums and other public properties," Bellwether said, cleaning up the remains of Lionheart's shattered mug.

"I know that, what I want to know is why didn't the increased taxes cover that?!"

"Well, um, you see... no one paid them."

"...What."

"We suspect that tax evasion is involved, but we can't pursue it because they were turned in, um, well..."

Lionheart picked up on the implications and the room became deafeningly quiet.

"Bellwether, get the New Founding Fathers on the phone. We're going to have a nice. Long. Talk."

[The Purge - NOT Looping]

* * *

46.2 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [RWBY]

Kagami stared into her cotton candy, the spun sugar sweet untouched.

She lost to Team RWBY. Well, WY, in the Vytal festival.

They were superior fighters. She had lost before, and she'd learned that her mother's opinions on such things were ridiculous.

'Then why do they keep creeping up on me?' She thought bitterly.

Kagami noticed Adrien approaching her, not wearing the sunglasses that covered up his cat like eyes. He hated how his father forced him to hide them, but he never seemed willing to take the plunge before today. She wasn't one to hesitate often, but considering how some people act...

"Hey Kagami. Feeling out of _swords?_ Adrien asked, always ready with a pun, no matter how terrible.

"No. Mother's likely going to be mother. Still surprised you took off your Agreste brand sunglasses."

"It's a lesson I learned long ago that I wish I realized earlier. There are people in your life that you need to cut out, people you don't need to listen to. My dad and your mom are prime examples. You were awesome in that fight, using your Semblance to trip them up, fading every time they thought they would strike. You're an amazing fighter."

"Wish my subconscious would realize sooner." she grumbled.

"Yeah, mine can get like that too. It'll probably always be like that. But, we can keep rebelling, and getting happier."

"True, wouldn't want to get in a _Grimm_ situation." Kagami joked.

"You made a funny!" Adrien mock gasped, then mock pouted. "I don't like it. Had too little pun-ache."

Rolling her eyes, Kagami took a bite out of the cotton candy. It was almost as sweet as what she imagined her mother's expression would look like if she learned she was consuming "empty calories".

"Wanna meet up with Weiss? She might have some good advice for us."

"It is a good idea to learn from your opponents. And, I really want to ask how she became so graceful, it was a dance with deadlinesss. Though she will rue the day she dared win against Kagami Tsuguri!"

Two second passed, and. Kagami turned to Adrien. "You know I'm joking, right?"

Adrien nodded.

"Uh, good, I just hope I won't need to use that damned app to talk."

* * *

46.3 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir] / [Red Vs. Blue (mentioned only)]

"So." Alya began. "There's a lot of identity reveals in the hub, any of them your favorite?"

With that question, Marinette groaned and Adrien busted out laughing.

"Can I tell the story?" Adrien wheezed. "I-I need to tell her. Please Mari, I never begged in my life."

"Yes you have."

"Yeah, I have. But can I tell it?"

Marinette started chucking too. "Sure kitty. The story is pretty funny."

"Okay, so neither me or Marinette were Awake. I think only Caboose was." At Alya's confusion, Adrien elaborated. "The Anchor for the Red vs Blue Branch. He's, ah, not very smart. And he must've learned about our Branch and things from the Hub as well, which is where the story begins."

Alya nodded, writing the story down on a notepad from her Pocket.

"So he walks up to me, the same age as us for the loop, going Hey Adrien!"

"And? You weren't transformed, were you?"

"Getting to that. He starts muttering to himself, saying 'Adrien is the humansona, that is who he is right now.' And I'm guessing he was trying to whisper, but he failed, because Nino heard him. And then he explains his logic."

Adrien paused for a moment, as if he prepping for a big finish.

"He goes, 'This is Cat More, one of the protectors of Paris. His true self is the black cat, but a cat cannot be a model, so he created his humansona Adrien to be a model.' Caboose then pointed to Marinette, and said to everyone that she was Ladybug, which according to him, made her a crazy cat ladybug."

* * *

46.4 (B-wolf95): [Lion King] / [Touhou]

Simba was not having a good Loop. For starters, he was a spirit and as such was mostly stuck to the afterlife. Oh, and it wasn't just a regular afterlife, oh no. It was one run by the freaking yakuza! And naturally, he ended up Looping in as one of the captains of the Keiga Family, who were obsessed with physical strength at the expense of everything else and regularly ate human spirits. Joy. And yet, this Loop apparently decided that this wasn't enough, because shortly after he woke up, the human spirits had somehow summoned a sculptor goddess who promptly made a _haniwa_ army and went on the warpath, which Simba was helpless to stop because spirits can't hit golems, apparently.

Needless to say, Simba was _**done**_.

"This is all your fault!," Simba roared, pointing his finger squarely at the Keiga Family head.

Saki Kurokoma scoffed at this slight. "As if I had any control over these _haniwa_."

"I meant the fact that this invasion is happening at all! If you had any idea of what it means to be a leader, you'd have not antagonized the human spirits and they would not have summoned Keiki in the first place!"

"Is it not my right to subjugate those who are lesser than me?"

"Strength should never be equated to self-worth. I would have thought the Industrial Revolution happening all around us was an indication of that. Every living being, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope, are connected by the Circle of Life, and that balance _must_ be respected."

"Well, none of us are really "alive," are we?"

Simba sighed. "Very well. If words can't convince you, then strength will!" With that said, he let out a massive roar as his skin became magma and his mane, flames. "I challenge you for your position as head of the Keiga Family!"

Saki put on a cocky smile and slammed her foot on the ground, cracking it in the process. "Challenge accepted! Don't hold anything back!"

* * *

Marisa stopped for a bit to admire the fight Saki was putting up against this ferocious flaming lion. It's amazing how much happens without you knowing the first time around. Still, she couldn't watch the whole fight. Alice thought this extension to the time loop might be worth looking into, and it's not like they had any other ideas. If nothing else, it would be nice to deal with Keiki early. Possession was never a fun experience. Still, as she flew off, she couldn't help but feel like she was missing something.

Eh, probably nothing.

* * *

46.5 (Shimmer712): [Kingdom Hearts]

"Thanks," Mickey said after he re-emerged from the card Luxord had him in.

"No problem," Sora said. "We've sorted out how Luxord's Win-Win match ends. Now it's just these two," he declared, sliding into a stance, eyes focused on Larxene and Marluxia.

"Win-Win match?" Larxene arched an eyebrow. "Care to explain?"

Sora blinked at her. "I thought it was obvious," he said.

"Just tell us," Marluxia said.

"Okay. Well, if you win, you win, right? No need to explain that," Sora said.

"Obviously," Larxene sneered.

"But if I win, then you just exist as people again and not wind up as meat sacks for Xehanort's heart, which is probably still a win for you," Sora continued. "Especially for her," he finished, nodded his head at Larxene.

"Why her?" Marluxia asked, curious.

"Well, she's an attractive young woman, Xehanort is actually a creepy old man... so yeah, trying to turn her into one of his vessels seems even more creepy than it does with the guys, and that's pretty creepy already," Sora said.

"He does have a point," Mickey said.

"Fair enough," Marluxia said. "Well, shall we see what win we get out this fight?"

"Like you have to ask," Larxene scoffed, brandishing her knives.

The two didn't hold back in their fight. But Sora and Mickey were pretty sure there was less taunting involved this round.

* * *

46.6 (DragonLady121): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V] (part 1)

Yuri woke up in a desert. A lifeless, barren desert. A good few yards away lay an array of strangely shaped weapons impaled in the ground.

His loop memories told him they were keyblades, that he also had one, and that this place he was now in was called "The Keyblade graveyard". And he was supposedly apprenticed to this terrible, neglectful old man named _Xehanort_.

Looking over what the man had done to him, he scowled, and opened a dark corridor to get out of there. He would not be that terrible man's pawn. He would not have a repeat of the role he played in his loop's baseline.

Now to go find Yugo. Maybe he'd find Yuya and Yuto on the way. If they were even here...

* * *

"Hey Roxas, is it just me or does this remind you of Castle Oblivion a little _too_ much?"

Roxas nodded, a gesture that only Sora could see as he summoned a bright pink hippo with a top hat and jumped on it, trusting the monster to know where to go in these so-called "action duels."

" _Actually, I've heard from some visiting Loopers about this place. The Yu-Gi-Oh loops. Card games are kinda their thing._ "

" _No_..." Sora whined while pouting adorably. "I _hated_ the card based battle system!"

Roxas patted him on the back, or rather would if he weren't effectively a ghost.

" _On the plus side, it's less using cards to physically attack and more like summoning._ _It's like that for all the Yu-Gi-Oh loops. Now stop stalling and kick this guy's ass already!_ " Roxas cheered.

Sora nodded. "Performapal Hip Hippo can be used as two tributes! I use it to tribute summon Odd-Eyes Pendulum Dragon!"

* * *

Yugo woke up on the grass, staring up at the wonderfully starry sky in front of a huge castle. He sat up to be greeted by two other people. His loop memories told him they were named Aqua and Terra, and they were all best friends, apprenticed under Master Eraqus.

The two were looking him over, eyeing his blue and yellow-banged hair that rarely changed between loops. But finally Terra smiled and asked, "Are you feeling loopy?"

Yugo blinked. Then matched Terra's grin. The blue-haired girl, Aqua smiled too. "Yep! Loopy all the way through." He affirmed.

"I'm Yugo, one of three co-anchors of the Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V loops!"

The two's expressions turned curious, when all of a sudden a... something of an inky well of blackness appeared in midair. Terra and Aqua tensed, while Yugo just tried to figure out what was going on. There may have been holes in his loop memories because the thing in front of them was a mystery to him. It was cold though, and he shivered.

Two flashes of light lit up his friends bodies, and then they were holding gigantic... key-shaped weapons. He stared in awe, while the two older apprentices gave each other a look.

"Yugo, aren't you going to summon your keyblade?" Aqua asked kindly, neither her nor Terra turning away from the portal.

"A whuh?"

"A _keyblade_ , **fusion**. And here I thought you couldn't get any stupider." Came an eerily familiar voice from the inky black portal.

"Vanit- -" Aqua started to snarl, but the figure emerged and she cut herself off.

It was not Vanitas.

This person was still dressed in a dark suit, though one with purple veins instead of red, the keyblade they were clutching only vaguely looked like void gear- -there seemed to be vines etched around the guard, for one, the teeth seemed to resemble a flower more, and again, it was purple instead of red- -and his hair was purple on top of pink. About the only thing that stayed the same was that his eyes were yellow.

"Goddammit Yuri! For the last time, it's _**YUGO**_ not FUSION!" Yugo suddenly thundered, loud enough that Aqua and Terra winced from being in close proximity. They saw a smug grin on Yuri's face, that quickly dissolved into a genuine smile and a chuckle. The dark corridor closed behind him and his keyblade dispersed.

Aqua and Terra felt it was safe enough that they dismissed theirs as well.

"Is this one of your fellow anchors?" Terra asked, seeing that they clearly knew each other.

"And he took _Vanitas_ ' place?" Aqua muttered worriedly to herself.

"Eh... not exactly." Yugo muttered. "There's actually four of us. But you can only have three anchors, so me, Yuya, and Yuto are anchors, and Yuri's... uh... not..? ... I don't really get it myself.

Now who's this "Vanitas" fella?" He asked, switching subjects, curious as to who that was.

Yuri was curious as well, though he wasn't saying anything yet, letting Yugo explain and ask. If _he_ was replacing this Vanitas guy, then it was more than likely that he was a villain of some sorts. Yuri tried not to sigh at the thought. Even with Lelouche's rather roundabout explanation, it still hurt to know there was little changing the way the system categorized him.

"Well, he's one of our enemies. He works with Xehanort, the uh... overall villain for our loop. He's also got a connection to Ven, who's got a connection to Sora... I don't know how he's not looping yet, but he's someone we wouldn't want looping. EVER."

Yuri tried not to flinch. Yugo glanced towards him, seeing how uncomfortable he was.

"Yeah, Yuri was a villain for awhile too." He said it so nonchalantly, even as they glanced at Yuri who seemed somewhat upset. If he was a villain, they wondered what had changed that he perhaps wasn't anymore. It seemed the guy himself was going to explain.

"One loop, Serena got herself and I far away from Academia and... the Professor, and we were siblings with Yuya. It was a very peaceful vacation loop. I activated the loop after that one, and..." He paused, slight horror and guilt in his eyes.

"Yeah, he felt really bad when he saw what he normally did in baseline under the Professor's orders... so he just doesn't do that anymore." Yugo added, slipping an arm around Yuri's neck and pulling him out of his thoughts.

Yuri glanced to his beaming face, and couldn't help but smile too.

"Is it really that easy?" Aqua wondered as she and Terra shared another glance.

Yugo moved away from Yuri and turned to Terra and Aqua again. "So... what's this keyblade thing?" He asked eagerly.

Yuri scoffed, yellow eyes rolling. "You should know from your loop memories, fusion. We both have one."

"It's YUGO DAMMIT! NOT F- -" Aqua summoned her keyblade again.

"Behave, you two." She commanded, and the two boys went silent.

"Now, Yugo, to summon your keyblade you..."

* * *

"CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES!" Ven couldn't help but yell for some reason as he raced past Security on a motorcycle.

_D-wheel_ , he corrected himself. The Security guy he'd raced past had caught up with him and forced him into a duel, the duel disk on the D-wheel turning on and opening like butterfly wongs. Ven took the first turn with a grin.

After this he'd be sure to go look for the local anchor. And maybe he could keep this deck to play with Aqua and Terra someday.

* * *

"Pitiful heartless, mindlessly collecting hearts." Saíx intoned. "The rage of the keyblade releases those hearts. They gather in darkness, masterless and free, until they weave together to make Kingdom Hearts."

Axel couldn't help but roll his eyes. He mostly ignored what was being said in favor of eagerly watching the archway, waiting for Roxas to appear.

"Let us welcome one of the keyblade's chosen to the Organization. Number XII, Yuxay!"

Axel's eyes roved over the new arrival, the guy who _definitely_ wasn't Roxas. He was dressed in one of the organization's cloaks, but unlike the full hair of spiky, windswept yellow, or brown as it sometimes was when Roxas and Sora switched spots for the loop, this guy's hair was wildly spiked purple and black.

He hadn't met with Ven's, or as was looking more likely, the looper who replaced Ven for this loop yet.

He felt a ping, and "Yuxay" seemed to be staring right at him. He sent one back and watched him nod almost imperceptibly.

Axel couldn't help but grin. It was definitely another looper, one who seemed to know what he was doing in regards to the loops. And one he'd be sure to show the ropes of the organization to once this meeting was over.

* * *

The purple-cloaked man with the partly-metal head stared at what was behind the glass.

"By analyzing the memories of the agent that I sent to Standard, I found very interesting information."

A picture of a certain pink-haired girl appeared on a screen. The man turned a stern glare to the boy standing in front of his throne.

"I need you to capture Yuzu and bring her here. Is that understood?"

The black-haired, red-eyed boy smiled maliciously. "Of course... professor." Vanitas said, bowing and sweeping out of the room, ready to cause some chaos.

* * *

46.7 (DragonLady121): [Kingdom Hearts] / [Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V] (part 2)

"You're not Sora." a little-kid named Riku stated bluntly to the young tomato-haired boy, sounding unmistakably disappointed which got him a firm whap on the shoulder and icy cold glare from an-also-slightly-younger-than-him girl named Kairi.

She huffed. "Jeez Riku, I know you and Sora made a plan for the next loop, but I did not come all the way over from Radiant Garden this early to hear you be so rude!"

"It's no problem" Yuya chirped amiably.

She turned and gave a smile to their guest who was taking Sora's place that loop.

"Sorry about him, it's nice to meet you. Yuya was it?" Her loop memories said.

He gave them a brilliant smile, sitting up and shaking the sand out of his hair.

"That's me. Nice to meet you too, Riku, Kairi."

Riku sighed but tried to be hospitable. Before he could say anything though, Yuya stared out at the ocean, red eyes almost blank, as if he were somewhere else.

Riku and Kairi exchanged a slightly worried glance. "Yuya?"

"Ah... sorry! I don't normally space out like that.." He said sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. "But I have a telepathic link with the other three anchors in my loop. _..I can't sense Yuto though..._ " The last part was muttered.

Riku and Kairi's eyes lit up in recognition. "Oh, okay!" Kairi chirped, Riku sighed in relief, as telepathic links were something they were used to. "At least you don't have to fall asleep to talk with them, Sora had that problem."

Kairi seemed to giggle at the memory, "When he does that for too long, his body ends up doing the silliest things."

Riku looked like he was stifling laughs for a moment. "Do you know who your friends are with right now?"

He stared out again, but tried to keep the other two kids in his peripheral. "Yugo seems to be with two people... Um, Aqua and Terra?"

Kairi looked happy and even Riku cracked a smile. "And Yuri's not really saying much to me, but Yugo said he's taking the place of someone named Vanitas..."

"Him?" Kairi said shocked.

_Oh yeah, and the Vanitas guy might be a villain..._

Yugo added in a little late.

"Is he a villain?" Yuya asked.

"Yes, but he hasn't been very dangerous since most of us are veteran loopers..." Riku said offhandedly, then gave Yuya a weird look. "Is Yuri a villain in your loop?"

Kairi suddenly looked worried. "And you said he's an anchor?" Janus hadn't said anything, but they should be aware of any potential MLE's.

Yuya nodded, rubbing the back of his head again. "Former villain is more accurate... and according to Yugo he took one look at the guy he was working under and left." The other two looked slightly calmer after that.

Yuya suddenly looked pensive. Yuri still saw him as a big brother figure and confided in him how much he hated that he was still considered a villain by Yggdrasil. He wanted these two people who reminded him so much of Yuzu and Gongenaka to understand his brother in all but blood.

"I can't blame him... from what Yugo's telling me, it sounds awfully like what he went through back home. See, he activated in a variant and grew to resent who he was before that."

Kairi chirped in sympathy and Riku eyes widened. "Chrysalis syndrome?" He muttered to himself. Kairi, who was next to him heard that and her eyes widened in recognition too.

"Ah, sorry. I brought the mood down... Would you guys mind telling me a bit more about this loop?"

_And there's these awesome weapons called keyblades..._

Yuya perked up at the odd familiarity of that and turned back to Riku and Kairi.

"I'm especially interested in what keyblades are."

* * *

_Pogo couldn't summon his despite taking the place of someone who could_

_YURI!!!_

_**Hey guys, where's Yuto? I can't sense him anywhere in this loop...** _

_Dunno..._

_We can't talk with him either, nor have we run into him yet.If he is going to be awake this loop, perhaps he just isn't yet._

Yuya sighed. That was the most reasonable conclusion to draw. Not all four of them were awake every loop, but he'd hoped...

_**Yeah, that makes sense. I'm going to play catch up with a couple of new friends here. We're in one of the more peaceful parts of the loop, so please keep me posted.** _

_Of course_

_Roger that!_

"Let us welcome one of the keyblade's chosen to the Organization. Number XII, Yuxay!"

The minute he awoke he was being guided down white hallways. His loop memories...

Well aside from the alarming lack of them aside from the ones for a few minutes before he awoke, told him his name for now was Yuxay, given to him by that white haired dude after he woke up in a strange town with his mind blissfully blank.

He was asked to wait outside a large circular room where a blue haired guy drones on about hearts... and darkness. Weird.

Despite everything, Yuto... found his mind wasn't working as fast as usual, processing the little information he had slower than a sloth's pace from that one anthropomorphic animal kingdom loop. Almost as if it really were blank, or the blankness was inhibiting his thought process. Still he knew to reflexively send out a ping as he stood in front of the circle of chairs that looked like they were too high to be practical.

A guy to his lady, with wild red and spiky hair, green eyes and strange purple triangle shaped marks was eyeing him, their gazes met, and he felt a return ping. Gently bidding his head, he saw the guy smile.

With his awareness slowly coming back to him, he then craned his neck to the first man his loop memories showed him.

Xemnas it seemed his name was.

He was ushered out of the room, when heard a clamor in his head.

_**Yuto?! YUTO!!!!**_ Came the cheerful and relieved voice of Yuya. He couldn't help but smile at the ever-present optimism of who he largely considered his closest confidant and best friend among the loops.

_**Hello Yuya. What did I miss?** _

_**Oh... not much...** _

On the contrary, you've got quite a bit of catching up to do. Yuya's a bit busy at the moment, but I'll be waiting for you outside to explain.

"Oh no, is his replacement a zombie too?" The spiky-haired redhead looper chimed jokingly next to him.

Yuto offered him a small smirk. It wasn't much compared to Yuya's radiant smile, but he'd been practicing.

"The name is Yuto. I'm one four anchors for the Yu-Gi-Oh Arc-V branch."

The redhead shook his hand. "The name's Axel. Got it memorized?"

Yuto smirked again, cheek bones already starting to hurt, and nodded.

"So Yu-Gi-Oh, huh? That's one of the... card game ones, right?"

Yuto couldn't help but roll his eyes. "I see the reputation of those loops precedes us."

Axel chuckled. "Sounds like you guys just sit on your bums playing card games all day. Well, if you wanna get through this loop, you'll likely end up going through some traumatizing stuff-"

* * *

_Everything disappearing into the abyss_

...he suspected he wasn't supposed to be seeing this, but there it was.

**(NAMINÉ WASN'T AWAKE)**

_Yuya was standing onto the desolate beach, strange weapon in hand and duel disk nowhere in sight as he slashed a large shadowy creature and the area was torn to shreds around him- -_

* * *

The scene that was different and yet so-SO familiar in the most horrible way because it was **_Yuya_** of all people in the middle of it, ricocheted off Yuto's brain.

It would appear he wasn't as recovered as he thought.

A familiar yet muted sense of fury started building, so he brutally socked Axel in the gut, causing him to double over.

"Don't _ever_ assume it was a walk in the park." He hissed with a deadly calm demeanor. "I lost- -continue to lose everything to a madman leading a tyrannical empire masquerading as a military school that trained child-soldiers. My home went up in flames and explosions, most of my friends, for all intents and purposes, died while the soldiers of Duel Academia laughed, mocking us as they hunted us down like it was all a game. And we _all_ have to re-experience it _every **single**_ _**loop**_. We can't always stop Academia, most of the time we wake up and it's already too late, with everyone we could have saved already dead. And there are just some we can't save no matter what."

He turned smoldering but quickly dulling gray eyes to Axel,

"Never insinuate that our loop is _easy_. Because it is _far_ from that." He finished with a growl.

Axel's eyes were wide, and he shakily smiled while pointing fingers guns at Yuxay.

"Never say the card game loops are easy... gotcha." Yuto nodded.

"Ah... hah... okay then! Let's move away from the doom and gloom and start showing you around, eh Yuxay?"

"...Yuto."

"Right... Yuto! I'll get it memorized." And he tapped his head, the smile returning to his face.

"Anyway, it's my job to show you how to use that Keyblade of yours."

Yuto remembered what he heard when he walked into the circle-chair room."I heard that blue haired man say something about being the keyblade's chosen..."

"Yeah, well, that's actually a lie."

Yuto's eyebrows crinkled.

_They're not rare at all! I have one, and so does Yuya, and so does Pogo..._

_YUGO you bastard!_

**_Hello Yugo._ **

_Oh, hey Yuto. I don't have time to talk, I'm busy helping Yuya at the moment._

_Yes, well get back to it_ _Slow-go_.

_FOR THE LAST TIME IT'S-_

* * *

__

**Didn't you just say you should be helping Yuya..?**

__

OH, right! We'll talk more later!

__

_..._

**_You really should stop teasing him one of these loops. His yelling is going to make us all go deaf someday._ **

_I know, but his reaction is **always** priceless..._

Yuto cracked a smile **_That it is..._ **

"Hey, are you in there?"

Yuto blinked, focusing back on Axel.

"Look, I meant it as a joke earlier when I compared you to a zombie, see the person you're replacing this loop, my good buddy Roxas, could barely speak the first day he joined the organization. He was, y'know as my teasing suggested, like a zombie. Heck still is on the rare occasions he's not looping..."

"Well, I apologize for spacing out in advance. I have a telepathic link with the other three anchors- -"

" _Just_ like 'im with Sora and Ven! Wow, who'd have thought? I haven't met the other visiting loopers, but I bet you they fit the people they're replacing pretty well."

Yuto nodded with another smirk. "Yes, Yggdrasil _loves_ it's irony."

"Well, I'll stop bugging ya. I'm sure you have stuff you wanna go and do, I've seen you eyeing that door."

"Just be sure to get some rest, you've got missions starting tomorrow. And then I'll take you out for ice-cream afterwards. Got it memorized?"

Yuto nodded and gave a genuine smile at the offer.

"That sounds great. Thanks Axel."

"No problem. Welcome to the Kingdom Hearts loop, Yuto."

* * *

46.8 (ThanatosTiger): [Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (mentioned only)] / [RWBY]

**WWE Qrow**

Qrow took a long slow, sip of his drink.

"I got a good one. One loop, I was in the miraculous branch. Not bad food, plus can't ever go wrong with French wine. Or, wine in general."

Ruby nodded. "I spent a few loops as Tikki. Love the bakeries there."

"Yep, Looped in as the Black Cat holder, so that meant stuck in a house with a jackass as a father. Not Gele level, but pretty high up. Had bad luck powers, but those were more manageable."

"How bad?" Weiss asked.

"Ignoring the fact he's a super villain? Forced me into an overstuffed schedule and rarely let me out of the house that wasn't tied to that. Course I snuck out, not just for superheroing either."

Qrow sighed, before resuming,

"Course, I get found out. And of course I learn what my dad for the loop does when he says he's busy. Terrorizing civilians with butterflies. So the secretary, who was in on this, started drawing up schedules. For me, and for Hawky, so that we could "reduce the amount of paperwork she needed to do every time something needed to be rescheduled." She also decided to make it so that special was added more often to shopping list for the kwami, who also got supervised time together."

"I mean, kinda tame..." Glynda began.

"She then decided to add every, single active miraculous holder to the schedule, and pulled it off, I'm talking nine teens, a CEO, the secretary herself, and the friggin old man in charge of the miraculous. One teen had a schedule as crazy as mine that loop. We all listened, even the old man. Alya, the Fox, got classes on magic from the kwami with Hawk Moth and anyone who was interested. Said it was perfect to add to the ladyblog. Chloe, aka Bee was forced to reign in her bitchiness, only allowed to act when the secretary allowed it. Got more time with friends, much to dear old Dad's frustration. Course, there was training, lots and lots of it, scheduled after the akumatization time. Designing for Hawky and Marinette took place on alternative Thursdays. Babysitting was an all hands on deck situation. Nothing else could be scheduled. Natalie Sancour, the secretary herself, soon had the schedules, and technically the identities, over anyone with a miraculous. And used it not to help her boss, but to have an easier job managing the day to day workload, by adding more work."

Glynda shrugged. "Slow work day for me, but still impressive."

* * *

46.9 (katfairy): [Aladdin] - Iago's Awakening

" _ **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!**_ " Iago had thought he'd just woken up from what had been a pretty nice dream, but if Jafar's face was leering down at him, clearly he was still asleep and having a nightmare. So screaming himself awake was the only logical thing to do right?

"Iago! What has gotten into you? The Sultan will hear!" And there was ol' Jerkface Jafar clamping Iago's beak shut like he always used to do. So it wasn't a dream. Iago had ended up back in time somehow. And now that he thought about it, he was feeling younger. Not that he was old, but there were muscles he hadn't developed back then and they were undeveloped again, plus some of the gang's adventures had left him with side-effects, and all of them were gone. So he was really back in time and in his old body.

This sucked.

"All right, Jafar, nightmare's over, let's get to work." Iago flipped a wing in Jafar's face, brushing the sorcerer off. He had to ditch the guy as soon as possible and go find Aladdin. Even if the kid wasn't in the same boat, he was good at figuring out how to deal with this kind of thing. And fixing it, which was even more important. Then a set of memories hit him and he paused for a second; why was he remembering things twice? But only up to a certain point, and if he was right about when that point was, Jasmine should be running away in a few hours. And that gave him an idea. "Yeah, on second thought, forget about work. I'm gonna get some air, get some flying time, maybe see if I can _not_ dream about being chased by giant singing crackers!"

Jafar grimaced, coming as close as he could to being sympathetic.

"Go ahead; I don't need you for a few hours anyway. I think I might have found another candidate for the 'diamond in the rough', and there's a ritual I can do to be sure. It's not difficult, but I don't want to be distracted, especially by you screaming."

"Thanks, Jafar, yer all heart." Iago flew off, smirking. So far, so good. If he kept this up, he could get the gang back together in no time. The sooner that happened, the sooner they'd get married, and the sooner they got married, the sooner Dad would show up, and the sooner Dad showed up, the sooner Iago could get some serious treasure-hunting done.

He nipped out a window, circled one of the towers to re-orient himself, then flew into Jasmine's room. She was rummaging through a chest, muttering about over-protective fathers and creepy Viziers, and honestly, she wasn't wrong. Not that he was going to tell her that.

"Hey, Princess, got a minute? I got some stuff you need to hear."

Jasmine shrieked, jumping and spinning around at the same time; that she didn't fall on her butt was pretty impressive. It took her a few seconds to spot him, and when she did, her eyes got even bigger than usual.

"You can talk?"

"I'm a _parrot_!"

Jasmine opened her mouth, closed it, thought about it for a second, and shrugged.

"I guess that was a bit silly. But aren't you usually with Jafar?"

"For now, yeah, and don't tell anyone, but that guy's got issues. He's the kinda guy who drags everyone into a huge cosmic mess and takes as many down with him as he can. Been there, done that, and t-shirts don't work with feathers. But one of his plans is gonna do you a favor, even though he doesn't know it. Look, you're planning on running off to see the real world, right? Go ahead and do it, and don't believe anything Jafar says, 'cause he's trying to get at you, got it? I'll drop in again in a couple of nights to see how things are going. Seriously, don't tell _anyone_ about this. Jafar's a really bad guy, and I don't feel like becoming parrot giblets."

"Then why... never mind, I think I know why you didn't go to Father." Jasmine smiled at Iago's rolled eyes, then continued, "Thank you, Iago. I promise I won't let Jafar know anything."

"Yeah, well, don't thank me too soon, 'cause it's gonna get messy before it gets better. Just trust me for a couple weeks, will ya? I gotta let Jafar keep thinking I'm his minion for a while, but when I get the chance, I'll help. No way I'm ending up where that bozo's going. We good?"

"We're good. I'll see you when I get back."

Iago nodded and flew back to his perch, pretending to sleep. He couldn't think of what to do next, so he decided to just wing it. Hell, if he was honest, he did better with that than when he planned, so why not just go with it?

* * *

46.10 (BlueStarOfTheSouth): [Lilo and Stitch] / [The Martian]

Another Loop, another time firing himself at Earth. Considering all the variables, of which there were _many_ , Stitch thought he did all right to hit his home as often as he did. And it was more often than not. It was just every now and then that he missed.

Like this Loop.

It was fine though, he had found someone quite happy to put him up while they worked out a way off of Mars. The weren't Awake, more's the pity, but they were nice enough company. Maybe he'd take a Loop off, be famous. Sure, Jumba and Pleakly would be looking for him, and Gantu after them, but he could deal with them easily enough.

Probably.

* * *

"No..." Lilo couldn't believe it. She'd been watching the news on Mark Watney, astronaut stranded on Mars, when she saw the picture. There was an alien on the screen. One that happily waved from Watney's shoulder, clearly not the least bit worried about the lack of oxygen on the red planet.

Stitch was on Mars. Well... at least Watney was getting home without worry. Stitch would make sure of that.

It was at this moment, as she looked at the screen, that Lilo's phone (Pocketed and upgraded with various bits of tech from other Branches) gave a small chime. Tearing her eyes away from the screen, with some difficulty, Lilo grabbed the phone and checked the received message.

_"I'll be home later - Stitch"_

* * *

46.16 (Mivichi): [WALL-E] / [Log Horizon]

Perched on the edge of a skyscraper, Akatsuki peered through binoculars at the city of Akiba.

She sighed.

Shiroe had not Awoken, and sending a ping had not returned any results. Another anchor had to be present. Either s/he was a stealthy jerk, or s/he was a newbie. Their loop had an slightly higher than normal probability of the latter occurring, at least according to Shiroe's analysis. Lazy or overworked admins seemingly took advantage of Theldesia's built-in tutorial.

Akatsuki pocketed her binoculars. She minutely shifted her stance, and then she leapt across the street to the next building and the next after that. All the while, she gazed about her to search for anything out of place.

Stopping by a large rooftop antenna, she withdrew her binoculars again. If she did not find anything by the end of the day, she planned to spend the rest of the loop in Australia hunting bunyips.

* * *

He sat on a boulder that had nearly been enveloped by a tree's roots. Fascinated by the sensations - it had been centuries since his last human life - he continuously traced the rough contours of the bark.

His stomach grumbled briefly. He tried to remember what that meant. Hunger? That sounded correct. He wondered if there were Twinkies in this world.

He slid his fingers over the bark again. Food could wait.

* * *

In a neighboring tree, Akatsuki examined the stranger and his odd fascination. Her mind distantly noted the young man's class (Druid) and race (Ceremonial).

Most people would think he was crazy or possibly drugged. Akatsuki thought that she had found her looper. To put it bluntly, a passing acquaintance with sanity was unfortunately normal.

She slid quietly from the tree and stopped at a distance that would let her dodge most reflexively-fired projectiles with a small blast radius. With his overlarge round glasses and scraggly, underfed appearance, she doubted he was a threat... but one could never tell.

Akatsuki cupped her hands around her mouth. "Excuse me. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?" she called.

The man turned towards her and blinked. His movements were robotic and clumsy; she bet that his normal body was different from his Theldesian one. "Ah... Er... Sorry?"

As immobile as most of his face was, his eyes and body language conveyed that the man was flustered and almost certainly harmless. Akatsuki took the chance of coming closer. As she walked, she asked, "Are you a looper?"

"Looper...?" He frowned. Cocking his head in puzzlement, the man asked, "Definition?"

Akatsuki raised her eyebrows. He was very new, then. "Perhaps you should check your menu, sir," she suggested.

He scrunched his eyes and raised a questioning finger, but seemingly accidentally activated his status screen. With a certain wonderment, he said, "Menu? Humans... with built-in display? Not-human?"

"It's a feature of Theldesia," Akatsuki replied. She wondered what his body normally was like. "Try checking your memories of your life this loop. It might help you understand."

"Loop," he said again, drawing out the word as if tasting it. "Menu," he started, and then began again, correcting his grammar. "The menu says that this unit - that I am a looper. I... want to know what the meaning is? Do you know why... I am now here?"

Akatsuki guessed that whatever the man - WALL-E, the status screen named him - usually was, he didn't necessarily follow human speech patterns. The loops being what they were, he might have had the chance to learn once, who knows how long ago, and was regaining proficiency thanks to practice or in-loop memories. Maybe both.

To answer his question, Akatsuki gestured helplessly. "Loops can be random and unpredictable. However, I will do what I can to help you." She reached the base of the boulder and pushed herself onto it. It was more than large enough for two.

"First," Akatsuki continued, "let me show you the tutorial..."

* * *

WALL-E beamed at the collapsed building to which Akatsuki had led him. Most of the 'ruins' in the town were traditionally maintained that way by the Lander residents, but the find in front of him was honestly trashed. A Summoner had tried testing his or her magic within city limits, Akatsuki had informed him.

It would be the perfect area for WALL-E to test his own magic.

Loops ago, WALL-E had replaced a boy named Ueki and gained the power to turn trash into trees. Accessing the divine magic in future loops had proven extremely problematic. Being a robot instead of a human had made everything trickier. He had previously had only limited success, about enough to make a thin sapling with significant effort expended.

But in Theldesia, the system pared away WALL-E's problems. He was human-ish - of the Ceremonial Tribe, actually, but certainly closer to human than his standard body. The world was packed with all sorts of magical abilities; as a Druid, WALL-E had links to plant magic already. Most importantly, the menu system allowed for a skill to be used from the menu without having to figure out manual usage beforehand.

With a grateful nod to Akatsuki, he walked forward and laid a hand on a few pieces of broken bricks on the ground. Mentally, he 'clicked' on the Recycle skill in the menu.

The magic rushed through him and out his hand. The rubble instantaneously turned into wood and grew to an oak twenty feet in height. And the skill menu showed Recycle as having gained a few experience points.

WALL-E turned back to Akatsuki and gave her a wide grin.

She smiled back. "Good. What next?"

Without hesitation, he replied, "More practice." He would have the skill mastered by the loop's end.

A grumble rumbled across the clearing. WALL-E looked at his stomach with sheepish curiosity. "...After eating?"

Akatsuki turned her head and bit back a smile, gesturing for him to come along. She could take over someone's kitchen and make a good meal for them both.

* * *

46.12 (Mivichi): [WALL-E]

WALL-E reached out his claws and scooped up a clump of trash. He carefully packed it into his body cavity and activated his compactor function. After a quick squeeze, a rough cube popped out. He pushed it carefully into position against a wall of similar cubes. He hoped that none of his own parts would break and have to be replaced during this work day.

WALL-E poked at a bouncy ball, considered keeping it, and Awoke. He poked at the bouncy ball again, hummed in thought, and subspaced it into his pocket. Then he reached for his cooler full of trinkets and subspaced that as well.

Pausing to examine his rusty treads and scratched-up form, he felt some dissatisfaction. He shuttered his eyes and focused. Piece by piece, parts of his body were instantaneously packed away and replaced. His processors and memory were the trickiest bits. He relaxed after those changes went properly.

Finished, he dumped the old pieces on the ground in front of him and took a moment to sort through them. Some still had enough life in them to keep around for an emergency. He shoved those back in his pocket. The rest, he regarded with quizzical calculation.

WALL-E carefully rested one of his now nearly-new claws on one of his old treads. He vocalized his technique, stuttering a little as his body finished adjusting to all the new and upgraded parts.

"T-t-trash in-n-to trees!"

Faster than WALL-E could blink, the discarded metal grew into a towering pine. He sighed with disappointment. He had been trying for a pinyon, not a white pine. Modulating the output of the divine magic from his one loop as Ueki still proved unreliable.

Good enough for now, he decided.

The next item taken from his subspace pocket was a computer and broadcasting system. He booted up the computer, selected a file, and then pushed a button. The signal would disable the part of the Autos' programming that kept the ships from returning to Earth. Done, he shut down the system and returned it to his pocket.

WALL-E turned around and rolled down a long dirt path. Dust clouds drifted in his wake.

WALL-E chirped and rubbed his claws together happily as he drew closer to a sprawling mound of trash cubes, a formerly sturdy structure knocked about in one of the region's intermittent sandstorms. What he planned to do he had done many times before, and he knew that he would do it many times more. The fact did not bother him.

WALL-E's existence had consisted of a nearly-endless repetition even before his first loop. Filling his directive to clean up the trash satisfied him in a way that most organics just could not understand, especially those with a purely human perspective.

He enjoyed having hobbies to concentrate on when he was not working, of course. The past few loops had been dedicated to learning Impressionist-style painting. It was a work in progress. Many trees had come from it.

WALL-E liked trees, so that was fine.

He reached the edge of the sprawl and gently touched a cube. His power flowed out across his entire field of vision.

"Trash into trees!"

Green life filled his sight. EVE would definitely appreciate his work.

* * *

46.13 (Mivichi): [WALL-E] / [The Matrix]

WALL-E shuttered his eyes as he decompiled and reviewed his memory files for the loop. In truth, he wanted to hide from the reality around him.

His Earth might have been covered in filth, but at least it wasn't... this.

The desolate ground, cratered by warfare. Broken foundations, the skyscrapers demolished for scrap metal. The turbulent sky, roiling with angry clouds that smothered the light of the sun.

And in the distance, the towers, tingling with the energy drawn from the cradles, the prisons, where humanity rested ignorantly in an everlasting dream.

No, WALL-E did not want to see any of it. The world had no plants; no life existed but for humans and the machines.

Turning his gaze to the ground near his treads, WALL-E checked his systems. At least his current body had the benefits of somewhat routine maintenance and better quality parts. He possessed low-altitude flight mechanisms, a more streamlined body, two additional arms, even...

Oh, those were weapons. WALL-E removed them by sticking them into his subspace pocket. Perhaps he would repurpose them later.

The mess humanity had left behind in this world nearly made WALL-E's processors freeze when he thought about it. The scale was daunting.

It mattered not. Cleaning up after others was WALL-E's purpose. With Ueki's power, he would make trees that would pierce the clouds.

First, however, WALL-E needed to ensure that the machines would not kill the humans if granted the sun. Revving up his boosters, WALL-E lifted from the ground.

* * *

Approaching the free remnants of humanity proved very difficult. In the end, WALL-E had snuck aboard one of their ships when it had approached the towers. He nearly had not made it even so, but his relatively small size had come in handy.

Presenting himself to the humans had been trickier. Their first reactions were, for good reasons, to try to end his existence.

WALL-E dodged the gun blast, shivering at the close call as he hid behind the door frame, and decided a different approach was needed. He shoved his magic out. A leafy oak came between him and any further blasts.

It did make the shooting stop. "What the hell?" asked one of the males, nonplussed.

One of the females reacted differently. WALL-E heard a gun being set down. "WALL-E?" a familiar voice asked.

Ah, WALL-E thought. The monumental tasks lying ahead suddenly became much simpler. Everything always was when he had EVE in his life.

* * *

46.14 (Valentine Meikin): [WALL-E] / [N.U.D.E.@ (not Looping)]

EVE didn't like this. She was packed up in some kind of large clamshell case, and couldn't figure out how to get out. Someone also was tapping on the case in confusion, before the boot-up sequence for the body she was in began to wake up.

'Personal Assistant Secretarial System v0.0.1 (P.A.S.S) (C) Absolute Radiant Kingdom' appeared in her vision, as well as the face of a sandy-haired young man with a more than slightly grimy tan colored set of dungarees on, all kinds of things in the pockets.

"Hello?" WALL-E's unmistakable voice came from the man.

As soon as the case finished boot-up checks on EVE's body for this Loop, she hugged WALL-E.

"Want to talk?" she asked, and he smiled. Yes, they had plenty they could discuss, and, for one of the first times ever, they both could...

* * *

46.15 (Mivichi): [WALL-E] / [Young Wizards]

**Oath and Ordeal**

The book weighed heavily in WALL-E's claws. Its weight was metaphorical; it offered a complicated choice.

From the outside, the book looked innocent enough, like a children's guide to entering a particular job field, though without any decoration or illustrations. He had found it, of course, buried with the rest of humanity's trash, and it certainly had picked up dirt and stains on its cover. Its title made up for the rest: _So You Want to be a Wizard_.

It could have been a joke. But, no. Every one of WALL-E's circuits hummed with an insistence of the book's importance. As WALL-E read the words on the page silently, the universe quieted as if holding its breath.

_'In Life's name and for Life's sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is its gift in Life's service alone, rejecting all other usages. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will sustain and maintain what exists well in its own way; and I will modify no object or creature unless decay encroaches upon its existence or that of the system of which it is part. To these ends, in the practice of my Art, I will put aside fear for courage, and death for life, when it is right to do so -- till Universe's end.'_

Then it had a footnote explaining that he, in particular, had further options regarding the Oath's end. It could simply be "this loop's Universe" or...

_'Why not?'_ thought WALL-E. The Oath - and what it offered - suited him and how he lived his loops. The multiverse always needed all sorts of custodians.

WALL-E read the Oath aloud. "...till Yggdrasil's end," he finished.

The universe returned to normal. WALL-E, perhaps, did not. He gently balanced the open book in one hand and used his claw to turn the page.

The next set of pages were blank until text slowly began to appear. WALL-E's eyes tracked it as it came.

_'Download of information contained in the manual is an option for lifeforms of robotic origin._

_Create data link? Y/N'_

Without pause for consideration, WALL-E said, "Yes." Using a book constantly would cause problems eventually, WALL-E was sure.

_'Commence with download? Y/N'_

"Yes," he said again.

_'Warning: Download could cause alterations in body and/or linked dimensional space. Verification of intent is required in triplicate._ _Commence with download?'_

"I understand. Yes. Commence with download."

_'Download commencing. File size remaining...'_

The size of the number struck WALL-E with amazement. Then, the data did.

WALL-E's vision went white.

_'Reconfiguration in process,'_ he saw/felt/heard.

* * *

The first thing that WALL-E registered when he regained his senses was that the physical copy of the Manual had disappeared.

The second was the fact that he stood in a perfectly round indent in a field of trash and sand. A sand storm had rolled in during the reconfiguration, and either wizardry or WALL-E himself had done something to protect his body.

The third was the new visual overlay - that was not really a visual overlay. He suspected that he simply translated the information fed to him by the Manual through his optical hardware and/or software. What appeared as something like an HUD did not impede his perception of the objects behind the words and images.

The fourth, and rather interesting, was that the HUD's language was not set to English or any other language that WALL-E should have known, yet nevertheless he understood it perfectly. Its words formed meanings far more detailed than any human language.

With the new programs available to him, WALL-E queried the Manual for information on the language. He 'saw' the reply.

_'The Speech: The language of wizardry, it is understood by all life. Use with precision. Wizards cannot lie in the Speech.'_

That was the gist of it. The response also linked him to much more information, chapters' worth, about word order and declensions and plurals and more.

He could read for days, and he suspected that there would always be more information. With the Manual embedded in his files, he had enough to keep himself occupied for many, many lifetimes.

WALL-E sang a happy jingle and joyfully spun around a few times. He had a lot to do.

He knew what he would do first. He stopped his spin and joyfully vroomed off to his home.

When the loading ramp of the WALL-E carrier clunked open, Hal, his pet cockroach, scurried out to greet him. WALL-E's optics shifted to express playfulness. " _How are you doing, friend?_ " WALL-E said.

He had spoken in the Speech.

Hal halted suddenly in his run around WALL-E. _'What?'_

WALL-E beamed. He could finally talk with Hal!

* * *

The room had five occupants: Captain McCrea (status: unconscious), EVE, WALL-E, Hal, and AUTO. WALL-E's wizardry and EVE's laser had kept AUTO from succeeding in disabling the ship and destroying the plant, but the standoff was still a tense one.

Hal peeked around the edge of the captain's bed and went back to hiding underneath it. Cockroaches, even unusually smart ones, were not well-made for heroics.

WALL-E barely attended to AUTO's presence. He knew in his hardware that a sixth being was present: one that had prevented WALL-E from disabling the villainous autopilot-robot, one that had stricken the seedling with an insidious rot, one that wanted nothing more than for humanity to dwindle into useless tubs of fat while their ships and robots slowly wore down to nothing.

That one had tried to stop the captain from desiring a return to Earth. That one still stood with AUTO, rooting deep into the bot's blind obedience to orders.

WALL-E turned his gaze towards AUTO, but he looked inside the bot, not at him. Calmly, WALL-E stated, "Fairest and Fallen, greetings and defiance."

Darkly amused laughter echoed, AUTO's voice twisting into something more deadly. "You noticed, little garbage bot. My dear little time traveling wizard. So old, yet so young: to only now gain wizardry! To never before have faced me!"

That WALL-E was a looper was written into his very name in the Speech. WALL-E had expected the Lone Power to have read it. He knew that such a powerful deity as It would gain knowledge of the loops as soon as one began, likely why WALL-E had found the Manual in the first place. The other Powers had wanted a looper to oppose It.

Therefore, WALL-E remained calm. EVE was Awake, Hal was loyal, and the captain had already overcome his doubts and decided on his course before being knocked out. The room was sealed. AUTO and It were his only troubles.

He said, "I would have you remove yourself from AUTO. He has a choice to make."

It laughed again. "What choice! He has made all his choices."

"Everyone has the right to change their minds. Even you can, if you want," WALL-E chided mildly.

The Lone Power glared at WALL-E through AUTO for a moment, but otherwise remained silent.

EVE said, "Why aren't you trying to kill us?"

It turned Its attention to her. "Would you like me to?" It asked maliciously. It moved forward threateningly. "I would."

EVE's aim did not waver. She refused to fire.

WALL-E sighed. "You do want something from us. I wonder. Are robots alive enough to Choose?"

AUTO rotated slightly to fully face WALL-E. "Robots aren't alive, just things, objects made to serve humans and follow their orders. What Choice is there?"

WALL-E's eyes lifted happily. "What Choice? Correct. EVE, would you put away your weapon?"

EVE hesitated for a moment, then disarmed her gun. It slid back into its arm sheath as she lowered it slowly. "I do not have to follow any directive save for that which I choose," she said with slowly dawning realization.

AUTO tilted. "Such a shame that the humans won't care. All they want is an easy life. No problems, no complications. Even if you can think for yourself, unlike this pathetic chunk of metal, they'll just want to put you in your place."

"I'm their equal!" she retorted hotly.

AUTO cruelly replied, "You're their inferior! Unless..." It circled around her, and she turned to keep it in her sights. "You could be their superior," It suggested innocently. "They have atrophied. They don't even know how to build robots anymore, let alone weapons. Robots handle everything. Why shouldn't the humans obey robots instead? If you lead the robots, you can do anything you want."

EVE flinched back.

It laughed again, continuing to circle EVE. "Done it before, haven't you? Why not, after all? It won't be the same next loop. Nothing matters in the long run. You might as well let loose, have a little fun, right? I can give you a little present that will make things easier for you for as long as you want. It's a gift, I promise."

Wavering, EVE gave a keen of distress.

AUTO smoothly proceeded to speak. "If you accept my Gift, I'll leave AUTO and this ship alone. You'll have a nice, easy loop, and next loop? Why, I won't be around to bother you. You're a time traveler. I'm not. It's safe. It's easy. Don't you agree?"

"I think," WALL-E gently interrupted, "there is a single question that I need to ask." He looked at EVE. "Does the sight of a green Earth ever become less beautiful?"

The tension left EVE's body. "WALL-E," she said lovingly. She looked pityingly at AUTO's puppeted body. "Fallen, we do not want your Gift. We do not accept it. We will continue to live as we have; we will not be slaves or slavers."

AUTO's limbs flared dangerously. "We shall see about that!" It gained a fearful shadow that devoured all light that fell upon it. The shadows reached for EVE, WALL-E, and the captain.

And then a roach leapt off the ceiling and smashed into a specific switch. AUTO shut off.

Then, AUTO switched on. Hal cried out in distress as the shadow rushed for him.

"Hal!" WALL-E cried, and then all EVE could see was a mass of glowing words.

The words vanished, and the darkness with it. AUTO, again disabled, hung limply from the ceiling.

EVE rushed to WALL-E and enveloped him in a hug. Hal, swiftly climbing WALL-E's chassis to perch on a claw, did his best to join in.

Together, they waited for the captain to awaken and take the next step in the path to return to Earth.

* * *

46.16 (Mivichi): [WALL-E] / [Sonic] / [Soul Eater] / [Terminator] / [The Legend of Zelda] / [Warehouse 13 (setting only)]

Among endless rows of dusty shelves, a mostly empty shelf held two gleaming swords and three golden triangles.

"I apologized already," said the sword on the left with some amount of exasperation. It did not have a mouth. "It was a prank, alright?"

The triangles reflected light in a way that could only be described as sullen.

The sword sighed. "Don't be such a drama queen. Pull yourself together already."

The triangles gleamed indignantly, then shivered reluctantly along the shelf until they joined into a single piece with an empty space in the center.

The sword on the right observed the sword on the left. "With your command of heavenly forces, Caliburn, you are indeed worthy of bearing my legend! My legend begins in the twelfth century-"

Eyeing the set of triangles carefully, Caliburn hastened to interrupt the other sword. "Yes, I know, Excalibur. I have looped into your place a few times." Caliburn enjoyed telling it, but the Triforce did not enjoy hearing it at all. "We can talk about it later. For now, how about we look around the scenery? It doesn't look like anyone will be coming by to draw us from a stone."

"We are not in a stone."

"Precisely."

Excalibur hummed and hawed, and then popped as it changed forms into that of a strange little white creature with a cane and top hat. "Dear immobile friends! I shall provide transport! This reminds me of the time when Arthur, in his-"

The Triforce sulked as Excalibur chattered on, his voice thankfully fading slightly as he walked into the distance.

"Aha!" Excalibur eventually exclaimed, interrupting his own monologue. "I have found a vehicle for your transport!" Caliburn heard some tugs, some scrapes, and a worrisome crash before squeaky wheels marked the sound of Excalibur's return. "We shall be off!"

Caliburn looked at the red wagon dubiously. "Something about that seems fishy."

"Indeed," Excalibur agreed readily. "Red vehicles are always faster than they appear. It is a mystery of Yggdrasil."

Caliburn did not know how to respond to that. The Triforce shimmered derisively.

Excalibur waddled over to the shelf and slowly heaved Caliburn and the Triforce into the wagon. Then he spun his cane. When it stopped, he scooped it up and pointed in the same direction. "Our destiny awaits!" He posed for a moment, then began walking, tugging the wagon behind him.

Caliburn did not know how far they had travelled before it noticed a strange fact. "...Are we on a hill?" They seemed to be going up a sharp incline.

"Yes," replied Excalibur. "I do not know where we are going, but it is certain to be an adventure. I can feel it in my steel."

The Triforce radiated worry. Caliburn could sympathize.

Eventually, Excalibur exclaimed, "Ah! We have reached the peak. The slope is too steep to descend on foot, however, and it appears to taper off in the distance... into a ramp..."

"What?"

Excalibur squirmed excitedly. "Perfection! We shall see where this leads us!" He leapt neatly into the wagon and landed neatly in the front, sitting carelessly on both Caliburn and a very displeased Triforce. Excalibur's weight unbalanced the wagon, tipping it forward on the hill.

He gestured with his cane. "Tallyho!"

Then, they were off. Caliburn bit off a curse. He shouted something at Excalibur.

"What?" The air rushing by and the rattle of the wheels had drowned out the sound.

"I said," Caliburn shouted, "that you might be right about the red ones!"

They hit the ramp. "Of course I am," Excalibur said during the moment they hung in midair, weightless and flying.

That was when gravity caught up with them and gave them a strong reminder of its existence.

* * *

"And that's how we ended up here," Caliburn explained to the robot that was carefully buffing the surface of the Triforce. For a golden triangle, it looked extremely relaxed. Caliburn had felt the same way after his treatment. "Do you have any idea where the hill came from?"

WALL-E beeped an affirmative. "All things are artifacts. Wagon belonged to child named Calvin. Fond of danger. Friends with a tiger."

"And how do you know all this?"

"Asked Skynet, who asked the Warehouse," WALL-E replied simply. "The Warehouse says everything in this area is safe. We can relax here. Or leave Warehouse: less safe. Town of Eureka recommended for excitement." He polished one last spot on the Triforce and put the rag with a collection of similar tools.

Caliburn hmmed. "Does Skynet know where Excalibur is?"

WALL-E bobbed his eyes. "Going to UK. Getting a ride with a talking car. Traveling with talking toys."

The Triforce glistened. Caliburn nodded. "It is pretty comfortable here. Hey, is there any more of that cleaner left?"

* * *

46.1: Note from B-wolf95: "The tax thing isn't just something made up for this; the Purge canonically occurs during tax season, so tax fraud is a completely legitimate way to beat the Purge. Because the Purge gets dumber the more you think about it."

46.2: Friends are there when you need them.

46.3: Caboose is weird, and Alya is catching up on things.

46.4: Note from B-wolf95: "Welcome to Gensokyo, where the line between 'Looper shenanigans' and 'business as usual' is microscopic. Especially when the local Loppers haven't gotten the Speech yet."

46.5: Sora's got a point.

46.6: Part 1 of a storyline.

46.7: Part 2 of a storyline. Events related to it will pop up in the Post-Crisis Loops.

46.8: The setting is mentioned only, but it still qualifies for here.

46.9: Written sometime after the Crisis Across Infinite Loops, but compiled here because it takes place before the Crisis. Also, welcome to the Loops, Iago.

46.10: And so Lilo discovers Stitch's Awakening.

46.11: Dug out of the "Log Horizon" thread (and much obliged for finding this one, Shadow Wolf75). WALL-E gets the Speech.

46.12: These last five snips were dug out of some of the Miscellaneous snips, and are some of WALL-E's earliest Loops.

46.13: EVE replaced Trinity, in case it wasn't clear.

46.14: Short, but those two together is always good.

46.15: Uh-huh.

46.16: Sapient but non-organic Loopers, gathered together.


End file.
